Battle of September 6th, 1775 National Historic Site of Canada

Battle of September 6th, 1775 was designated as a national historic site of Canada in 1928 because:

• a party of Mohawks led by Captain Gilbert Tice, and other Aboriginal people commanded by Captain Guillaume de Lorimier, surprised Montgomery’s invading force on the south bank of this river and compelled it to re-embark for Île-aux-Noix

In 1775, during the American Revolutionary War, an American army led by Major-General Philip Schuyler, Colonel Benedict Arnold and Brigadier General Richard Montgomery launched an invasion into British-Canada, in an attempt to gain military control of the Province of Quebec. Brigadier-General Montgomery led one half of the invasion force, consisting of 1,500 soldiers, across the border and assembled on Île-aux-Noix in the Richelieu River, north of Lake Champlain. On September 6th, 1775 Montgomery and Major-General Schuyler sailed down the Richelieu River intending to attack Fort Saint-Jean. After landing on the west bank of the Richelieu, approximately 1.6 km from Fort Saint-Jean, the invasion force was fired upon by a patrol of approximately 100 Aboriginal warriors, many of them Mohawk, led by Grand Chief Solsienhooane and captains Gilbert Tice and Guillaume de Lorimier. During the battle, eight Americans were killed and nine were wounded while the patrol of Tice and Lorimier suffered four dead and five wounded, including Captain Tice. The Americans were forced to retreat to Île-aux-Noix. Though successfully turned back on the night of September 6th the American force returned and succeeded in besieging Fort Saint-Jean on September 13th for forty-five days until the fort capitulated November 3rd, 1775. The American invasion of Canada continued into the year 1776 until the arrival of British reinforcements helped to successfully drive the invasion force back across the border.