Richelieu River flows from Lake Champlain in the United States northward through Quebec and empties into the St. Lawrence River. Between Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Chambly, the river has a significant drop and many rapids. Chambly Canal was completed in 1843 to bypass these rapids and permit navigation between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River. Chambly Canal has nine locks, a width of sixty feet, and a length of twelve miles. In 1900, 2,841 vessels passed through the canal.

In 1909, the Department of Marine had a lighthouse built at St. Jean as noted in the following Notice to Mariners:

A lighthouse tower has been erected on the pier at the south end of the boom extending southward from the draw span of the Central Vermont Railway bridge over the Richelieu river at St. Jean, to guide downward bound vessels to the opening at the draw span. The light shown from this tower replaces the lens lantern light hitherto maintained on the same pier.

The pier on which the tower stands is located 500 feet south of the bridge, on the eastern side of the channel leading to the opening at the draw span. The tower is an enclosed wooden building, square in plan, with sloping sides, painted white, surmounted by a square wooden lantern painted white with the roof red. The height of the tower from its base to the top of the ventilator on the lantern is 23 feet.

The light is a fixed red light elevated 26 feet above the summer level of the river, and should be visible 3 miles in the line of range. The illuminating apparatus is dioptric of the seventh order.

Ernest Menard was hired as the first keeper of the light in 1909. He looked after the light until 1917 and was followed by Mrs. R.F. Menard, N Dionne, and N. Dubeau.

In 2021, there was a light at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to mark the southern entrance to Chambly Canal, but no remains of the historic light there are known to exist.

Keepers: Ernest Menard (1909 – 1917), Mrs. R.F. Menard (1917), N. Dionne (1917 – 1920), N. Dubeau (1920 – at least 1923).

References

1. Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, various years.

No light exists at this location today.

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