Date Published:
February 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Richard Montgomery

Montgomery, Richard (1736-1775), soldier, was born in Dublin, Ireland, on December 2, 1736. In 1755 he obtained a commission in the British army, and in 1757 he was sent to America. He served at the capture of Louisbourg in 1758 and on lake Champlain in 1759, and was present at the capitulation of Montreal in 1760. In 1771, after his return to England, he sold his commission, and emigrated to New York. Here he married, in 1773, Janet, daughter of the Hon. Robert Livingston, one of the judges of the court of King's Bench; and with the Livingston family he took the revolutionary side in the War of American Independence. In 1775 he was appointed by Washington a brigadier-general in the revolutionary army; and he commanded the expedition which captured Montreal in November, 1775. At the beginning of December, he effected a junction with the forces of Benedict Arnold before Quebec ; and he was killed in an attack on Quebec on New Year's eve, 1775. See Faucher de St. Maurice, Quelques notes sur le général Richard Montgomery (Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 1891) and Louise Livingston Hunt, Biographical notes ( Poughkeepsie, 1876).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. IV, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 400p., p. 323.