62 W. P. GANONG ON THE 



Winthrop is more concise, but as we would expect from a New Englauder, lie gives 

 us exact figures : ' " "We understood for certain afterwards that Monsieur La Tour's fort was 

 taken by assault and scalado, that Monsieur d'Aunay lost in the attempt twelve men and had 

 many wounded, and that he had put to death all the men (both French and English) and 

 had taken the lady, who died within three weeks after." The year of the event was 1645. 



Such is the brave story. Should not Canadians ever wish to point to the spot where 

 it was enacted? But where was Fort La Tour? At the present day no man can point 

 with certainty to its site. It is in the eftbrt to help towards the settlement of this import- 

 ant question that the present argument is submitted to this society. 



There are three several localities which have been claimed as the site of the fort, and 

 to these a fourth must now be added. 



I. At the mouth of the Jemseg, 35 miles up the river from St. John. 

 IL On St. John Harbour, west side of the entrance, where Fort Dufferin now 

 stands. 

 III. On St. John Harbour, west side, at Carleton Point, opposite Navy Island, 

 where Fort Frederick afterwards stood ; now known locally as " Old 

 Fort." 

 IV On St. John Harbour, east side, and probably on the present Portland Point. 



We shall very briefly examine the evidence for and against each locality. 



I. — The Jemseg Site. 



At least two writers whose views are entitled to consideration have placed Fort La 

 Tour at Jemseg, where, as is well known, the French had a fort about 1670. The late 

 Moses H. Perley, in a lecture delivered in St. John in 1841, of which the MS. is now in 

 possession of his son, Mr. Henry F. Perley, of Ottawa, gives this locality, but no substan- 

 tial reasons therefor. Apparently Mr. Perley had not access to either Denys' or Winthrop's 

 works. M. E. Rameau de Saint- Père, in both editions of his " Une Colonie Féodale," - 

 likewise gives us this view and with no reasons, merely the bare statement that it was at 

 Jemseg. It will take but few words to dismiss this supposition. The evidence for it we 

 do not know ; against it are the facts. 



(1.) All known maps, marking the fort, place it at the mouth of the river. 



(2.) Denys' full description, cjuoted below, places it at the mouth. 



(3.) The mortgage of the fort, signed by La Tour himself, and given to Major Gribbone, 

 of Boston, in security for large loans made to La Tour, is preserved in the Suffolk County 

 Records in Boston and reads as follows : ^ " his fort called fort La Toure and plantaCon 

 w"'in y° northerne part of america wherein y'' s"* mouns'' together with his family hath 

 of late made his Residence, scittuate & being at or neere the mouth of a certajne River 

 called by y** name of [St.] Johns River." 



' History of New England, II, p. 238. 

 2 Paris, 1877, and Paris and Montreal, 1889. 



■' Suffolk County Deeds, Vol. I, fol. 0, 10; Hazard, State Papers, Vol. I, p. 541. Jack, History of St. John, 

 p. 156. 



