Day 157: Ticonderoga, NY

Today’s adventure was an in-depth exploration of Fort Ticonderoga and nearby Mount Defiance. We started the day with a boat tour on Lake Champlain where we saw the Fort from the water and received an introductory history lesson.

Fort Ticonderoga was built by the French between 1755 and 1757 and originally named Fort Carillon. It was the lowest part of New France during this time. Positioned at the meeting point of Lake Champlain and Lake George, it guarded the water route between the Hudson River Valley and Canada. In 1758, French forces successfully defended the Fort against a massive British attack during the very bloody Battle of Carillon. However, British forces returned a year later and captured the Fort in 1759 and renamed it Fort Ticonderoga.

From 1759-1975 the British held the Fort but it was in ruins. On May 10, 1775, colonial leaders Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold (representing the Americans) led 280 Green Mountain Boys in a surprise 3 am raid against the British soldiers occupying the Fort. They caught the British sleeping as they didn’t know the Americans had declared war seeking their independence. The Americans captured the Fort with no shots fired and no bloodshed, marking the first offensive American victory of the American Revolution. General Henry Knox hauled the captured cannons across the snow to Boston in the winter of 1775–1776, using them to force British troops to evacuate the city.

From May 1775 - July 1777 Americans held the Fort until the British briefly reoccupied it before abandoning it in 1781. Before leaving, the British blew up the Fort since they didn’t want it anymore but they also didn’t want anyone else to have it and use it to their advantage.

In 1783 Washington decommissioned Fort and it was no longer used for military purposes.

Next, we tour the King’s Garden which was created later in the Fort’s history when the Fort (now in ruins) and the surrounding property was purchased by the wealthy William Harris Pell to stop people from scavenging the Fort’s stone to build their own houses. Pell lived on the property and his descendants were actively involved in the restoration, reconstruction and recreation of the Fort and surrounding buildings. Major reconstruction was needed as the Fort kept getting blown up.

American chestnut.

Our history tour at the reconstructed Fort provided more depth into the role of the Fort in the French-Indian War and then in the American Revolution. We learned that Washington visited the Fort as its first “tourist” and then decommissioned it immediately afterward.

The 2 pm cannon demonstration left our ears ringing though we thoroughly enjoyed it. What a huge bang! Did you know a 4 lb cannon ball can travel 1.5 miles? That is really far.

After the excitement of the cannon firing, we were starving so we stopped for a late lunch at the Fort’s Cafe, where Liam had the best sandwich of his entire life (so he said). The food was really tasty and we enjoyed the farm to table aspect of the meal as they used the vegetables from the kitchen garden we toured earlier in the salads and sandwiches.

Lunch gave us enough energy to venture into the heroic corn maze where we learned about several heroes associated with Fort Ticonderoga. This was a much less intense maze compared to yesterday’s and we completed it in 28 minutes having found five heroes of the American Revolution.

Our final tour of the day was held at the summit of Mount Defiance. We took in the beautiful overlook of Fort Ticonderoga and Lake Champlain. We had the same tour guide for this last tour as we did for our first tour of the day on the boat so she summarized some of what we’d heard already as well as offered some new insights. Interesting tidbits included that while the Fort was blown up three times, it was always from the army abandoning it because they didn’t want anyone else to have it. It was also fascinating to see how quickly the land in the area that was used for industry in the past (e.g., ship building or paper processing) has been so completely reclaimed by nature to the point that you cannot tell it was ever something else besides forest.

Our special coin that gave us access to Mount Defiance.

After our busy day, we returned to the campground to do our last round of laundry before we return home and to make dinner trying to use up some leftovers. We managed to whip up a garlicky broccoli crab cream soup which was not too shabby and helped us to clean out the fridge. It is much warmer here than it was in the White Mountains so we are enjoying the crisp fall evening without being cold.

Crab broccoli cream soup.