New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Fort Ticonderoga

Peter Paine to Receive Adirondack Museum Award

by Leave a Comment

The Board of Trustees of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake has announced the selection of Peter S. Paine, Jr. as the recipient of the 2010 Harold K. Hochschild Award.

The Harold K. Hochschild Award is dedicated to the memory of the museum’s founder, whose passion for the Adirondacks, its people, and environment inspired the creation of the Adirondack Museum. Since 1990 the museum has presented the award to a wide range of intellectual and community leaders throughout the Adirondack Park, highlighting their contributions to the region’s culture and quality of life.

The Adirondack Museum will formally present Peter Paine, Jr. with the Harold K. Hochschild Award on August 19, 2010.

Peter S. Paine, Jr., a retired partner of the international law firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, has long served as Chairman of Champlain National Bank in Willsboro, N.Y. He has devoted much of his life to exemplary public service in the Adirondack region. He is Trustee and former Chair of the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, and also served on the New York State Nature Conservancy Board of Trustees.

In addition, he was a founding member and long-time General Counsel of the Lake Champlain Committee and also one of the founding Trustees of what is now Environmental Advocates.

Paine currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the Fort Ticonderoga Association and is also a Trustee of the Adirondack Community Trust.

Peter Paine has played a key role in numerous land conservation projects in the Champlain Valley. These include the preservation as a bird sanctuary of the Four Brother Islands in Lake Champlain, and the addition of the Split Rock Mountain Range to the NYS Forest Preserve.

He was also a major donor to and co-organized the Noblewood Park and Nature Preserve project in the Town of Willsboro with Assemblywoman Teresa R. Sayward, and helped create the Coon Mountain Preserve in Westport. At his instigation, the Paine family donated conservation easements to the Adirondack Nature Conservancy starting in 1978, protecting five miles of shoreline on Lake Champlain and the Boquet River and some 1,000 acres of farmland and forest.

Peter Paine, Jr. served as a member of the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks (chaired by Harold K. Hochschild) from 1968 to 1970, and as a Commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency from 1971 to 1995. In that capacity he was the principal draftsman of the Adirondack State Land Master Plan and New York State Wild Scenic and Recreational Rivers Legislation.

Paine received a North Country Citation from St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y. in 1974, the Ordre National du Merite from the Republic of France in 1984, and the Howard M. Zahniser Award for the Preservation of Wilderness in New York (shared with Peter A.A.Berle) in 2004.

A resident of Willsboro, N.Y., Paine is a hunter, fisherman, horseman and wilderness expedition leader.

New Smartphone Experience For Lake Champlain History

by Leave a Comment

The Ethan Allen Homestead Historic Site and Museum has created “Ethan & the Boys @ Fort Crown Point” which uses smartphones to tell the tale of the Green Mountain Boys and their capture of the New York Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The cannon “liberated” at those forts were delivered to George Washington in Boston to end the British siege. [Read more…] about New Smartphone Experience For Lake Champlain History

Mount Independence Named Best History Hike

by Leave a Comment

The Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, Vermont has been recognized as a 2010 Editors’ Choice in Yankee Magazine’s Travel Guide to New England.

This designation is awarded by Yankee’s editors and contributors, who name select restaurants, lodgings, and attractions in New England to the list. Recipients range from the rustic to the refined, but all are noteworthy and memorable destinations. [Read more…] about Mount Independence Named Best History Hike

400 Years of The Champlain Valley Event

by Leave a Comment

Rich Strum, Director of Interpretation and Education at Fort Ticonderoga, will offer a program entitled “Conquest, Commerce, and Culture: 400 Years of History in the Champlain Valley” at Saranac Village at Will Rogers in Saranac Lake on Sunday, March 8, 2009.

Samuel de Champlain first saw the great expanse of Lake Champlain, the Green Mountains to the east, the Adirondacks on the west in 1609. New York State, Vermont, and the Province of Quebec are commemorating the 400th anniversary of Champlain’s explorations this year through a variety of programs and events.

Strum will provide an illustrated overview of four centuries of the Champlain region’s history. He will discuss military contests for control of the vital Champlain corridor, the role the lake has played in economic growth and expansion, the lasting impact of 150 years of French dominance in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The presentation will begin at 2:00 p.m. and is offered at no charge to member sof the Adirondack Museum and children of elementary school age or younger. Free admission will be extended to all residents of Saranac Village at Will Rogers. The fee for non-members is $5.00. For additional information, please call the Education Department at (518) 352-7311, ext. 128 or visit the museum’s web site at www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Rich Strum has been the Director of Interpretation and Education at Fort Ticonderoga since 1999. He serves as North Country Regional Coordinator for New York State History Day. He is the author of Ticonderoga: Lake Champlain Steamboat, as well as two books for young readers: Causes of the American Revolution and Henry Know: Washington’s Artilleryman. He lives in Ticonderoga, N.Y. with his wife and daughters.

Fort Ticonderoga Financial Crisis May Spread

by Leave a Comment

The Associated Press is reporting that the New York State Board of Regents, which oversees museums in the state, may change their policy to allow museums to sell their collections in order to pay back debt. The change is a result of Fort Ticonderoga’s recent financial troubles. Here is a clip from the story:

The state Board of Regents started working on an “emergency amendment” to the rules governing how museums can manage collections because it appeared that Fort Ticonderoga, a historic site and museum in northern New York, was on the verge of bankruptcy, said James Dawson, chairman of the board’s Cultural Education Committee… State rules currently require museums to use the money from such sales only to buy other works or enhance their collections.

The emergency amendment would allow museums to sell off works to pay down debt if they can show that they have no other way to raise the money and would otherwise go bankrupt. The museums also would only be allowed to sell the works to another museum or historical society in New York.

The Board was to have taken up the amendment at a meeting Monday but Dawson — who represents northern New York on the Board of Regents — said he withdrew the proposal Thursday, partly because Fort Ticonderoga was able to raise enough money to stay out of bankruptcy court.

The plan has come to light just two weeks after the National Academy in Manhattan (not subject to the Board of Regents) sold off two Hudson River School paintings. Other cultural institutions in the state are also facing financial hardships that have been reported here at the New York History blog, including local libraries and Amsterdam’s Elwood Museum. Last month Fort Ticonderoga laid-off four employees and closed an office building (BTW, the Smithsonian is also facing financial hardship and recently cut salaries).

It was announced in July that Fort Ticonderoga faced financial ruin after Deborah Mars, a Ticonderoga native married to the billionaire co-owner of the Mars candy company Forrest Mars Jr., bailed on their long-time support for the fort just before completion of the new $23 million Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center. The Mars paid for nearly all of the new building’s construction but left before it was finished leaving Fort Ti about two million dollars in debt. When the building bearing their name opened, they didn’t show.

Other options that have been floated include applying for new short-term loans, a new capital campaign to raise $3 million to $5 million, asking the state for a bailout or to take over ownership of the fort, selling of some of the fort’s property or collections or closing for an indefinite period until the finances are sorted out. Coincidentally, Ticonderoga was also considering selling a Hudson River School painting, Thomas Cole’s 1831 “Ruins of Fort Ticonderoga.”

According to the Associated Press:

Anne Ackerson, director of the Museum Association of New York, said her group was among those opposing the idea of allowing museums to sell their collections to pay debts. While it might be a short-term fix for some museums’ financial problems, it might dissuade others from seeking other solutions when money gets tight, she said.

The Board of Regents rules governing the sale of museum holdings were established in the early 1990s when the New York Historical Society faced financial problems.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Queens Democrat who chaired an investigative committee at the time, said he was happy to hear the Board of Regents had withdrawn the emergency amendment proposal but remained concerned that they might still try to tweak other parts of the rules that define what qualifies as part of a museum’s collection.

Brodsky said he urged the Regents to hold off on making any changes until after a more thorough review involving museums, the Legislature and others with an interest.

Fort Ticonderoga Appeals to Public for Help

by Leave a Comment

Although it is apparently, no longer up, two local newspapers have reported (1, 2), that Fort Ticonderoga is asking the public to keep the fort from shutting down. According to Fred Herbst of Denton Publications:

You have probably seen the headlines. Fort Ticonderoga is in a very difficult financial situation. We don’t want to sell assets. We don’t want to lay off staff. We don’t want to curtail our education programs. We don’t want to close. Without the help of our friends and supporters, however, we may be faced with having to take one or more of these measures.

Fort Ticonderoga’s financial troubles began when benefactors Deborah and Forrest Mars Jr. withdrew their support – it’s been covered at length here.

The original statement continues:

Fort Ticonderoga needs its army of defenders now more than ever. The new Mars Education Center is 95 percent paid for. We have raised and borrowed more than $22 million, but we still need $700,000 to settle the outstanding bills and an additional $3.5 million to repay the loans and replenish our endowment fund.

Herbst revealed more about the details of Forrest Mars conflict with Executive Director Nick Westbrook.

“The ride is over,” he wrote in an Email to Westbrook that was provided to the Times of Ti.

The Email said Westbrook would not listen to new ideas and had stopped communicating with Mrs. Mars, when she was president of the fort board of trustees.

“We will not be writing any further checks,” Mr. Mars wrote. “Your performance as a manager is lacking. As a historian and archivist, etc., you excel. You have not given proper supervision and leadership to the staff.”

Mr. Mars said he and his wife paid for most of the Mars Education Center.

“As far as the new center, I would think that besides not communicating with your president (Mrs. Mars) regarding the opening of it, the exhibits to be in it, the budget for operating it and a program for the future use, you might have been nice enough and polite enough to communicate with the major donor (Mr. Mars),” the Email reads. “Not a word from you to either of us. We do not even know if you can fund it.”

The Email also said Mr. Mars had paid for one of Westbrook’s sons to attend a private school and had paid for vacations for Westbrook and his wife.

The Fort is under threat to close next year or sell off some it collections; Westbrook will be resigning. The fort closes for the season October 20th.

“The fort is running through its available endowment funds to pay the Mars Education Center bills, and, in the absence of a major infusion of funds, the fort will be essentially broke by the end of 2008,” Paine said in the memo.

Fort Ticonderoga Executive Director to Step Down

by 1 Comment

North Country Public Radio is reporting this afternoon that Fort Ticonderoga’s longtime executive director Nick Westbrook will step down (Post Star says next year). According to the report board president Peter Paine says Westbrook will remain “affiliated with the historic site in a scholarly and advisory capacity” and described the move as “part of a planned transition.”

Ongoing controversy over the loss of the Fort’s most important benefactor has been covered at length on the New York History Blog before.

This weekend the New York Times covered the story:

This summer, the national historic landmark — called Fort Ti for short — began its 100th season as an attraction open to the public with two causes for celebration: the unveiling of a splashy new education center, and an increase in visitors, reversing a long decline.

But instead of celebrating, its caretakers issued an S.O.S., warning that the fort, one of the state’s most important historic sites, was struggling for survival, largely because of a breach between the fort’s greatest benefactor — an heir of the Mars candy fortune — and its executive director.

The problem is money: The fort had a shortfall of $2.5 million for the education center. The president of the board that governs the fort, which is owned by a nonprofit organization, said in an internal memo this summer that the site would be “essentially broke” by the end of the year. The memo proposed a half-dozen solutions, including the sale of artwork from the group’s collection.

Fort Ticonderoga Facing Financial Ruin

by Leave a Comment

Fort Ticonderoga President Peter S. Paine Jr. has suggested in a memo forwarded to the Plattsburgh Press Republican that the historic site (a veteran of the French and Indian and American Revolutionary wars as well as the War of 1812) has seven options to avoid permanent closure, none of them good.

Paine wrote in the memo that “the fort is running through its available endowment funds to pay the Mars Education Center bills, and, in the absence of a major infusion of funds, the fort will be essentially broke by the end of 2008.”


His options include applying for new short-term loans (perhaps from the Essex County Industrial Development Agency), banking on a new capital campaign to raise $3 million to $5 million (Paine had said the Fort needed 2.5 million), asking the state for a bailout or to take over ownership of the fort, selling some of the fort’s property or collections (it holds paintings worth millions, including Thomas Cole’s 1831 “Ruins of Fort Ticonderoga,” but its ownership is in dispute) or closing for an indefinite period until the finances are sorted out.

Paine’s proposals come after a year of chaos at the fort began when Deborah Mars, a Ticonderoga native married to the billionaire co-owner of the Mars candy company Forrest Mars Jr., bailed on their long-time support for the fort just before completion of the new $23 million Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center. The Mars paid for nearly all of the new building’s construction but left before it was finished leaving Fort Ti about a million dollars in debt. When the building bearing their name opened this month, they didn’t show. Mr. Mars said disagreements with fort’s Executive Director Nicholas Westbrook were the reason why. Paine replaced Deborah Mars as the fort’s president.

A newly released study of Revolution War and War of 1812 sites by the National Park Service [pdf] points to the problem of private ownership of some America’s most important heritage sites:

Nonprofit organizations dedicated to preserving, maintaining, and interpreting their historic properties own all or portions of 100 Principal Sites [identified by the report]. Ownership of four Principal Sites is unknown currently. Private owners still control most of the Principal Sites, especially the battlefields and associated properties made up of large land areas. Privately owned sites or portions of sites are without any known form of enforceable legal protection. Many private owners maintain and care for their historic properties, but without legally mandated protection, the properties could be damaged or destroyed at any time.

Fort Ticonderoga had already been identified in the report as a Priority I (“these sites need immediate preservation or may be lost by 2017”) facing a “medium” level of threat. The threat is real for the already economically depressed Adirondack region of New York State, and the locals are restless.

A Short History of Fort Carillon / Fort Ticonderoga

The fort located at the north-south choke-point between Lake George and Lake Champlain was ordered built by French Governor-General Vaudreuil (the French Governor of Canada) as the southernmost fort of the French Empire in the New World as a bulwark in anticipation of attacks on Fort St. Frederic and the French settlements at today’s Crown Point, New York (currently being excavated) and Chimney Point, Vermont. Named Fort Carillon, it was built by soldiers and settlers in 1755-56. The following year French General Montcalm used Carillon as a base to attack British Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George. In 1758, British General Abercromby led an overwhelming British and Colonial Army in a attack on the fort that ended disastrously. American colonial forces under Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen took the poorly manned fort in the opening engagements of the American Revolution without a fight in 1775. It was retaken by Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne in 1777. Native Americans from the Algonquin, French Mohawk, Huron, and Nippissings are among those associated with the history of the fort.

It is considered one of America’s oldest heritage tourism sites with tourists arriving in numbers in the 1830s (by way of comparison, the Hasbrouck House, George Washington’s headquarters at Newburgh, NY, became the first historic house museum in the United States in 1850). In 1783, George Washington visited the Fort with New York’s Governor Clinton. Following the Revolution New York State granted the Fort and its surrounding grounds to Columbia and Union Colleges. In 1791 future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both visited the fort.

William Ferris Pell purchased 546 acres containing the ruined fort in 1820, but it wasn’t opened to the public until 1908. The non-profit Fort Ticonderoga Association took control in the 1930s and members of the Pell family formally loaned many of the paintings and artifacts to the fort in the 1940s. Mount Independence, the high ground on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain where many colonial troops were encamped during occupation of the fort is under the care of the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. The ruins at nearby Crown Point are a New York State Historic Site.

This post also appeared at Adirondack Almanack, the premiere blog of the culture, politics, history, and environment of the Adirondacks.

Largest Event at Fort Ticonderoga in Modern Times

by Leave a Comment

It’s a big year at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. First it’s the 100th anniversary of their opening with a dedication attended by President William Howard Taft. The Pell family began it’s restoration that year, a project that is continuing with the completion of the Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center that will open on July 6.

This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War of the Battle of Carillon, which was designated as the I Love NY “signature event,” and the opening of the new exhibit “Face of War; Triumph and Tragedy at Ticonderoga, 1758-1759,” the first new exhibit in many years. It details the lives of soldiers taken directly from their diaries and letters. [Read more…] about Largest Event at Fort Ticonderoga in Modern Times