Fort at Number 4 - French and Indian War

French and Indian War

One Indian raid against the Fort in August 1754, immediately prior to the French and Indian War, led to the capture of Susanna Willard Johnson and her family, who were eventually sold into slavery. Following Johnson's release several years later, she wrote a popular captivity narrative of her ordeal.

During the last of the French and Indian Wars, many soldiers were stationed in the Fort at Number 4 to protect the frontier. They included Colonel Nathan Whiting's Regiment of Connecticut, and Colonel John Goffe’s New Hampshire Provincial Regiment. Returning from a raid on St. Francis, Quebec, Robert Rogers in 1759 sought help here for his hungry Rangers at Fort Wentworth far up the Connecticut River. Also at that time, General Jeffrey Amherst ordered a road to be built between the fort and another fort newly-captured at Crown Point, located on the shores of Lake Champlain in New York. Consequently, Capt. John Stark and a company of Rangers, together with Col. Goffe's Regiment, built the Crown Point Military Road. It was 77.5 miles (124.7 km) long, with many blockhouses along its route to protect supplies and travelers through the wilderness that would later become Vermont. With the defeat of the French in 1761, and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the need for the fort ended.