Blockhouse once stood at the gateway to the “vast unguarded frontier, unsafe for occupancy” that is now Vermont
SPRINGFIELD—A trio of local history experts, working with historical records, personal exploration and, eventually, with archaeology staff and students from Dartmouth College, believe that they may have solved a regional history mystery.
That mystery? The exact location of a blockhouse built in 1760 in the first few miles of New Hampshire’s historic Crown Point Road, near where it crossed the Connecticut River by ferry into Vermont.
Local historian Lonnie Lisai, of Westminster, along with fellow historians Annette Spaulding, of Rockingham, and Nicholas Levlocke, of Springfield, have pooled their research and skills over the last two years to try to pinpoint the Beaver Brook site using underwater sonar with the help of Dartmouth archaeologists.
They feel they have discovered, photographed, and investigated the remaining stone foundation of the original blockhouse that guarded the very first section of Crown Point Road.
A blockhouse is essentially a tall (2½-story) structure, up to 32 feet square, built of stone and thick timbers. It is a house that doubles as a small, enclosed fort.
Blockhouses were so sturdy and thick they were impenetrable by the typical weapons and firearms of the period. They were built with small openings in all four walls for cannon fire, and numerous slots were built into the stone and timber walls and even the upper floors to allow for musket fire in all directions against enemy attackers.
In the Colonial era, and through the Revolutionary War, dozens of these blockhouses were built along what was then the Colonial frontier — Southern Vermont and New Hampshire.
It is well known that the military road, built in 1759 and 1760 during the French and Indian War, was constructed starting at Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain, continuing for about 77 miles across Vermont.
The road ended at the Fort at No. 4 in New Hampshire, the fort built in 1744 in the recently surveyed township referred to as “No. 4” and ultimately chartered as Charlestown, New Hampshire in 1753. A replica of the fort was built a short distance from the original site in 1960 and serves as an open-air living museum today.