Where the Revolution Was Won: Fort Ticonderoga Awarded Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership Grant to Expand the Northern Department for America’s 250th Funding Advances New Digital Content, K-12 Education, and a Battle of Valcour 250th Conference While Promoting the Hudson Champlain Corridor as a Multi-Day Heritage Destination
As America marks the 250th anniversary of its independence, Fort Ticonderoga today announced it has been awarded a Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership (CVNHP) grant, administered by the Patrick Leahy Lake Champlain Basin Program with support from the National Park Service, to advance the next phase of its Northern Department heritage initiative. The funding will […]
Fort Ticonderoga Brings the American Revolution to Life This Fall with REAL TIME REVOLUTION®
Two hundred fifty years ago, soldiers looked across the hills surrounding Ticonderoga as brilliant autumn color gave way to uncertainty. Winter was approaching, British forces were on Lake Champlain, and the struggle for American independence hung in the balance. The decisions made at Ticonderoga helped give the Revolution the time it needed to survive. Today, […]
What Remains of Anthony Marsh: A Post-Mortem Inventory
Anthony Marsh was one of the many soldiers who marched to Fort Ticonderoga and never came home. Two and a half centuries later, we know very little about Marsh. We know that on January 15, 1776 he enlisted as a private in Captain Silas Wild’s company of Colonel Edmund Phinney’s 18th Continental Regiment from Massachusetts. We know that he marched 70 miles […]
Josiah Blood Sends for Help, and for Honey
By September 1776, some of the dangers of the campaign season had subsided for the garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. The number of smallpox cases dropped, and the British army was still 100 miles away. But soldiers who served at Ticonderoga, like Josiah Blood, were still risking their lives. Blood was likely one of the oldest soldiers at Ticonderoga. A resident of Hollis, NH, he was around […]
“If You Don’t Come Quick I Never Shall Come Home”: The Letters of Archelaus Tay
Tens of thousands of enlisted men served at Fort Ticonderoga during its period of service, but relatively few of their letters and journals have survived. Often, only one or a few letters survive from a much larger correspondence. Archelaus Tay of Woburn, MA, a soldier in the Massachusetts militia who marched to reinforce Ticonderoga in the summer of 1776, left his mark on the historical […]
Mid-August at Ticonderoga: Trumbull Calls for Naval Supplies, Free Black Soldiers Arrive
August 1776 was a busy time at Fort Ticonderoga. The ranks of the garrison swelled as soldiers built defenses on both sides of Lake Champlain and prepared to face the British. The Fort Ticonderoga Museum has two documents created on August 20, 1776, 250 years ago today, each of which sheds its own light on the pivotal summer […]
Tempers Flare at Ticonderoga: The Court-Martial of Colonel Moses Hazen
The Continental Army’s campaign season in 1776 had been incredibly physically and mentally taxing. It may not be surprising, then, that tempers at Fort Ticonderoga sometimes ran high. On August 19, 1776—250 years ago today—members of a court-martial led by Colonel Enoch Poor sent a letter to Congress that laid out a battle of wills […]
Hannah Arnold: Sister, Caretaker, Businesswoman
In the summer of 1776, long before his infamous treason, Benedict Arnold was still a loyal officer of the Continental Army. In early August, he was given command of the small American fleet on Lake Champlain and the shipyard at Skenesborough that was working frantically to construct more ships. Naval control over the lake could determine the fate of the American garrison at Fort Ticonderoga, and […]
From Ticonderoga, With Love: Isaac Burnet and Edmund Munro Write Home
In June 1776, the Massachusetts legislature received a call for help from the Continental Congress, which asked them to raise militia regiments to reinforce the Continental Army. Massachusetts responded, raising five thousand men for service in Canada and New York. By the time General James Brickett’s militia brigade, intended for Canadian service, was ready to march, the army had […]
Letter from James Wilkinson to Philip Schuyler
On August 12, 1776—250 years ago today—General Horatio Gates sent Dr. Jonathan Potts a most intriguing letter. Gates, stationed at Fort Ticonderoga, had heard a rumor from Dr. Potts’ military hospital at Fort George. “I am inform’d,” he writes, “that the Baron de Woedkle some time before his Death, made a Solemn Declaration to you of matters that highly concern the […]