Summit of Mount Defiance

At Ticonderoga, two historic waterways converge at a strategic choke point between New York and Nouvelle France, where Native Americans long used a portage between Lake George and Lake Champlain. The five-mile-long La Chute River flows from Lake George to Lake Champlain and powered a French sawmill during the construction of Fort Carillon, later renamed Ticonderoga by the British in 1759, as well as many mills and factories in the 19th century. The Fort Ticonderoga peninsula reaches toward Mount Independence on the Vermont shore, and whoever controlled this passage controlled travel northward to the Saint Lawrence River. American troops linked the two fortified positions with a floating bridge in the winter of 1776-77, and East Creek later helped protect retreating American troops from a flanking German attack in July 1777, allowing them to regroup and fight again at Hubbardton and Bennington. From this mountain top, Robert Rogers and his Ranger scouts reconnoitered Fort Carillon during the Seven Years’ War, when French and British forces struggled for control of North America and understood that Lake Champlain was the key military highway into the interior. In the summer of 1776, American shipwrights at Whitehall built a small fleet, rowed the finished hulls to Ticonderoga, stepped their masts at Mount Independence, and completed their fitting and rigging under the shelter of Fort Ticonderoga; although this first American navy lost to a superior British force at Valcour Island, it delayed the British long enough to send them back to Canada for the winter.

Ticonderoga, New York · United States