- John Montresor
Infobox Military Person
name= John Montresor
imgw =200
caption=Portrait of John Montresor, byJohn Singleton Copley
(color original inDetroit Institute of Arts )
born= birth date|1736|4|22
died= death date and age|1799|6|26|1736|4|22|df=y
placeofbirth=Gibraltar
placeofdeath=
placeofburial=
placeofburial_label=
nickname=
allegiance=Kingdom of Great Britain
branch= Corps of Engineers
serviceyears=
rank= Captain
unit=48th Regiment of Foot
commands=
battles=French and Indian War (Braddock expedition , Siege of Louisbourg, Siege of Quebec),Pontiac's Rebellion ,American Revolutionary War (Battles of Lexington and Concord ,Battle of Long Island ,Battle of Brandywine )
awards=
relations=James Gabriel Montresor (father),Susanna Haswell Rowson (cousin),Robert Haswell (cousin), Samuel Auchmuty (brother-in-law)
laterwork=Captain John Montresor (
22 April 1736 –26 June 1799 ) was a Britishmilitary engineer inNorth America .Early life
Born in
Gibraltar 22 April 1736 to Britishmilitary engineer James Gabriel Montresor and his first wife, Mary Haswell, John Montresor spent his early life there (and presumably onMinorca , where his father was briefly stationed). He was in England between 1746 and 1750, attendingWestminster School . He learned the principles ofengineering from his father, and in his later teens served as assistant engineer to his father at Gibraltar.French and Indian Wars
In 1754, he accompanied his father to America, and served as an ensign in the
48th Regiment of Foot on the expedition to Fort Duquesne, also performing as a supernumerary engineer. In the defeat that followed he was wounded, but survived to learn of his promotion tolieutenant days before the battle. He remained in America, serving along theMohawk River and at Fort Edward, then accompanying British forces to Halifax. In 1758, he was commissioned a practicing engineer in the Corps of Engineers, and as such was present at the siege of Louisbourg, and later, at that of Quebec, there drawing one of the last known portraits of General Wolfe, who died in the deciding battle.With the defeat of the French, Montresor was sent to neighboring villages and as far afield as Cape Breton, using the language of his
Huguenot ancestors to elicit oaths of allegiance. He was also twice sent overland fromQuebec toBoston with dispatches, on one of these journeys, in a mid-winterblizzard , being reduced to eating belt and shoeleather in order to avoidstarvation . He also, during this period, performed various surveys and preparedmap s ofAcadia , theSaint Lawrence River , and of his route along theKennebec River . (The journal of this last expedition through the wilds ofMaine would fall into enemy hands in theAmerican Revolution , and was used as a guide byBenedict Arnold in his expedition against Quebec.)During
Pontiac's Rebellion , he carried dispatches and led troops to besiegedFort Detroit . He designed and built fortifications on theNiagara River atFort Niagara andFort Erie as well as a series of blockhouses and an earlygravity railroad along theNiagara Portage between 1762 and 1764.Revolutionary-Era America
Stationed at Fort George (the former site of
Fort William Henry ) in 1765, he witnessed rioting in Albany andNew York City in response to the Stamp Act, and in the same year was promoted to captain lieutenant, and engineer extraordinary, as well as barrackmaster for ordinance in North America. Over the next several years, he surveyed the boundary betweenNew York andNew Jersey , and he repaired or constructedbarracks andfortification s in Boston,New York City ,the Bahamas , andPhiladelphia , where he would build a fortification on Mud Island. During this period he also took a six-month leave inEngland , and spent time onBermuda . He also purchased an island inNew York Harbor which would be called Montresor's Island (nowRandall's Island ).He was in Boston at the outset of the
American Revolutionary War , and marched with Percy to relieve the British troops returning from Concord. He was appointed chief engineer in America and captain in late 1775. He was present at theBattle of Long Island the next year, and was present at the execution ofNathan Hale on22 September 1776 . It is said that he kindly sheltered Hale in his office, giving him pen and paper to write final letters to his family, and that the execution moved him deeply. He was sent to the rebel lines under flag of truce to report the event, and he conveyed Hale's last words toWilliam Hull . Having been superseded as chief engineer, he was placed as aide-de-camp on the staff of General William Howe, but was later reinstated as chief engineer. On13 January 1777 his home on Montresor's Island was burned.In 1777 he was involved in the military campaigns in New Jersey, and present at the action at Quibbleton. He also participated at Brandywine later that year, and accompanied the army to Philadelphia where he launched the attack that destroyed his own Mud Island defences. He directed the construction of new defences for the city, and along with
John André , he was one of the planners of the lavish ball, the "Mischianza ", given in Philadelphia in honor of General Howe. Again superseded in his role as chief engineer, he returned to England and, in March 1779 resigned from the army, bringing to an end over two decades of American service, all reported in journals (although many of these were lost).Retirement and death
In England, he was called before Parliament to testify on the conduct of the war, and on several occasions required to support his expenditures during his various campaigns (for which he is said to have been imprisoned at one point). He purchased an estate at Belmont,
Kent , had a residence at Portland Place,London , and he served as director of the French Hospital. He toured Europe in 1785 and 1786, visitingFrance ,Germany andSwitzerland . He died26 June 1799 .Family
Montresor's romantic life has been the subject of much writing. He married at New York 1 March 1764, Frances Tucker, who was born in New York, 23 April 1744, daughter of Thomas Tucker of
Bermuda , stepdaughter of Reverend Samuel Auchmuty and half-sister ofGeneral Sir Samuel Auchmuty. She returned to England with her husband, and survived him, dying 28 June 1828, at Rosekill,Kent . By her, he had, with others, General Sir Henry Tucker Montresor, General Sir Thomas Gage Montresor, and Mary Lucy Montresor, who married General Sir Frederick William Mulcaster (brother ofWilliam Mulcaster ).In addition to these relationships, he also had other more irregular connections. A surviving letter from Detroit, 1763, mentions the death of an apparent mistress, "poor Nancy", and that he had been "on the Common" since. Likewise, he made a small grant for the support of the child of the daughter of a local English farmer, of which John was the father.
Finally, his name appears broadly as the father of Frances, second wife of
Ethan Allen . Born to a Mohawk Valley woman on (Ethan Allen would later record)4 April 1760 , Frances was adopted by her mother's later companion,Crean Brush , one-time secretary of the Assembly of the Colony of New York. As to her paternity, when her daughter Frances "Fanny" Allen enteredHôtel-Dieu in 1808, her mother's maiden name was recorded as Montresor. Her tombstone names her Montezuma, while an 1858 history written using family information calls her Frances Montuzan, relating that her father was a British colonel killed in the French and Indian War. Popular opinion makes John Montresor the father of Frances. This has not been in small part due to his role in a popular best-selling novel of the time.Fiction
John Montresor has gained a certain notoriety beyond his historical role due to the writings of his first-cousin Susanna Haswell Rowson. One of the main characters in her popular novel "
Charlotte Temple ", named John Montraville, was based, at least in part, on Montresor. In the sequel, "Lucy Temple , Charlotte's Daughter", Montraville is even said to have lived at Portland Place, once Montresor's residence. In the original novel, Montraville seduces the title character, an innocent English schoolgirl, and induces her to run away to America. He then abandons her, destitute and pregnant, to die in childbirth. Some authors have taken this to be a verbatim account of an event in Montresor's life, with only the name changed (the author subtitles the work, "A Tale of Truth"), while others see in it a fictionalized account of the circumstances surrounding the birth of the future Frances Allen. However, the tale also bears strong similarity to one told of GeneralJohn Burgoyne , and it seems likely that the author had more broad inspiration for her tale.References
General
* Finigan, H.: "Montresor Papers on microfilm" David Library of the American Revolution, Washington's Crossing, PA
* Skull, G. D., The Montresor Journals, "Collections of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1881".
* "John Montresor", "Dictionary of National Biography " XXXVIII, 328-329.
* "John Montrésor" "Dictionary of American Biography" XIII, 101-102.
* Montrésor, Frank Montrésor, "Memoirs of the Montresors", mss. 1941,Library of Congress .
* Montrésor, F. M., "Captain John Montrésor in Canada", "Canadian Historical Review", vol. 5 (1924), pp. 336-340.
* Montresor pedigree, "Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London", 1917, facing p. 293, along with "Notes and Jottings in connection with the Montresor Pedigree", "ibid", pp. 293-300.Family & Fiction
* Montresor, F. M., "Who was Ethan Allen's wife?", "New York Historical and Biographical Record", vol. 75 (1944), pp. 29-30.
* Buehner, Terry L., "Green Mountain Women", thesis, University of Vermont, 1992, pp. 113-139.
* Hall, Benjamin H., "History of Eastern Vermont", (New York: Appleton & Co) 1858, pp. 604.
* Parker, Patricia L., "Susanna Rowson", (Boston: Twayne) 1986External links
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2075 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://www.dia.org/the_collection/overview/viewobject.asp?objectid=41296 Portrait of John Montresor] byJohn Singleton Copley , TheDetroit Institute of Arts
* [http://footguards.tripod.com/01ABOUT/montresor/000montresor.htm Biography, Copley portraits of John Montresor and of Frances Tucker Montresor, and a Montresor map at First Foot Guards site]
* [http://www.sunysb.edu/libmap/img005b.jpgMontresor map]
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