Ticonderoga, NY 7/2/14

An unplanned side trip took us to Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner, New Hampshire.  The museum is small, privately owned, and superb.  Most of the items exhibited were made in the 20th century by Woodlands Indians using ancient techniques.  We saw...

several baskets made of ash wood…

moose-hair embroidery...

and porcupine-quill embroidery.

We continued our drive west through New Hampshire and Vermont...

and took a ferry across the Champlain River...

to Lake Champlain in New York state,...

and Fort Ticonderoga.  During the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, the fort, built by the French in 1759, was captured and recaptured by the British, French and Americans.  In the fall of 1777, the British evacuated Ticonderoga largely destroying its fortifications and structures.

A section of the fort photographed in the 1870s.

In 1909 the family of William Ferris Pell, who purchased the fort and grounds in 1820, began restoration of the fort into the museum it is today.

On May 10, 1775, the Americans captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British.  During the winter of 1776, when the Continental Army desperately needed armaments, Colonel Henry Knox transported more than 60 tons of military supplies from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. Ticonderoga’s cannons were placed on Dorchester Heights which had a commanding view of Boston. The threat of these guns forced the British to evacuate Boston.

Following is a painting from the 1800s showing the Fort Ticonderoga cannons being dragged through the mountains to Boston.

Powder horns owned by soldiers stationed at Fort Ticonderoga.

The fort's flag-lowering ceremony at dusk.