page_title: Isle La Motte
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Isle La Motte / History
caption_attribution_description: Carte des forts du Richelieu dressée en 1666 pour la campagne du Régiment de Carignan-Salières.
context_page_description: Isle La Motte is an island in Lake Champlain in northwestern Vermont, United States. It is the most remote and northern of the Champlain Islands. It is 7 by 2 miles. It lies close to where the lake empties into the Richelieu River. It is incorporated as a New England town in Grand Isle County. The population was 471 at the 2010 census.
  The island is named after French soldier Pierre La Motte who built a military outpost on the island in 1666. The island population swells many times over in the summer months. The island is the site of Fort Sainte Anne, Saint Anne's Shrine, the Methodist Episcopal Church of Isle La Motte, the Fisk Quarry and Goodsell Ridge Preserves, the Isle La Motte Elementary School, and the Isle La Motte Lighthouse.
context_section_description: On 9 July 1609, Samuel de Champlain debarked on the island.
  In 1665 the French began building a series of forts along the Richelieu River to protect New France from the Iroquois. From north to south these were Fort Richelieu, Fort Chambly, and Fort Sainte Thérèse.
  Four companies of the Carignan-Salières Regiment were sent from Québec to extend these forts further south, under Captain Pierre La Motte. They built a trail connecting Fort Sainte Thérèse and Fort Saint-Louis (Chambly).
  In 1666 Fort Saint-Jean and the furthest south Fort Sainte Anne on Isle La Motte were added. The fort included Saint Anne's Shrine. Both the fort and chapel were dedicated to Sainte Anne. In 1668, the bishop of Quebec, François de Laval, came to Isle La Motte to baptise a number of Iroquois to Christianity. Even after the abandonment of the fort, the shrine continued to give mass to worshipers. The fort was the first European settlement in what is now Vermont.
  Fort St. Anne was the one most vulnerable to attack. The fort was garrisoned by about 300 French soldiers over the next four years, after which the troops were pulled back to Québec, destroying the fort before they left.
  In the mid 1800s orchards, vineyards and dairy farms flourished on the island, which was then connected to the mainland by ferry during the warmer months and by foot or wagon over the ice in winter. In November 1802, Isle La Motte was renamed to "Vineyard". However, 28 years later the original name was restored, in November 1830. In 1878 the town was incorporated for the sole purpose of building a bridge to Alburgh. The bridge was completed in 1882.
  Fisk Farm was the site where the Vermont Fish and Game League was addressed in August 1897 by President William McKinley and in September 1901 by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt when he learned of the eventually fatal shooting of President William McKinley.
caption: Map of Fort Sainte-Anne and other forts on the Richelieu River, circa 1666
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