Qualla: Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peetlesnumber1 (talk), Public domain. "Come out you old Rat!" Ethan Allen shouted into the pre-dawn darkness of May 10, 1775. Inside Fort Ticonderoga, forty-eight British soldiers were sleeping. Allen's Green Mountain Boys and Benedict Arnold's militia volunteers had crossed Lake Champlain in the night and were already inside the walls before the garrison knew what was happening. Allen demanded surrender "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress" -- though the demand was actually delivered to a bewildered Lieutenant Jocelyn Feltham in his nightclothes, not the fort's commander. The Iroquois had named this place tekontaro:ken, meaning "it is at the junction of two waterways," and for over a century every empire that wanted to control the corridor between the St. Lawrence and the Hudson fought for this narrow point at the southern end of Lake Champlain. The fort that stands here today has been French, British, American, abandoned, stripped for scrap, and lovingly rebuilt -- a star-shaped witness to three wars and the enduring human compulsion to command the high ground.

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Image: Peetlesnumber1 (talk) | Public domain

Fort Ticonderoga: Carillon: Where the Rapids Chime

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harfang, CC BY-SA 3.0. The French called it Fort Carillon, possibly after the sounds of the rapids on La Chute River, which were said to resemble the chiming bells of a carillon. Construction began in 1755 under the direction of French-Canadian military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbiniere, cousin to...

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Image: Harfang | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Ticonderoga: The Battle That Built a Legend

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CarillonBattle.svg: User:Magicpiano derivative work: Hoodinski (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. On July 8, 1758, British General James Abercromby threw 16,000 men at the French position. He had every advantage in numbers, but his second-in-command, Brigadier General George Howe, had been killed the day before in a skirmish, and Abercromby seemed paralyzed by the loss. He ch...

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Image: CarillonBattle.svg: User:Magicpiano derivative work: Hoodinski (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Ticonderoga: The Guns That Freed Boston

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peetlesnumber1 (talk), Public domain. Allen and Arnold's dawn raid in May 1775 captured the fort less than a month after Lexington and Concord. The military value was immediate and enormous: Fort Ticonderoga held a substantial arsenal. Henry Knox organized one of the war's most remarkable logistical feats, hauling do...

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Image: Peetlesnumber1 (talk) | Public domain

Fort Ticonderoga: The Fatal Oversight

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. government, U.S. (Continental) army, Public domain. In June 1777, General John Burgoyne led 7,800 British and Hessian troops south from Quebec, beginning the Saratoga campaign. The Americans had spent the previous year fortifying the area around Ticonderoga: trenches, batteries, a pontoon bridge to Mount Independence, a star-shape...

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Image: U.S. government, U.S. (Continental) army | Public domain

Fort Ticonderoga: Resurrection in Stone

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DeYoung9, Public domain. After the war, local residents stripped the fort of anything useful, even melting cannons down for metal. The ruins passed through the hands of New York State, Columbia University, and Union College before William Ferris Pell purchased the property in 1820 and turned it into a su...

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Image: DeYoung9 | Public domain