A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Fort Ticonderoga – Mount Defiance

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In an earlier post I urged readers to look for a flag on a nearby hill. That hill is actually Mount Defiance. This view of Fort Ticonderoga was taken from there.

“Mount Defiance is an 840 ft (260 m) high hill on the New York side of Lake Champlain, in the northeastern United States. It is notable in that the hill militarily dominates both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, but it was deemed inaccessible so never fortified. Mount Defiance was previously known as Sugar Loaf.” (Wikipedia).

In the 1777 Siege of Fort Ticonderoga, the British army succeeded in positioning artillery on Mount Defiance, causing the Continental Army to withdraw from both forts without a fight.

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And with this final wonderful view (below) of Lake Champlain from Mount Defiance we ended our visit to Fort Ticonderoga and headed off to our next destination, also in Ticonderoga, NY.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Overview and approaching the fort

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Growing up in a not terribly well-off family in a village in the North of England, I used to read a lot. I would come across places with exotic sounding names like Kathmandu, Samarkand, Heliopolis, Philippines etc. Little did I know then that I would eventually visit many of these places and that I would be married for 43 years to a Filipina. For some reason I’d also heard about a place called Ticonderoga. Consequently, when I went to work for the United Nations in New York I wanted to visit the fort. Somehow 50 years passed and even though Fort Ticonderoga is not that far (about a four-hour drive) from where I live, I still hadn’t visited. I don’t have “bucket list”, but if I did Fort Ticonderoga would certainly be on it. However, I was beginning to think that I’d never get there.

Now I can cross it off the non-existent “bucket list”.

According to Wikipedia:

Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in northern New York. It was constructed between October 1755 and 1757 by French-Canadian military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, Marquis de Lotbinière during the action in the “North American theater” of the Seven Years’ War, known as the French and Indian War in America. The fort was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the American Revolutionary War.

The site controlled a river portage alongside the mouth of the rapids-infested La Chute River, in the 3.5 miles (5.6 km) between Lake Champlain and Lake George. It was strategically placed for the trade routes between the British-controlled Hudson River Valley and the French-controlled Saint Lawrence River Valley.

The terrain amplified the importance of the site. Both lakes were long and narrow and oriented north–south, as were the many ridge lines of the Appalachian Mountains which extend as far south as Georgia. The mountains created nearly impassable terrains to the east and west of the Great Appalachian Valley that the site commanded.

The name “Ticonderoga” comes from the Iroquois word tekontaró:ken, meaning “it is at the junction of two waterways”.

During the 1758 Battle of Carillon, 4,000 French defenders were able to repel an attack by 16,000 British troops near the fort. In 1759, the British returned and drove a token French garrison from the fort. The British controlled the fort at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but the Green Mountain Boys and other state militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured it on May 10, 1775. Henry Knox led a party to transport many of the fort’s cannon to Boston to assist in the siege against the British, who evacuated the city in March 1776. The Americans held the fort until June 1777, when British forces under General John Burgoyne occupied high ground above it; the threat resulted in the Continental Army troops withdrawing from the fort and its surrounding defenses. The only direct attack on the fort during the Revolution took place in September 1777, when John Brown led 500 Americans in an unsuccessful attempt to capture it from about 100 British defenders.

The British abandoned the fort after the failure of the Saratoga campaign, and it ceased to be of military value after 1781. The United States allowed the fort to fall into ruin, and local residents stripped it of much of its usable materials. It was purchased by a private family in 1820 and became a stop on tourist routes of the area. Early in the 20th century, its private owners restored the fort. The Fort Ticonderoga Association now operates it as a tourist attraction, museum, and research center.

The pictures below show the approach to the fort featuring exterior shots.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Saratoga Springs, Congress Park

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Congress Park is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) site in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It was formerly the site of the Congress Hotel (also called Congress Hall), a large resort hotel, and the Congress Spring Bottling Plant, as well as Canfield Casino, which together brought Saratoga Springs international fame as a health spa and gambling site. At the peak of its popularity, it was a place where the wealthy, major gamblers and stars of the entertainment world mingled. The park’s artwork includes a statue by Daniel Chester French and landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted, among others. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as the Casino-Congress Park-Circular Street Historic District in 1972 and was then declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The later listing excluded some of the property outside the park and halved the overall size of the district.

Congress Park is a City of Saratoga Springs Park, bounded by Broadway, Spring Street, and Circular Street. The Canfield Casino buildings, built in 1870, 1871 and 1902–03, house the Saratoga Springs History Museum, an art gallery and spaces which host public and private events. Gambling was ended by reformers in 1907.

It had been a long day, and I was feeling tired, so we didn’t spend much time in Congress Park. The limited time we had I spent mostly taking pictures of ducks.

For more information on Congress Park see here.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Saratoga National Historical Park

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The home page of the Park’s website contains the following:

A Crucial American Victory. Here in the autumn of 1777 American forces met, defeated and forced a major British army to surrender. This crucial American victory renewed patriots’ hopes for independence, secured essential foreign recognition and support, and forever changed the face of the world.

I very much agree. After the British defeat at Saratoga the war was no longer about the British vs. the American Patriots. With the entry of the French on the American side it was now the British vs. the Americans, the French, The Spanish, and the Dutch. And it was no longer limited to the East Coast of the US. The British were now fighting a global war.

I’d been to the battlefield before. Unfortunately, I chose a very gloomy, rainy day for my visit. The weather was so bad that I just shot around the battlefield and headed off home as quickly as possible. Since that day I’ve always thought that I must have missed a lot. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that there isn’t actually much to see. The visitor’s center is somewhat interesting, but other than that there’s just acres and acres of fields (luckily, they were full of flowers, which made them look quite pretty.); a few cannons; a few monuments (not many); and an old farmhouse. It would be a great place to walk your dog.

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The next two pictures show views of the Hudson.

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Next four pictures: Cannons

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Kosciuszko monument. Tadeusz Kościuszko (born February 4, 1746, Mereczowszczyzna, Poland [now in Belarus]—died October 15, 1817, Solothurn, Switzerland) was a Polish army officer and statesman who gained fame both for his role in the American Revolution and for his leadership of a national insurrection in his homeland. For more information on Kosciuszko see here.

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The inscription on the plaque reads:


THE UNKNOWN AMERICAN SOLDIERS
WHO PERISHED IN THE BATTLES OF
SARATOGA
SEPTEMBER 19 AND OCTOBER 7 1777
AND WHO WERE HERE BURIED IN UNMARKED
GRAVES
HELPED TO ASSURE THE TRIUMPH OF THE
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
TO CREATE THE REPUBLIC OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AND TO ESTABLISH LIBERTY THROUGHOUT
THE WORLD
IN HONOR OF THESE PATRIOTS
AND IN RECOGNITION OF THE
BICENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF
GEORGE WASHINGTON
THIS MEMORIAL IS ERECTED

BY THE
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
OF NEW YORK STATE
1951

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This monument commemorates the actions of a man who was instrumental in the American victory here, but later became a traitor to the United States: the infamous Benedict Arnold. This monument is perhaps the most popular, unique, and controversial monument of the many placed here.

After he was wounded, General Arnold underwent surgery and after months of recuperation was assigned to command the repatriated capital city, Philadelphia, in June 1778. There, Arnold’s resentment of perceived mistreatment boiled over into rage against the United States. He secretly sought British support and shared military intelligence. Exposed as a traitor at West Point in 1780, he escaped.

No one in American history is as vilified for treason as Benedict Arnold. The “Boot Monument” is dedicated to this man who led Americans to victory in the Battles of Saratoga. The monument does not mention Arnold by name, but there are a few intricate details which often go unnoticed by passersby:

  1. A boot and a two-star epaulet are draped over a howitzer barrel to symbolize an individual with the rank of Major General who suffered a wound during a battle in this location.
  2. A Laurel leaf wreath sits atop the howitzer, an emblem which often resonates victory, power, and glory.
  3. The reverse of the monument is inscribed with the following quote: “In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army who was desperately wounded on this spot, the sally port of Burgoyne’s great [western] redoubt 7th October 1777 winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution and for himself the rank of Major General.”

Arnold has always been a personal favorite of mine for two reasons: First, if he had died at Saratoga (as he almost did) he would have gone down in history as one of the US’s greatest heroes instead of as probably the country’s greatest villain. Second, I was always fascinated that he was a general on both sides in the same war.

The final pictures below show the Nielson House. The Saratoga National Historical Site describes it as follows:

Before and after the Battles of Saratoga John Neilson farmed these heights, located at Stop #2 along the park’s auto tour road. Today his restored home looks much as it did when Generals Arnold and Poor used it for quarters in 1777. This single-room house may be small, but the panoramic view from the porch is larger than life!

The Family. John Neilson (1753-1833) hailed from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Well-practiced at tree cutting and rail splitting, the teenager left his home behind in 1772 and, working his way up the Hudson River, eventually came to Stillwater, New York. There, he went to work for a local farmer, Abner Quitterfield (1732-1784). Two years later, in June 1774, he leased about 150 acres of land out of Great Lot 12 of the Saratoga Patent, from Albany merchant John Bleecker (that same day, Neilson sub-leased 52 acres of it to one Isaac German). Later, he leased about 100 acres in Great Lot 14 from Killian De Ridder, which included the ridge upon which the present house stands.

For more information on the house see here.

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And yes, it really does have a terrific view (which I completely failed to capture).

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV.