Fort Ticonderoga

During the 18th century, as nations struggled to control the strategic route between the St. Lawrence River in Canada and the Hudson River to the south, the fortification overlooking the outlet of Lake George into Lake Champlain was known as “the key to a continent.” The French built a stronghold here in 1755 called Carillon and used it as a base against their English rivals. In 1758, under Marquis de Montcalm, Carillon repelled a larger British assault, but in 1759 Jeffery Amherst’s troops captured it and drove the French back from Lake Champlain, after which the British renamed it Fort Ticonderoga. During the American Revolution, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys seized Ticonderoga in a surprise attack on May 10, 1775, and cannon taken from the fort to Boston helped George Washington force the British from that city. In July 1777, General Burgoyne’s invading army overran the American fort and made it British again; Americans failed to retake it in September 1777, and the British later abandoned it. In 1816 William Ferris Pell acquired the fort, and his descendants began its restoration, opening Ticonderoga to the public in 1909, after which the Fort Ticonderoga Association maintained the historic fort and its military museum.

Ticonderoga, New York · United States