In December 1718 Pierre Degue de Boisbriant, French commandant of the Illinois Country, left New Orleans with sixty-eight soldiers. Within two years, Boisbriant and his troops would build a wooden fort on the east bank of the Mississippi River, eighteen miles north of Kaskaskia. It was the first of three forts to bear the name "Fort de Chartres".

    By the time Fort de Chartres was constructed, there already were French settlements at Cahokia (established in 1699) and along the Kaskaskia River (established in 1703). Those two villages marked the northern and southern boundaries of the Illinois Country during the French regime. At first, the French regarded Illinois as part of Canada, but when the West Indies Company received its "letters patent" for Illinois (the right to exclusive trading priviledges), the area officially became part of Louisiana.

    The French fortified the region for several reasons. They were anxious to exploit the rich mineral deposits- lead, silver, and gold- that were rumored to lie buried in the area. Those dreams of wealth proved illusory, however, because lead was the only mineral found in any quantity. Also, the French hoped that by fortifying the Illinois Country they could protect their settlements from British and Spanish encroachment. Standing between Detroit and the Arkansas River, Fort de Chartres gave the French a military edge over their European rivals. And finally, it was hoped that troops stationed at Fort de Chartres would be able to police the Indians and French farmers who lived in the area. The climate and rich bottom land would provide a dependable food supplyfor the Illinois Country and other French colonies, but a stable work force was necessary.

    THE FIRST FORT DE CHARTRES

    Little is known about the first Fort de Chartres. Located "about a musket shot" from the river, it was described in one journal as a square, palisaded fortwith two bastions commanding all of the curtains. In garrison there were two companies of infantry.

    Inside the walls stood several buildings, but no complete record of what those buildings were or how they appeared is known to exist.There is a 1723 reference to a storehouse belonging to the Indies Company. A "garde magazine" (keeper of the storehouse) operated the building. Supplies for the troops, European goods for settlers and the Indians, and freight on its way up or down the Mississippi River passed through the storehouse.

   There also appears to have been a counting hose inside the fort's walls. In 1723 Pierre Bienvenu, a master joiner, contracted to erect a building that would serve as a place of businessand a countinghouse for the Indies Company. Building specifications called for a two story structure with tongue and groove flooring. Four offices were to open off a central corridor, whose walls were to be whitewashed. The building was to have two folding street doors and eight double casement windows with glass panes and shutters.

    Another building inside the fort was the commandants house. The Provincial Council- the Commandant, chief clerk, storekeeper, and secretary- met in the fort and probably used rooms in the commandant's house. In general, it was the responsibility of the Provincial Council to look after the business of the king and Indies Company. To do that, the council conducted trials, made land grants, and wrote and enforced regulations.

   THE SECOND FORT DE CHARTRES

    In 1725 the original fort built by Boisbriant had deteriorated, and construction of the second fort began. In March of that year, a corporal and seven soldiers from the garrison contracted with the Indies Company to dig a three-foot foundation trench, set the stakes of the fort, make loopholes at five-foot intervals, and remove tree stumps in the path of the foundation trench. A land transaction describing a house and garden opposite the old fort suggests that the second fort was completed and the garrison relocated by February 1726.

   The most comprehensive description of the second fort comes from an inventory taken in 1732 when the Indies Company, which found the venture at Fort de Chartres unprofitable, turned its Louisiana holdings back to the crown. According to the inventory, the fort was roughly 160 feet square with four bastions constructed of stakes. Four buildings stood in the central portion of the fort- a house for the commandant and storekeeper, a barracks, a guardhouse, and a house of unspecified use. The inventory noted that the fort was falling into ruin.

   The commandant's house, which measured fifty-five by thirty feet, was constructed of walnut, and its half-timbered framework was filled with bousillage (lime mortar mixed with straw or animal hair). The building contained a storehouse and apartments for the commandant and storekeeper. Each apartment had a central room, two chambers, and a kitchen. According to the 1732 inventory, the two apartments were furnished with two large pegged walnut armoires that had double doors, two pegged walnut sideboards, a walnut kitchen sideboard, a large kneading trough, one pegged walnut table with a drawer, four folding tables, fourteen straw-bottomed chairs of walnut, a desk, and a chest with a lock. Items in the storeroom included various utensils, arms, ammunition, merchandise, and tools.

   A thirty foot barracks housed the garrison and a forge. It was constructed on a sill of half-timbered walnut that was filled with bousillage. The inventory noted that the building was old and the sills rotten.

    The guardhouse was built of upright logs stuck in the ground, and like the barracks, it was roofed with oak shingles. Furnishings for the building included a camp bed, a rack for hanging weapons, an iron lamp, a tin lamp, a pot for oil, a crude wooden pail, and an iron shovel. Manacles for prisoners were also stored there.

   The inventory does not explain the function of a fourth building. It mentions only that the thirty-by-twenty-foot building was of upright log construction and roofed with oak shingles.

    In each of the fort's four bastions, there were other structures. One bastion contained a powder magazine built of horizontal log construction. It had a double planked floor and ceilinga shingled roof, and a double door. The 1732 inventory noted that the building was in good condition and contained 1,846 livres of powder (nealy 2000 pounds). A prison, also of horizontal log construction, stood in another bastion. Above the prison was a pigeon house, and one prisoner apparently got away by prying loose a plank in the prison's ceiling to escape through the pigeon house. In the third bastion was a pavilion mounted on four pillars and roofed with shingles. Its ground floor served as a hen house. And in the fourth bastion was a small stable.

    Outside the fort stood a small, straw-roofed chapel of post in the ground construction. The contents of the thirty-by-twenty-foot building included an altar, a tabernacle, an altar step, a small armoire for vestments, and a bell. No chairs or pews were listed in the inventory because those would have been owned by individual parishioners and did not belong to the Indies Company.

    In 1739 a private residence outside the walls was converted into a hospital for the fort. Built of pickets, the structure was plastered and had a straw roof. A surgeon at the hospital contracted with the fort to provide patients with a well-rounded diet that was to include eggs, milk, and fresh meat.

    When a new commandant came to Fort de Chartres in 1742, he found it in bad repair, and five years later he moved his troops to nearby Kaskaskia. However, the French never completely abandonded the second Fort de Chartres. Two companies of soldiers wereresiding there in 1752, and as late as 1755 a visiting French officer stayed at the fort.

   THE THIRD FORT DE CHARTRES  

    In the early 1750's, the governor od Louisiana decided that he wanted a new fort. Although he favored building it at Kaskaskia, the newly appointed commandant of the Illinois Country preferred a location near the two earlier forts, and after considerable maneuvering on the commandant's part, the governor agreed to a location a short distance from the second Fort de Chartres.

   The third Fort de Chartres was built not of wood, but of stone. Governor Vaudreuil of Louisiana directed Fracois Saucier, the engineer chosen to plan and supervise construction of the new fort, to prepare estimates in both wood and masonry. By 1752, however, a decision had been made to build the fort in stone. Saucier's plans were revised at least once, but neither the original plans nor the revisions have ever been found.

   Little is known about the actual construction of the third Fort de Chartres. Governor Kerlerec reported to France in 1754 that all materials had been purchased and that the greater part of the work had been finished. Other evidence suggests, however, that by the fall of 1759 construction had only progressed to the lookout, turrets, doors, and platforms.

    Fort de Chartres was ceded to the British under the treaty of Paris (1763), and the fort was formally transferred in a rehearsed ceremony. On the morning of October 10, 1765, a detachment of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment advanced, to the beating of drums, toward the gate of Fort de Chartres. They were met by a French officer who, as a matter of form, challenged them with, " Who's there? What regiment? What are you marching for?" After responding to the challenge, the British advanced inside the gate and proceeded to the parade ground, where they were met by about forty French soldiers. As British soldiers relieved the French guard (who were, according to one source, all "old men looking like invalids without any sort of uniform"), the French colors were lowered.

   The British found a square stone fort plastered with lime. A stone sentry box projected outward from the angle of each of the four bastions. Stone pilasters ran along the interior of the stone wall . The wall was pierced at intervals with loopholes for muskets. Cannon embrasures in the flanks of the bastions could be secured with shutters and bolts. Tfot's two gates were on the north and south curtains. The flagstaff stood on the south gate along with two cannons used for firing on "rejoicing days".

    Six buildings stood in the fort's center- a storehouse (including lodging for the keeper of the storehouse), two barracks, the commandant's house, the government house, and the guardhouse. A powder magazine, bakehouse, and prison stood in the other three bastions. The fourth bastion contained one of two wells inside the fort. Located above drains along the north and wets walls were the fort's four latrines. And outside the fort's walls was a guest house for indians who frequently traded at the fort.

   The British made several changes in the fort. A forge was built at the end of one barracks in 1766. They also added a barn outside the fort's walls. The barn was built of timber, had a thatched roof, and was surrounded by an enclosed pasture.

    The British worked to stop river erosion that threatened the fort. In 1766 Phillip Pittman, a British engineer reported:

"The bank of the Mississippi, next the fort, is continually falling in, being worn away by the current, which has been turned from its course by a sand bank, now increased to a considerable island covered with willows: many experiments have been tried to stop thisgrowing evil, but to no purpose. When the fort was began [sic] in the year 1766, it was but eighty paces; eight years ago the river was fordable to the island, the channel is now forty feet deep."

Pittman mentioned experiments that included facing the river banks with stones and rafts, and records for 1769 indicate that ninety-seven men were involved in the erosion control project over a six month period.

   In 1770 General Gage, the British commander in America, wrote to the commanding officer at Fort de Chartres. Although the works at the river banks had succeeded in preserving the fort, wrote Gage the project had "cost more than the fort is worth, which appears to me to be little better than a mere mark of possesion." By 1772 the British had given up thier struggle with the Mississippi and abandoned Fort de Chartres, thus closing a chapter in the colonial history of Illinois.

The article is reprinted from the June 1980 issue of Historic Illinois Magazine.

Anna Price