10. Fort Crevecoeur

U.S. Highway 98 at Columbus St.; St. Joe Beach

Dedication of the Historical Marker for Fort Crevecoeur

In 1717, on this site, the French began erecting Fort Crevecoeur, meaning Broken Heart. On February 8, 1718, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne de Bienville, acting Governor of Louisiana, dispatched his brother, Lemoyne de Chateague, to complete the fort. By May 12, the French occupied St. Joseph Bay, and Chateague reported to Bienville completion, on the mainland, opposite St. Joseph Point, of the stockaded Fort Crevecoeur with four bastions and 50 soldiers.

Juan Pedro Matamoros de Ysla, Governor of Spanish Florida, at Pensacola, indignantly protested the fort, claiming that St. Joseph Bay belonged to Spain by earlier discovery and previous settlement. The French Colonial Council decided to burn Fort Crevecoeur and abandon St. Joseph Bay. On August 20, Spanish Captain, Joseph Primo De Rivera, reported to the Spanish Governorship, at St. Augustine, the French “had retired from their invasion.”

The exact location of Ft. Crevecoeur is unknown. Pickett’s History of Alabama cited in Louise Porter’s Lives of St. Joseph describes it as “a mile to the northwest of a brook in the St. Joseph Bay, opposite to the point of the peninsula.”

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