Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 4: Fort Drouet Rediscovered
Summary: On 3 August 2009 an ISPAN technical team reached the Chaîne des Matheux above Délices, 5th communal section of Arcahaie, using a newly built road, and documented the bastioned front of fort Drouet.
Key Findings
- An ISPAN technical team visited the Matheux range above Delices on 3 August 2009 to investigate agricultural and military remains made newly accessible by the CNE road from Cabaret toward La-Chapelle.
- The mission identified Fort Drouet, the ruins of the Dion coffee plantation, and two other coffee plantations whose original names and construction elements were not yet established.
- Fort Drouet is described as a post-independence fortification built under a March 1804 ordinance of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, with walls exceeding five meters in places, many rifle loopholes, cannon embrasures, a powder magazine, two cisterns and three cast-iron cannons.
- The Dion coffee plantation ruins are described as the largest colonial coffee installation identified in Haiti to that point, organized around drying grounds of about 4,200 square meters.
- The bulletin says a Jeremie historic-center exhibition opened on 22 August 2009 with 40 illustrated panels of about 90 by 120 cm, and that Fort Jacques had a new horizontal crack of 20 linear meters in its north-west circular bastion.
Full Description
On 3 August 2009 an ISPAN technical team reached the Chaîne des Matheux above Délices, 5th communal section of Arcahaie, using a newly built road, and documented the bastioned front of fort Drouet. One issue of the Bulletin de l'ISPAN, the monthly bulletin of Haiti's Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National, which ran from June 2009 to at least November 2011 and documented one monument, site or historic center per issue.
How to cite
Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (ISPAN), 2009, Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 4: Fort Drouet Rediscovered, https://www.haiti.org/