The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York, founded in 1892, and whose contributions to commemorating the history of the Lake George region date back to the 1903 Battle of Lake George (William Johnson-King Hendrick) sculpture at Lake George Battlefield Park, will dedicate a new historical plaque in the park on Monday, September 7 (Labor Day) at 12 noon. [Read more…] about New Historical Plaque Being Dedicated at Lake George Battlefield
Monuments
Volunteers Sought for Champlain Monument Clean-Up
Plattsburgh, NY City Councilor David Monette is seeking volunteers to help clean up the area around one of the city’s most recognizable and controversial monuments on Saturday, August 15, 2026, from 10 am until 2 pm, weather permitting, at the Samuel De Champlain Monument Park, 30 Cumberland Avenue.
Volunteers are sought for cleaning and maintaining the monument grounds through litter removal, landscaping, weeding, and general park maintenance. [Read more…] about Volunteers Sought for Champlain Monument Clean-Up
DC National Mall & Memorial Parks Damage Virtual Event
Each year, roughly 32 million people visit the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, DC – “America’s Front Yard,” which belongs to the American people. Yet this place that commemorates so much of our history is currently under threat by the Trump regime.
Without appropriate preservation approvals, they have demolished a wing of the White House, inappropriately painted and sealed the granite Reflecting Pool, damaged the Eclipse and South Lawn, and have other plans underway to change the area’s historic structures and landscapes. [Read more…] about DC National Mall & Memorial Parks Damage Virtual Event
Rev War Remains Being Brought to Lake George for Reinternment
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
Revolutionary War Smallpox Hospital Reinterments on Schedule
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
1956: A Historic Billboard Erected at Colonel Ephraim Williams’ Grave
In 1854, a white marble obelisk was erected at the grave of Colonel Ephraim Williams. The site is located three miles south of Lake George. The British provincial officer was killed on September 8, 1755 by French-led forces at the Battle of Lake George.
One hundred and two years after the stone pillar was installed at the Williams’ grave, Fort William Henry Corporation workers built a 20-foot high x 40-foot long wooden billboard near the site. The sign was positioned adjacent to Route 9. [Read more…] about 1956: A Historic Billboard Erected at Colonel Ephraim Williams’ Grave
New York City Monuments of Black Americans: A History and Guide
“New York City got its first monument of a real Black American in 1946 when the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in the Bronx dedicated a bronze bust to Booker T. Washington,” David Felsen writes in the introduction to New York City Monuments of Black Americans: A History and Guide (History Press, 2025). “Behind every first is a story of triumph over adversity and exclusion.”
A 2021 study of the nation’s monuments found that 50% of the top 50 most memorialized people enslaved other people and that only 10% of the top 50 most memorialized people are Black/Indigenous. Just six percent of the Top 50 nationwide are women. It wasn’t until 2007, that the city dedicated its first monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman. [Read more…] about New York City Monuments of Black Americans: A History and Guide
From Crown Point to Boston: The 1920s Henry Knox Trail
In 1926, New York State Historian Alexander C. Flick recommended to the State’s Advisory Board on Battlefields and Historic Sites, created earlier in the 1920s to oversee the marking and potential acquisition of historic sites, particularly those related to the American Revolution, that the historic route of Henry Knox‘s “Noble Train of Artillery” be marked for the public.
A series of stone monuments with bronze plaques were planned by a committee from New York and Massachusetts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Knox’s expedition. The project – dubbed the Henry Knox Trail – was one of the earliest heritage trails in the United States. [Read more…] about From Crown Point to Boston: The 1920s Henry Knox Trail
Fort Amherst & Half-Way Brook’s Bloody Background
Tucked away between a car dealership and several corporate buildings at 25 Lafayette Street in Queensbury sits Hovey Pond Park, a serene oasis in the middle of suburban commercial development.
It’s a place for the jogger, the dog walker, the nature lover, and children seeking a playground. On a pleasant day, visitors may enjoy the park’s flower garden, fishing pond and wild life sanctuary, including a fast-running, bubbling creek that borders the park’s southern boundary. [Read more…] about Fort Amherst & Half-Way Brook’s Bloody Background
1886: Colonel Ephraim Williams Monument Vandalism
It was July 12, 1886, and the Glens Falls Post-Star newspaper published a story entitled “Stop the Vandals.” Relic hunters were destroying the Ephraim Williams Monument obelisk, located off Route 9 four miles south of Lake George, breaking off pieces from the corners of the once “handsome monument.” [Read more…] about 1886: Colonel Ephraim Williams Monument Vandalism
Remembering the British Prison Ship Martyrs of New York City
About 11,500 Americans lost their lives aboard British prison ships from 1776 to 1783. More soldiers, sailors and civilians died aboard the prison ships than in all of the Revolutionary War battles combined. It started with the Battle of Brooklyn (the Battle of Long Island).
The City of New York played an important role throughout the American Revolution. Not only was the city an important port of commerce, providing supplies and food to the Continental Army, but it served as a central communications route between the northern and southern states. [Read more…] about Remembering the British Prison Ship Martyrs of New York City
Re-interment of 1776 Soldiers and Smallpox Victims: An Update
This week’s “Lake George Battlefield Moments” podcast welcomes Lake George Planning & Zoning Director Dan Barusch who updates us on the status of plans to re-inter 44 Continental soldiers and other smallpox victims who died at Lake George in 1776 at Lake George Battlefield Park in May 2026. [Read more…] about Re-interment of 1776 Soldiers and Smallpox Victims: An Update
State Parks Announces 20 Nominations for State and National Registers of Historic Places
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced the most recent recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 20 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include John Steinbeck’s writing cottage in Sag Harbor; Cluett, Peabody buildings in Troy; Lake George’s Mohican Point; a small surviving commercial historic district on Seneca Street in Buffalo; the architecturally significant post Vatican II St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan; the home of prominent Black community leaders George and Theodora Bragg in Elmira; as well as additional documentation of LGBT history for the Louis N. Jaffe Art Theater Building in New York City. [Read more…] about State Parks Announces 20 Nominations for State and National Registers of Historic Places
Brooklyn’s Triumphal Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch Restored
Famed architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Grand Army Plaza as the grand entrance to Prospect Park at the time of the Brooklyn park’s creation in 1867.
In 1892, the plaza became the site of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, dedicated to those who sacrificed their lives defending the United States during the Civil War. [Read more…] about Brooklyn’s Triumphal Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch Restored
“The Hiker” at Saratoga Springs Memorializes Spanish-American War Service
The Saratoga Springs community is home to fine memorial art devoted to those who were involved in the Spanish-American War. The largest of these tributes was dedicated on May 2, 1923 in Greenridge Cemetery, and provides a tangible remembrance of those times and conditions. The sculpture, known as “The Hiker,” was created by noted artist Allen G. Newman (1875-1940) who was born in New York City and studied at the National Academy of Design.
The term “hiker” was used to describe the troops of the Spanish-American War (and later Philippine-American War) campaigns, similar to the term “doughboy” in World War I, and “GI Joe” in World War II. [Read more…] about “The Hiker” at Saratoga Springs Memorializes Spanish-American War Service
World War Two Rural Honor Rolls
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, with Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany on September 3rd. Italy declared war on Great Britain and France on June 10, 1940. Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and Japan had occupied all of what was then known as French Indochina by July 26, 1941. On December 7, 1941, Japan launched an attack on our US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – “a day that will live in infamy.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. [Read more…] about World War Two Rural Honor Rolls
Location for Buffalo Racist Mass Shooting Memorial Site Named
City of Buffalo Mayor Christopher P. Scanlon and members of the city’s 5/14 Memorial Commission have announced the location for a permanent memorial to honor the lives taken and those impacted by the racially motivated mass shooting at Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue on May 14, 2022. [Read more…] about Location for Buffalo Racist Mass Shooting Memorial Site Named
Poems, Books & Bullets: The Seeger Family & World War One
Musicologist and composer Charles Louis Seeger Jr., a pacifist and conscientious objector, was the father of folk singers Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger and Peggy Seeger all of whom were associated with anti-war movements later in the twentieth century. His younger brother Alan Seeger was a Greenwich Village poet and bohemian who had settled in Paris in 1912.
When Germany declared war on France he joined the French Foreign Legion and was killed in 1916 in action at the Battle of the Somme. His writings were published posthumously and would cement his reputation as an American war poet. In France, his memory is revered to this day. [Read more…] about Poems, Books & Bullets: The Seeger Family & World War One
The John McGraw Game: ‘Greatest Sporting Event in the History of Cortland County’
The John J. McGraw Monument in Truxton, New York is a nice sculpture, dignified and uncomplicated.
Yet it captures a great deal of what might be described as the essence of baseball, with the man himself portrayed in bas-relief on a truncated obelisk wearing his New York Giants pinstriped flannels and cap. [Read more…] about The John McGraw Game: ‘Greatest Sporting Event in the History of Cortland County’
Lake George Battlefield Park Historic Statues Being Restored
The 85-year-old bronze and granite monument to Father Isaac Jogues in Lake George’s Battlefield Park is being restored at a cost of $16,980. The refurbishing of the Park’s two other bronzes – the 1903 sculpture of Sir William Johnson with the Mohawk chieftain King Hendrick (Hendrick Theyanoguin) and the 1921 statue of an anonymous Native American – will begin this spring, said John DiNuzzo, the president of the Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance. [Read more…] about Lake George Battlefield Park Historic Statues Being Restored