TreeAlive

Site of French Fort Ste. Anne -- Vermont's oldest settlement

Grand Isle County · West Shore Road, north of St. Anne's Road, Isle La Motte

On this site in 1666 the French built Fort St. Anne and Jesuit missionaries celebrated the 1st Mass in Vermont. The 1st episcopal visit was in 1668 by Bishop Francois Laval of Quebec. In 1892 Burlington’s 1st Bishop, Louis de Goesbriand, a native of France with a devotion to St. Anne, appointed Fr. Joseph Kerlidou to erect a chapel and install a statue of St. Anne. The 1st organized pilgrimage to the new Shrine was on July 26, 1893, the Feast of St. Anne. Since then pilgrims from the US and Canada have visited the Shrine for spiritual renewal and practice of the faith. In 1904 the ministry of St. Anne’s Shrine was entrusted to the Society of St. Edmund, a religious community founded in France in 1843.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Marker data: Vermont Division for Historic Preservation

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