Fort Gaspareaux Fort Gaspareaux ( later Fort Moncton ) was a French fort at the head of Baie Verte near the mouth of the Gaspareaux River and just southeast of the modern village of Port Elgin , New Brunswick , Canada , on the Isthmus of Chignecto . It was built during Father Le Loutre ' s War and is now a National Historic Site of Canada overlooking the Northumberland Strait . Father Le Loutre ' s War . Despite the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710 , Nova Scotia remained primarily occupied by Catholic Acadians and Mi ' kmaq . Father Le Loutre ' s War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21 , 1749 . By unilaterally establishing Halifax the British were violating earlier treaties with the Mi ' kmaq ( 1726 ) , which were signed after Dummer ' s War . The British quickly began to build other settlements . To guard against Mi ' kmaq , Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements , British fortifications were erected in Halifax ( 1749 ) , Dartmouth ( 1750 ) , Bedford ( Fort Sackville ) ( 1751 ) , Lunenburg ( 1753 ) and Lawrencetown ( 1754 ) . Within 18 months of establishing Halifax , the British also took firm control of peninsula Nova Scotia by building fortifications in all the major Acadian communities : present - day Windsor ( Fort Edward ) ; Grand Pre ( Fort Vieux Logis ) and Chignecto ( Fort Lawrence ) . ( A British fort already existed at the other major Acadian centre of Annapolis Royal , Nova Scotia . Cobequid remained without a fort . ) The only land route between Louisbourg and Quebec went from Baie Verte through Chignecto , along the Bay of Fundy and up the St . John River . With the establishment of Halifax , the French recognized at once the threat it represented and that the St . John River corridor might be used to attack Quebec City itself . To protect this vital gateway , at the beginning of 1749 , the French strategically constructed three forts within 18 months along the route : one at Baie Verte ( Fort Gaspareaux ) , one at Chignecto ( Fort Beausejour ) and another at the mouth of the St . John River ( Fort Menagoueche ) . Effectively a fortified warehouse manned by a small garrison , it was built in 1751 by the order of the Marquis de la Jonquière as a way station between Fort Beauséjour and Louisbourg and Québec . It was originally a palisaded earthwork , measuring 180 feet ( 60 metres ) square and surrounded by a ditch . At each corner was a blockhouse equipped with small bore cannon . Communication with Fort Beauséjour across the Isthmus of Chignecto was at first via an ancient portage route , but , in 1754 , a road was built linking the two forts . Communication by sea was possible in the summer to Québec , Louisbourg and France . Seven Years War . During the Seven Years War ( also known as the French and Indian War ) , immediately after the Battle of Fort Beauséjour in 1755 , the British sent 300 men , led by Colonel John Winslow , to take Fort Gaspareaux , then under the command of Captain Villeray . This was quickly accomplished , and the fort was renamed Fort Monckton ( after colonial administrator Robert Monckton ) and put under the charge of an English garrison . In the spring of 1756 , a wood gathering party from Fort Monckton ( former Fort Gaspareaux ) , was ambushed and nine of them were scalped . These soldiers ' remains are in a small military graveyard at the fort . The British abandoned the fort later in the same year , unable to defend it from a pending attack by French military leader Boishebert and a Mi ' kmaq / Acadian militia . National Historic Site . A stone cairn was erected by the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board in the 1930s to commemorate the fort . The site today consists of a ditched enclosure . Palisaded grounds once surrounded the grounds on the inside of the ditch . There is a small cemetery - the headstones are now illegible . An unmanned light structure was erected in 1972 . Affiliations . The Museum is affiliated with : CMA , CHIN , and Virtual Museum of Canada .