“We burnt one village and some straggling Houses and destroyed everything that could be the least serviceable to them, so that I should think that they will in the spring be obliged to retire to Canada. The River, after passing the Falls, is as fine a River as ever I saw, and when you get up about 10 Leagues the country is level, with fine woods of Oak, Beech, Birch and Walnut, and no underwood and the land able to produce anything. We have just finished a pretty good fort here, where the old French Fort stood, which will be a footing for anything that may be thought proper to be undertaken hereafter.”
The Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor general of Canada, was not ignorant of Monckton’s operations on the River St. John, but he was in no position to make any effectual resistance. In his letter to the French minister of November 5, 1758, he states that the English were engaged in rebuilding the old Fort at Menagoueche; the Indians of the River St. John had retired with the Rev. Father Germain, their missionary to Canada, where Bigot, the intendant, had provided for their wintering, and the greater part of the Acadians had also retired to Canada.
During Colonel Monckton’s absence up the river work was continued at the fort, so that it must have been nearly finished at the time of his return. It received the name of Fort Frederick, and the remains of its ramparts may still be seen at “Old Fort” in Carleton.
In the plan of St. John harbor made by Colonel Robert Morse of the Royal Engineers in 1784, there is an outline of Fort Frederick very nearly identical as regards situation and general form with the sketch of Fort Menagoueche (or “Fort de la Riviere de St. Jean”) made in October, 1700, by the Sieur de Villieu.[43] We have further proof of an interesting nature that the situation and general plan of the new fort was identical with the old French fort in one of the letters of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, in which he tells us that about the time Fort Frederick 134 was nearing completion a French Canadian, kept there as a prisoner, made his escape, and on his return to Canada described the new fort as exactly the same size as the old but much stronger, the terraces being at least ten feet in thickness, and upon the terraces were palisades ten feet high in the form of “chevaux de frise.” The Frenchman had counted 18 cannons mounted of a calibre of 18L., and the English had told him they expected to mount in all 30 cannons of 20L. and of 18L.
On the 11th November Colonel Monckton sent Major Scott to Petitcodiac with the Light Infantry and Rangers in quest of a French privateer that had been at the St. John river and which, with one of her prizes, was said to have taken shelter there. He was directed to seize the vessels and bring them off, together with any of the Acadian inhabitants he could find, and to burn and destroy all the houses, barns, cattle, grain, etc. On his return he was to send Captain Dank’s company to Fort Cumberland.
Major Scott certainly acted with promptitude, for barely a week had expired when he returned to St. John with the privateer schooner and prize sloop, which he had found in two different creeks up the Petitcodiac river. The parties sent out by the Major destroyed upwards of 150 houses and barns, much grain and a good many cattle. They captured 30 prisoners, including women and children. The Acadian seem to have made some resistance, however, and a Lieutenant McCormack and three men of Captain McCurdy’s Company and two men of the Light Infantry were captured by them.
The troops that had served in the St. John river expedition were now distributed among the garrisons at Fort Cumberland, Windsor, Annapolis and Halifax, with the exception of McCurdy’s, Stark’s and Brewer’s companies of Rangers and a small detachment of artillery, ordered to remain at Fort Frederick under command of Major Morris. This was a more considerable garrison than could well find accommodation there during the winter, but such was not Monckton’s intention, for he writes in his journal: “The Fuel of the Garrison not being as yet lay’d in, I leave the three companies of Rangers, viz., McCurdy’s, Stark’s, and Brewer’s, and have ordered that Captain McCurdy’s company should Hutt and remain the Winter, the other two after compleating the wood to come to Halifax in the vessels I had left them.”
Monckton sailed for Halifax in the man-of-war “Squirrel” on the 21st of November, and with him went the 2nd Battalion of the Royal American Regiment of which he was the commander.
In the month of January following, a tragic event took place at or near St. Anne’s, an account of which has been left us by our early historians, Peter Fisher and Moses H. Perley, in substance as follows:
After the winter season had fairly set in, a party of the rangers at Fort Frederick, under Captain McCurdy, set out on snow-shoes to reconnoitre the country and to ascertain the state of the French settlements up the river. The first night after their departure they encamped at Kingston Creek, not far from the Belleisle, on a very steep hillside. That night Captain McCurdy lost his life by the falling of a large birch tree, which one of the rangers cut down on the hillside—the tree came thundering down the mountain and killed the Captain 135 instantly, Lieutenant Moses Hazen[44] succeeded to the command, and the party continued up the river to St. Ann’s Point (now Fredericton), where they found quite a town. They set fire to the chapel and other buildings, but a number of the French settlers gathered together, whereupon the Rangers retreated, and, being hotly pursued committed several atrocious acts upon the people who fell in their way, to prevent their giving information. By reversing their snow-shoes and making forced marches they got back safely to St. John.