Chimney Point

This strategic point on Lake Champlain was occupied by Native Americans for thousands of years. In 1690 Jacobus de Warm build a small stone fort here. The French build a wooden stockade in 1731, erecting Fort St. Frederic across the lake in 1734. After the 1759 French retreat to Canada, the houses were burned, leaving only the chimneys and the name Chimney Point. The British built a military road in 1759 to connect Fort No. 4 (Charlestown, NH) to their new fort at Crown Point, NY; the road ended two miles to the south. They also built earthworks at Chimney Point, as did American Revolutionary forces in 1776. The tavern, built in the 1780s, was visited in 1791 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In the early 1900s it was a summer resort.