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Siege of Fort St. Jean

1775 siege of the American Revolutionary War

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ1779428 ↗
Source-derived summary

The siege of Fort St. Jean (September 17 – November 3, 1775 French: Siège du Fort Saint-Jean) was conducted by American Brigadier General Richard Montgomery on the town and fort of Saint-Jean, also called St. John, St. Johns, or St. John's, in the British province of Quebec during the American Revolutionary War. The siege lasted from September 17 to November 3, 1775.

After several false starts in early September, the Continental Army established a siege around Fort St. Jean. Beset by illness, bad weather, and logistical problems, they established mortar batteries that were able to penetrate into the interior of the fort, but the defenders, who were well-supplied with munitions, but not food and other supplies, persisted in their defence, believing the siege would be broken by forces from Montreal under General Guy Carleton. On October 18, the nearby Fort Chambly fell, and on October 30, an attempt at relief by Carleton was thwarted.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Siege of Fort St. Jean” is 1775 siege of the American Revolutionary War. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Siege, Fort and Jean, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1775—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Siege, Fort and Jean is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1775 siege of the American Revolutionary War” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1779428. Authority coordinates are 45.299, -73.252. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1775.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

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  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Siege of Fort St. Jean”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Siege of Fort St. Jean primary sources, Siege of Fort St. Jean archive and Siege research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Siege of Fort St. Jean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.