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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

CONSTRUCTION CHRONOLOGY FOR THE ROYAL BATTERY:
ACTUAL AND PROPOSED
1714 - PRESENT

BY

ERIC KRAUSE

SEPTEMBER, 1982

Report H B 16

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1750 - 1774

           ABBREVIATIONS:

Date P A PA Description of Activity Comment Reference
1750   A   1750  - Barracks (Note: this work completed by 15 August

A. Magasin basement

1. Filled in with earth, gravel and sand up to ground floor level - 25 cubic toises 2 pieds 5 pouces of material used

B. Officers Rooms

1. Enduits and repairs

C. Bakery

1. Enduit repairs to the flooring and the mouth of the oven
2. Partition repaired
3. 2 pouces thick planks used for hanging shelving that have a 1 pouce board edging all planed, tongued and grooved
4. Pintles and strap hinges placed for the bakery door
5. Lock for the door
6. Repair of the door to the stairway

D. Barracks: general repairs using wood from various demolitions

1. Doors
2. Window frames and sashes
3. Shutters

E. Barracks dormers

1. Closed off with Boston boards

F. Commanders Rooms

1. 6 pieds high x 3 pieds wide plank door replacement
2. Oak door casing
3. 8 pieds high x 4 pieds wide panelled armoire placed in the room with hardware
4. Probably a dresser as well
5. 2 strap hinges with pintles, a lock and six nails for the lock of a door

G. Glass work

1. 212 glass panes cleaned and glazed with mastic
2. 542 glass panes cleaned

H. Officers Latrine

1. Lock with 2 keys installed

I. Guard House

1. Hinge replacement for the door
2. Lock replacement

J. Soldiers Rooms

1. Three (3) locks for three corridor doors

K. Flank Door

1. A lock for the door

1 L. Advanced Barrier Gate

1. Repairs to the four strap hinges
2. Two pintles supplied
3. Nails

M. Interior Barrier Gate

1. Lock and key supplied
2. Strap hinge repaired

  31 December 1750, C11B, Vol. 29, folio 296-297.
             
1751   A   - Height of Seawall

1. Various 12 to 15 pieds depending on the sea and what it leaves behind

- Chemin Couvert

1. Height of land A 248 toises from the battery was 102 pieds 4 pouces higher than the covered

- Landward side

1. Two faces
2. A dry moat
3. A covered way
4. Two place d'armes on the flanks, one closed off partly by a revetted parapet and the other by a crenelated wall

- Barracks Roof 8 July, 1766,

1. In place

  14 December 1751, C11B, Vol. 31, folio 159v., 169-171; 20November 1751, C11A, Vol. 126, pièce 88; 20 November 1751, C11B, Vol. 31, folio 194; 24 November 1751, C11B, Vol. 31, folios 67, 138v; 1751-25; 8 July, 1766, Halifax Crown Grant Book, Book 6, p. 593; 1751, 32
  P     - Establishment of a redoubt on Height A with a communication between it and the
Royal Battery

- Establishment of a redoubt on a smaller hillbetween Height A and the Royal Battery

- Chemin Couvert

1. Together with the two faces of the rentrant place d'armes, the branches require 900 8 1/2 pieds long palissades
2. Proposed covered way for the left flank requires 306- 8 1/2 pieds long palissades

- Rentrant Place D'armes

1. Together with the branches of the chemin couvert, the two faces require nine hundred 8 1/2 pieds long palissades

  ditto
    A   - Distances

1. 1600 toises from the town by land
2. 750 toises from the town by sea
3. 248 toises from height of land A

- Right Flank

1. Covered way around the right flank not completed as of this date. Required

1. 769 cubic toises of earth
2. 25 cubic toises of rubblestone
3. 14 square toises of sod

  ditto
  P     - Repairs still required (some discussed first in 1749)

1. Earth
2. Rubblestone work
3. Brick work
4. Crepissage a pierre apparente
5. Cut stone work
6. Joist-work
7. 3 pouces thick merisier planks
8. Slate roofing work
9. Shingle roofing work
10. Sod work
11. Joinery work
12. Hardware work
13. Glass work

- Demolition of the Royal Battery with its re-establishment on Pointe a Rosse on Height A

 

  ditto
    A   - Number of Embrasures

1. Right face: 10
2. Left face: 10
3. Eperon: 2 per flank (4 in total)
4. Right [sic] flank: 6
5. Left [sic] flank: 2

- Existing platform of the faces and Eperon in poor condition

1. Totally cover the terreplain so that there was no banquette from one embrasure to another
2. Platforms of the flanks are trapezium

- Right flank should read Left flank and vice-versa ditto
  P     - Replacement platforms

A. Two faces

1. 137 sleepers, 18 pieds long, 9 x 8 pouces
2. 67 toises 4 pieds long x 18 pieds wide o f 3 pouces thick planks
3. Nails where 5 weigh 2 livres
"poids de Mare"

B . Epèron

1. 22 sleepers of assorted lengths (49 toises 3 pieds total length), 9 x 8 pouce thick
2. 4 toises 4 pieds 6 pouces 1ong x 21 pieds wide of 3 pouces thick planks
3. Nails where 5 weigh 2 livres "poids de Mare"

C. Two Flanks

1. 8 trapezium platforms as previously requiring 147 solives 0 pied 8 pouces for sleeper
2. 60 square toises of 3 pouces thick planks
3. Nails where 5 weigh 2 livres "poids de Mare"

  ditto
    A   - Sieur Gratian D'Arrigrand Grant of Land

1. "in the harbour of Louisbourg ... Beginning three hundred feet from High Water mark, at the Head of a Cove which lies about half a mile to the Eastward of the Grand Battery; and from thence to run West ten chains; thence North West one hundred and fifty eight chains; thence North eight hundred and eighty chains; thence South West one hundred and fifty eight chains; thence West ten chains till it meets the first mentioned boundary ..."

  ditto
      PA 2 entrance drawbridges over the double ditch   ditto
             
1752   A   - Decision not to destroy the Royal Battery

- Decision not to build the redoubts in the heights of land
  15 March 1752, B, Vol. 95, folio 270-270v.
             
1753   A   - Plans in Boucher's Cabinet:

1. "Plan et Elevation de la batterie Royale"
2. "Plan et Elevation d'une Guerrette de la batterie Royale"
3. "Plan et Coupe d'une Guerrette Executée a la batterie Royale"

- A listing of plans in Boucher's Cabinet. The list does not date them, but they wouold be 1753 or earlier 27 August 1753, C11A, Vol. 126, pièce 62.
             
1755   A   - Gun platforms rebuilt from one end to the other

1. now easy to move cannons to the flanks if required

- Francis Piggot (English Ship Pilot) in Louisbourg for 6 weeks

1. "the Grand Battery is repaired"
2. No alterations made to the Grand Battery on the land side between 1745 and 1755

  25 August 1755, C11B, Vol. 35, folios 84-84v; 23 July 1757, War Office 71, Vol. 130, p. 48-49.
             
1757   A   - Wooden platform

- Masonry merlons revetted in wood

  1757, B4, Vol. 76, folio 24.
             
1758   A   - Platforms intact prior to the siege French Demolition of the Royal Battery

- 3 June: demolition process begins

- 8 June: formal request made to demolish the Royal Battery

1. Orders given to make the platforms inoperative
2. Orders given to burn the "maison"
3. By, evening only the towers of the battery remained
4. Use powder, sulphur and tar in the demolition
5. French have dismantled it
6. French completely overturned the Right face parapet or breast wall
7. Barrack's roof burned
8. Barrack's floors burned
9. Flanking towers' coverings burned
10. Masonry of barracks not greatly damaged however

  3 June 1758, B4, Vol. 80, folio 116v; 8 June 1758, B4, Vol. 80, folio 125v; Report A-M1, Supplement 1758; 28 August 1758, C.O. 5, Vol. 53, folio 191v; 5 November 1760, Procter Diary, p. 53.
  P     - Repair the barracks as an infirmary and hospital for the navy

- Mount a small guard as a cover for the Men of Wars using the watering place and to discourage the Indians from approaching the sides and head of the harbour

  ditto
             
1759   A   - mill behind the Grand Battery

- "Ruins of the late grand Battery"

 - A plan of the Grand Battery as it was rebuilt by the English in the year 1759 at Louisbourg  

- grand Battreay [sic]

  Anonymous, General orders in Wolfe's Army During the Expedition Up the River St. Lawrence, 1759, p. 8.; 24 May 1759, See Knox Journal in Brian Connell The Siege of Québec, p. 114-115;
             
1760   A   - English Demolition of the Royal Battery

1. The works of the Grand Battery are almost down
2. Towers still to be destroyed with a few explosives
3. Navy hospital [i.e. barracks] preserved
4. November 3: "one of ye Towrs at Ye grand Battrey Was Blowen"
5, November 5: "also ye other tower at ye Artillery grand battrey was sprung." 
6. November 5: the demolition of the Royal Battery completed

  Gibson Clough Journal, Plans N.D. 237, 221; 26 October 1760, War Office 14, folios 10-11; Journal of Gibson Clough, p. 38, Library of the Artillery Institution, Journal of Demolition, p. 189.
              
1766   A   Gratien D'Arrigrand Grant

1. Commander in Chief in Nova Scotia renewed the original 1751 D'Arrigrand grant of land
 

  8 July 1766 Halifax, Crown Grant Book, Book 6, p. 393.
             
1768   A   - List of improvements near the Grand Battery

1. Lawrence Kavanagh

- fishing flakes
- stage
- 2 small houses
- fenced in about 5 acres of land

2. Thomas & Richard Wheel

- fenced about 5 acres near the Grand Battery

3. Thomas Mortho

- fenced in about 5 acres a little beyond the Barachois on the north side of the road towards the Grand Battery.

4. William Brimigion

- fenced in about 3 acres on the south side of the road leading to the Grand Battery

5. Matthew Rowe

- fenced in about 3 acres adjoining to William Brimigion

6. Gregory Townsend

- fenced in with a good stone wall about 2 acres near the Grand Battery

7. Elias Gerrot

- fenced in 10 acres of land in the cove a little beyond the Grand Battery
- fish flakes
- stage
- small house

- Lots

- Thomas-& Richard Wheeler, Thomas Mortho, John Moss, William Brimingion, Matthew Rowe, Gregory Townsend and William Russell owned 3-5 acre lots which they had fenced in, were in the NorthEast Harbour, near the Grand Battery or on the road leading to the Battery.

  26 Sept. 1768, Privy Council 1, Vol. 54/63B; Foster, W,. Post Occupation History of the old French Town of Louisbourg, 1760-1930, p. 29.
             
1771   A   - Grant of land Halifax Crown

- to George Cottnam

-  ... also a tract of land beginning at the North eastern part of the Grand Battery thence to run north forty-five degrees west, one hundred and ten chains thence south, forty-five degrees East, seventy chains to the Barrisoi [sic] at the head of the Harbour of Louisbourg. These to be bounded by the ... several courses of the said Harbour to the bounds first mentioned, containing ... about six hundres acres more or less.

  Halifax Crown Lands Office, Book 8, p. 229.
             
1774   A   - Lots

- is fenced in, as likewise most of the streets in the Town between the Baraswa and the Eastern most part of the Grand Battery. I have temporary Grant for altho I [George Cottnam] never made any use of it, but left it for a Common [.] to the East Ward of that [.] Mr. Russell has some Land which he bought from one Gerrot. There is adjoining that about four hundred acres of Land belonging to one Frincis Wildo (.) Part of the Estate belonging to the late Mr. Degegrand a Frenchman ...

  Foster, W,. Post Occupation History of the old French Town of Louisbourg, 1760-1930, p. 34.

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