Fort Lawrence is a Canadian rural community located on the Isthmus of Chignecto in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, which is named after Fort Lawrence.
Situated 1 km east of the Missaguash River which forms the inter-provincial boundary with New Brunswick, Fort Lawrence is situated on a low ridge facing Aulac to the west and Amherst to the east. Aside from the more prominent Aulac Ridge, the Fort Lawrence Ridge is surrounded by the flat plain of the Tantramar Marshes with a commanding view of the Cumberland Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy.colonel benjamin chapman built a large wood frame home for his family while he was in command of the Fort Lawrence and Chapman house remained with descendants until late 1970s when ancestral home was sold.
Referred by the Mi'kmaq as 'Kwesomalegek,' meaning "a hardwood point", the area of the Tantramar Marshes containing Fort Lawrence was settled in 1672 by Acadians who named it 'Beaubassin.' The area was also known as Missiquash or Missaguash, a Mi'kmaq name meaning "marsh river."
Following the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht which gave Britain control of Acadia, the boundaries between this territory and that of New France were unclear but a quasi boundary at Beaubassin was established. During Father Le Loutre's War Major Charles Lawrence constructed a log stockade installation that he named Fort Lawrence on the ridge in 1750 as part of a campaign by the British Army to reduce to obedience the Acadian settlers and Mi'kmaq in the district. In response, the French military constructed the more elaborate Fort Beauséjour on the Aulac Ridge, 1.5 km to the west.
The Battle of Beausejour later took place between June 4-June 16, 1755 which saw the British forces from Fort Lawrence gain control of Fort Beauséjour as the opening salvo in the Seven Years' War that would result in continental dominance for Britain.
Fort Lawrence soon fell into disrepair and nothing remained of the facility after several decades. The community and ridge it sits upon now bears the name he gave the fort.
In 1872 the Intercolonial Railway of Canada was constructed south of the community, on the route between Truro and Moncton. The Chignecto Marine Transport Railway Company, Limited began construction of the Chignecto Ship Railway in the 1880s across the Isthmus of Chignecto with its western terminus in the Cumberland Basin immediately west of Fort Lawrence; the project ran into technical and financial problems and was abandoned in 1891 before it was fully opened. [1]
The original road through Fort Lawrence was called LaPlanche Street. In the 1960s, Highway 104, the Trans-Canada Highway, was constructed across the ridge immediately north of the site of the fort. It connected with Highway 2 in New Brunswick at the bridge over the Missaguash River. The Nova Scotia provincial government constructed a visitor information centre with a traffic circle which was famous in the summer months when a bag piper would serenade tourists. Subsequent highway upgrades saw a new 4-lane alignment built several dozen metres to the north.
Today's community of Fort Lawrence consists of a handful of small mixed farms and residential homes, largely functioning as a suburb of Amherst. The original alignment of the 1960s-era Trans-Canada Highway has been redesignated Laplanche Street and is a local road connecting to the west end of Amherst. Several closed hotels and restaurants were once located along this once-busy strip but have since been demolished. A few businesses remain open mainly dedicated to agriculture & forestry equipment, metalworking, and automotive / motorcycle shops.
Cumberland County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
Sackville is a community in southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. It held town status prior to 2023.
The Tantramar Marshes, also known as the Tintamarre National Wildlife Area, is a tidal saltmarsh around the Bay of Fundy on the Isthmus of Chignecto. The area borders between Route 940, Route 16 and Route 2 near Sackville, New Brunswick. The government of Canada proposed the boundaries of the Tantramar Marshes in 1966 and was declared a National Wildlife Area in 1978.
The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.
Beaubassin was an important Acadian village and trading centre on the Isthmus of Chignecto in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. The area was a significant place in the geopolitical struggle between the British and French empires. It was established in the 1670s on an upland close to an extensive area of saltwater marsh. Settlers reclaimed the land to engage in cattle ranching and trade.
Fort Beauséjour, renamed Fort Cumberland in 1755, is a large, five-bastioned fort on the Isthmus of Chignecto in eastern Canada, a neck of land connecting the present-day province of New Brunswick with that of Nova Scotia. The site was strategically important in Acadia, a French colony that included primarily the Maritimes, the eastern part of Quebec, and northern Maine of the later United States. The fort was built by the French from 1751 to 1752. They surrendered it to the British in 1755 after their defeat in the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, during the Seven Years' War. The British renamed the structure as Fort Cumberland. The fort was strategically important throughout the Anglo-French rivalry of 1749–63, known as the French and Indian Wars by British colonists. Less than a generation later, it was the site of the 1776 Battle of Fort Cumberland, when the British forces repulsed sympathisers of the American Revolution.
Fort Lawrence was a British fort built during Father Le Loutre's War and located on the Isthmus of Chignecto.
The Battle of Fort Beauséjour was fought on the Isthmus of Chignecto and marked the end of Father Le Loutre's War and the opening of a British offensive in the Acadia/Nova Scotia theatre of the Seven Years' War, which would eventually lead to the end of the French colonial empire in North America. The battle also reshaped the settlement patterns of the Atlantic region, and laid the groundwork for the modern province of New Brunswick.
Lieutenant-General Robert Monckton was an officer of the British Army and colonial administrator in British North America. He had a distinguished military and political career, being second in command to General James Wolfe at the battle of Quebec and later being named the Governor of the Province of New York. Monckton is also remembered for his role in a number of other important events in the French and Indian War, most notably the capture of Fort Beauséjour in Acadia, and the island of Martinique in the West Indies, as well as for his role in the deportation of the Acadians from British controlled Nova Scotia and also from French-controlled Acadia. The city of Moncton, New Brunswick, and Fort Monckton in Port Elgin, New Brunswick, are named for him. A second more important Fort Monckton in Portsmouth, England, is also named for him. It remains an active military establishment, and currently houses the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) training section. Monckton sat in the British House of Commons between 1774 and 1782. Although never legally married, he raised and was survived by three sons and a daughter.
Aulac is a Canadian community in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. It is located between the college town of Sackville and the provincial border with Nova Scotia.
The Missaguash River is a small Canadian river that forms the southern portion of the inter-provincial boundary between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the Isthmus of Chignecto. It had historic significance in the 18th century as the de facto border between French and English-controlled territories.
Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre was a Catholic priest and missionary for the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Le Loutre became the leader of the French forces and the Acadian and Mi'kmaq militias during King George's War and Father Le Loutre's War in the eighteenth-century struggle for power between the French, Acadians, and Miꞌkmaq against the British over Acadia.
Mount Whatley is a community in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, located in Westmorland County on New Brunswick Highway 16. Mount Whatley is situated upon the Aulac Ridge, a prominent rise running west–east across the Tantramar Marshes on the Isthmus of Chignecto,on the shore of the Missaguash River which forms the southern part of the inter-provincial boundary with Nova Scotia.The community is linked by a small bridge to Fort Lawrence Nova Scotia.
LaPlanche Street is the historic connector between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada. Located on the Isthmus of Chignecto, LaPlanche crosses the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, NS and Sackville, NB. Historically, it hosted the key forts of peninsular Nova Scotia and continental Acadia and witnessed the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, the key battle between the two colonies during the Seven Years' War, and the Battle of Fort Cumberland of the American Revolutionary War.
Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755), also known as the Indian War, the Mi'kmaq War and the Anglo-Mi'kmaq War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia. On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British officer Charles Lawrence and New England Ranger John Gorham. On the other side, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadia militia in guerrilla warfare against settlers and British forces. At the outbreak of the war there were an estimated 2500 Mi'kmaq and 12,000 Acadians in the region.
The Acadian Exodus happened during Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755) and involved almost half of the total Acadian population of Nova Scotia deciding to relocate to French controlled territories. The three primary destinations were: the west side of the Mesagoueche River in the Chignecto region, Isle Saint-Jean and Île-Royale. The leader of the Exodus was Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, whom the British gave the code name "Moses". Le Loutre acted in conjunction with Governor of New France Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière who encouraged the Acadian migration. A prominent Acadian who transported Acadians to Ile St. Jean and Ile Royal was Joseph-Nicolas Gautier. The overall upheaval of the early 1750s in Nova Scotia was unprecedented. Present-day Atlantic Canada witnessed more population movements, more fortification construction, and more troop allocations than ever before in the region. The greatest immigration of the Acadians between 1749 and 1755 took place in 1750. Primarily due to natural disasters and British raids, the Exodus proved to be unsustainable when Acadians tried to develop communities in the French territories.
Fort Menagoueche was a French fort at the mouth of the St. John River, New Brunswick, Canada. French Officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot and Ignace-Philippe Aubert de Gaspé built the fort during Father Le Loutre's War and eventually burned it themselves as the French retreated after losing the Battle of Beausejour. It was reconstructed as Fort Frederick by the British.
The Battle at Chignecto happened during Father Le Loutre's War when Charles Lawrence, in command of the 45th Regiment of Foot and the 47th Regiment, John Gorham in command of the Rangers and Captain John Rous in command of the navy, fought against the French monarchists at Chignecto. This battle was the first attempt by the British to occupy the head of the Bay of Fundy since the disastrous Battle of Grand Pré three years earlier. They fought against a militia made up of Mi'kmaq and Acadians led by Jean-Louis Le Loutre and Joseph Broussard (Beausoliel). The battle happened at Isthmus of Chignecto, Nova Scotia on 3 September 1750.
Jean Baptiste Cope was also known as Major Cope, a title he was probably given from the French military, the highest rank given to Mi’kmaq. Cope was the sakamaw (chief) of the Mi'kmaq people of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. He maintained close ties with the Acadians along the Bay of Fundy, speaking French and being Catholic. During Father Le Loutre’s War, Cope participated in both military efforts to resist the British and also efforts to create peace with the British. During the French and Indian War he was at Miramichi, New Brunswick, where he is presumed to have died during the war. Cope is perhaps best known for signing the Treaty of 1752 with the British, which was upheld in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985 and is celebrated every year along with other treaties on Treaty Day.
The Chignecto Marine Transport Railway is a historic Canadian portage railway located in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.
Coordinates: 45°50′56.86″N64°15′39.31″W / 45.8491278°N 64.2609194°W