This mortar can be found along the north side of the paved path about 150 feet northwest of the British Officers’ quarters building and just south of a flagpole. Silverhawk gives no indication of its age, though it has attained a nice green patina. With 3 fleur-de-lis embossed above the face of a fierce warrior, we assume this to have been employed by the French or the Acadians in the time they possessed the land until 1710.
Bronze 16-inch Smoothbore Muzzleloading Mortar, stamped No. 2, Serial No. 2006, with three fleur-de-lys. This Mortar stands beside the flag pole North of the main entrance.
From Silverhawk Author
FORT ANNE
Fort Anne was first the location of Charles Fort, settled in 1629-32 by Scottish settlers. Acadian settlers began to arrive in the area in 1636, and the site came under French rule from successive forts on the site until 1710. From 1713 to 1749, the British governed Nova Scotia from the fort, renamed Annapolis Royal. During its history under the French, the fort was captured by the British in 1654, 1690 and, for the final time, in 1710. The expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia, known as the "Grand Derangement", in 1755, was organized from the site, as were the importation and settlement of New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists.
In 1917 Fort Anne was declared a Dominion Park, Canada’s first administered national historic park. In 1920 it was designated Canada's first National Historic Site under the new National Historic Sites program which replaced the previous National Historic Parks program.
Today the site contains remnants of the Vauban fort (1702-8), including an underground powder magazine, a dry-stone retaining wall from 1760, shoreline cribwork from the 1740s, the Queen’s wharf ruins from the 1740s and the British Officers’ quarters, built 1797-9 and reconstructed 1934-5. Adjacent to the fort site are an Acadian cemetery; and a British garrison cemetery. Many old cannons still point out to sea as they would have done 250 years ago, in anticipation of the arrival of an enemy flotilla of warships.