History, Natural History & the Arts
On July 7, 1776, the Continental Army’s senior commanders assembled at Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain to confront a military crisis.
Their meeting during a council of war at Crown Point, fundamentally changed the course of the Revolutionary War in the North, and helped lay the groundwork for the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga a year later. [Read more…] about A 1776 Crown Point Council of War Was A Deciding Factor
Lake George, NY resident Harrison Bird (1910-2003) belonged to a rare class of historians, those whose situate the local within the continental and, indeed, the global.
In four books published by Oxford University Press – Navies in the Mountains (1962), March to Saratoga (1963), Battle for a Continent (1965) and Attack on Quebec (1968) – Bird wrote about Lake George, Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Quebec and the northern waterways not as isolated historic sites, but as parts of one strategic corridor: the route by which empires, armies, navies and ambitions moved between Canada and the Hudson Valley. [Read more…] about New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird
In 1775, only fifteen years had elapsed since the expulsion of the New France from Canada following the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The concentration of French power in the valley of the St. Lawrence had impressed upon the minds of colonial leaders the importance of Lake Champlain, of its tributary Lake George, and of the Hudson River, as forming a consecutive, if not continuous, water line of communications from the St. Lawrence River to the city of New York. [Read more…] about The Naval Campaign on Lake Champlain in 1775-1776
As part of its ongoing excavation and study of the Ticonderoga‘s Liberty Hill site, Fort Ticonderoga is announcing the discovery, documentation and preservation of more than five hundred new artifacts at the site – where the Declaration of Independence was read to the Continental Army at Ticonderoga for the first time in July 1776 — with several of the most compelling examples dating from the American Revolution in 1776. [Read more…] about Revolutionary War Artifacts Discovered in Ticonderoga
The New York State Museum has unveiled a facial reconstruction of a Revolutionary War soldier whose remains were recovered from the Courtland Street Burying Ground in Lake George, NY.
Created by forensic artist Jenny Kenyon, the reconstruction depicts a young soldier believed to have been in his teens, offering a powerful new glimpse into the lives of the individuals who died while serving during the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Facial Reconstruction Brings Revolutionary War Soldier to Life
The skeletal remains of 44 people believed to have been associated with the Continental Army effort to invade Quebec in 1775 will be transported in historic U.S. military vehicles on Wednesday, May 20 from the New York State Museum in Albany to Lake George.
Scientists there have spent seven years identifying and reconstructing the remains. They will be reinterred in a new memorial at Lake George Battlefield Park being dedicated Friday, May 22. [Read more…] about Rev War Remains Being Brought to Lake George for Reinternment
Town of Lake George officials say construction continues on schedule for the “Repose of the Fallen” project involving the reinterment of the skeletal remains of 44 people who are believed to have been associated with a Continental Army smallpox hospital when they died during the American Revolution.
The remains will be interred in a new memorial located in Lake George Battlefield State Park that will be dedicated during a public ceremony on Friday, May 22. [Read more…] about Revolutionary War Smallpox Hospital Reinterments on Schedule
Veteran journalist and newspaper editor Anthony Hall of the Lake George Mirror alerted us to this story. Subscribe (or just make a gift) to the Mirror to support the important work of local journalists.
In the murky depths of Lake Champlain, the skeletal remains of the Continental Navy schooner Royal Savage rested for over 150 years, a silent witness to the birth of the American Navy.
However, after recovery in 1934 through turbulent years of improper storage, possibly being sold off to the highest bidder, and the government’s rescue of artifacts, countless hours of preservation, 3D-scans of original timbers and 1:12 scale models, visitors to the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, DC, can finally see history re-imagined. [Read more…] about Royal Savage: Neglected Champlain Warship Finally ‘On View’
“Over three decades, he reported from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and elsewhere and wrote well-received books based on his reporting, including one about his globe-trotting cat,” The New York Times obituary remembering Christopher Wren recalls.
The former journalist, writer, and Vermont Historical Society Trustee passed away in February at the age of 89 at his home in Thetford, VT. [Read more…] about Christopher Wren: Veteran Journalist, Ethan Allen Biographer, Dies at 89
The television series The American Revolution by Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein currently streaming on PBS gives a valuable overview of the founding era and may entice viewers to look more deeply at the personalities of some of the participants.
Richard Montgomery (1738-1775) has interested me because he was connected to the area of the Hudson Valley where I live. And he’s someone who emerges from the past as a distinct personality, someone who had been seared by war long before the Revolution. [Read more…] about America Wept: The Death of Richard Montgomery
The year was 1901 when the steel barque Moshulu sailed into New York Harbor carrying many Sicilian immigrants for inspection at Ellis Island.
This is the gripping fictional opening scene of The Godfather II, although considerable artistic license was taken by its producer and director Francis Ford Coppola. [Read more…] about Vito Corleone, Alonzo Blauvelt & Smallpox in Italian Harlem
Richard Montgomery (1736-1775), son of Irish aristocracy, had become a professional British soldier who served in North America during the French and Indian War.
After that service, in which Richard had proven himself in combat and as a gifted leader of men, he was promoted to Captain. [Read more…] about Richard and Janet Montgomery and 1775 Invasion of Canada
In United for Independence: The American Revolution in the Middle Colonies, 1775–1776 (Westholme Publishing, 2023), historian Michael Cecere (Westholme Publishing, 2025) examines how the inhabitants of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland reacted to the outbreak of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.
Leaders in these middle colonies, influenced by strong Loyalist sentiment within their borders and, in some cases, among themselves, fiercely debated whether to support the war in New England. [Read more…] about The American Revolution in the Middle Colonies, 1775–1776
As American forces retreated from their disastrous invasion of Canada and arrived at Ticonderoga in July 1776, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York troops took up residence to the east of the old French Lines of the Carillon Battlefield, where they began to rebuild the crumbling earthworks. [Read more…] about Fort Ticonderoga To Survey American Encampment on ‘Liberty Hill’
Researching my new book God Save Benedict Arnold, I came to appreciate the central role that New York State played in Arnold’s career and in the Revolutionary War itself.
The first shots of the American Revolution rang out early on the morning of April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Only three weeks later, on May 10, Benedict Arnold managed to capture the most strategic fortification in the colonies at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. [Read more…] about Benedict Arnold in New York
Peter Gansevoort Jr. was born into the Dutch aristocracy of Albany to Harman Gansevoort (1712–1801) and Magdalena Douw (1718–1796). His younger brother Leonard Gansevoort, was politically active, serving in the state assembly and senate, as well as the Continental Congress.
Gansevoort is also remembered today as the grandfather of author Herman Melville.
[Read more…] about Albany’s Peter Gansevoort, “The Hero of Stanwix”
Organizations and dignitaries from Northern New York and Southern Quebec will join members of the Saranac Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution for an International Memorial Service honoring the Revolutionary War veterans interred at Fort Chambly in Chambly, Quebec, on Saturday, June 4th. [Read more…] about Fort Chambly’s 1776 Smallpox Victims
Use your bank’s “bill pay” option (or just send a check)
Thanks for your support! These are difficult times. Without your support we cannot publish the Almanack.
*Donations are not tax deductible.
(Click the X in the top right corner this box to not see this message again for 7 days).