the conclusion that the three hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of Lake Champlain should be suitably celebrated by New
York State; and to that end we respectfully recommend the enactment
of the following bill.
Thereafter a bill was prepared and submitted to the legislature,
which was amended in some respects, and subsequently enacted and
became chapter 149 of the New York Laws of 1908, providing in
substance for a celebration of the tercentenary of the discovery of
Lake Champlain by Samuel Champlain in the month of July, 1609, which
celebration, by the terms of the bill, is to occur in the month of
July, 1909, at various points in the Champlain valley.
The commission appointed thereunder consisted of H. Wallace Knapp,
Mooers, N. Y., chairman; Henry W. Hill, of Buffalo, secretary; Walter
C. Witherbee, Port Henry, treasurer; James J. Frawley, New York City;
James Shea, Lake Placid; James A. Foley, New York City; John H.
Booth, Plattsburgh; John B. Riley, Plattsburgh; Louis C. Lafontaine,
Champlain; Howland Pell, New York City.
This commission was empowered under the last-mentioned statute to
enter into negotiations and co-operate with the State of Vermont,
the Government of the United States, the Dominion of Canada, and the
Province of Quebec, and either or all of them in such tercentenary
celebration, and appropriated by chapter 466 of the New York Laws of
1908 the sum of $50,000 for that purpose.
The Vermont commission made its report to the legislature of Vermont,
held in the fall of 1908, also recommending, among other things,
that a proper celebration be held in conjunction with the State of
New York, the Government of the United States, and the Dominion of
Canada, a copy of which report is annexed hereto. Subsequently the
State of Vermont made an appropriation of $25,000 to enable that
State to participate in the tercentenary celebration.
The commission appointed thereunder consisted of Governor George H.
Prouty, chairman; Lynn M. Hays, of Burlington, secretary; Walter H.
Crockett, of St. Albans; Rev. John M. Thomas, of Middlebury; Horace
W. Bailey, of Rutland; W. J. Van Patten, of Burlington; Frank L.
Fish, of Vergennes; Arthur L. Stone, of St. Johnsbury; and F. O.
Beaupre, of Burlington.
The facts warranting federal appropriation are briefly set forth
in the report of the New York and Vermont commissions, and in
amplification thereof the following additional facts are respectfully
submitted to the consideration of the President and the Congress of
the United States:
Long before its discovery by Samuel Champlain, in July, 1609, Lake
Champlain was the resort and battle ground of the savage Algonquin,
Huron, and Iroquois nations who peopled its islands and circumjacent
beautifully shaded and picturesque shores. It was a paradise for the
aborigines, whose native customs and adventurous but precarious life
were a startling revelation to such an explorer as Champlain, coming
as he did from the refinements of French life of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Still he was hospitably received and escorted
to and through the lake, then known as “Caniaderiguarunte,” which
signifies the “gate of the country.” The lake was also known as “Mer
des Iroquois,” and traversed by the warring Indian tribes, whose
canoes formed picturesque flotillas in those early days on the blue
waters of the lake.
Had Champlain been gifted with the poetic imagination of a Homer or a
Virgil, he might have cast into an epic the story of his explorations
and discoveries, which were quite as thrilling as those of the Iliad,
the Odyssey, or the Aeneid. Other poets have dwelt upon the beauties
of this lake and have sung of the tragic events that have occurred on
its waters.
The Champlain valley is one of the historic portions of the American
Continent. Its Indian occupation was succeeded by that of the French,
and in turn by the English. From its discovery in July, 1609, to the
battle of Plattsburgh, in September, 1814, Lake Champlain was the
thoroughfare of many expeditions and the scene of many sanguinary
engagements. Noted French, British, and American officers visited
it and stopped at its forts, from Ste. Anne on the north, founded
at Isle La Motte in 1665, to St. Frédéric, founded in honor of the
French secretary of foreign affairs, Frédéric Maurepas, by Marquis de
Beauharnois, governor-general of Canada, at Crown Point in 1731, and
Fort Carillon, founded at Ticonderoga in 1766, on the south.
The grants of some of its islands and adjacent shore lands under
French seignories were the subject of a long controversy between
the French and British Governments, challenging on the one side the
consideration of such officials as Marquis de Beauharnois and others
under Louis XV and Louis XVI, and on the other side such statesmen
as Lord Dartmouth, Edmund Burke, and Sir Henry Moore under the
British Crown. But few, if any, occupations were made under French
seignorial grants, and the controversy finally ended after the Seven
Years’ French and Indian war, which terminated with the capture of
Ticonderoga and Crown Point by the British in 1759, and the later
sovereign control by the Americans during the Revolution.
The Champlain valley was the scene of important military and one
naval engagement during the Revolutionary war, and permission has
been obtained from the War Department to raise from the waters
of Lake Champlain the _Royal Savage_ at Valcour Island, the
flagship of Benedict Arnold during that engagement. The history of
Ticonderoga and Macdonough’s victory at the battle of Plattsburgh, in
September 1814, are of such national importance as to merit federal
consideration during the forthcoming celebration of the discovery of
the lake.
For two hundred years or longer the Champlain valley was the highway
between Albany on the south and Quebec on the north, through which
surged the tides of war and travel, until every prominent point and
important island in the lake was marked by some notable event worthy
of historic mention. The proposed celebration of the discovery of
the lake will commemorate some of these important events. Sewall S.
Cutting, D. D., in a poem read at the University of Vermont in 1877
thus describes some of these events. He says:
I shift my theme, nor yet shall wander far;
My song shall linger where my memories are.
Dear Lake Champlain! Thou hast historic fame—
The world accords it in thy very name.
Not English speech these savage wilds first heard,
Not English prows that first these waters stirred;
Primeval forests cast their shadows dark
On dusky forms in craft of fragile bark,
When first the paleface from the distant sea
Brought hither conquering cross and fleur-de-lis.
On frowning headlands rose the forts of France—
Around them villages, and song, and dance.
Four generations came and passed away.
Of treacherous peace and sanguinary fray.
When hostile armies hostile flags unfurled.
To wage the destiny of half the world.
No part of the United States can vie in comparison with Lake
Champlain and its environs for historic importance and the ultimate
significance of the national and international events occurring in
that valley. “Every bay and island of the lake and nearly every
foot of its shore have been the scene of some warlike movement—the
midnight foray of the predatory savage, the bloody scout of
frontier settlers, the rendezvous of armed bands, or the conflict
of contending armies.” These stirring events cover a period of
centuries—from the traditional history of the Indians to the close of
the war of 1812.
From the earliest periods of settlement in Canada, New England,
and New York the valley of Lake Champlain, both as watercourse
or highway, served as a thoroughfare by which, in hostile times,
predatory excursions were directed against both the French and
English frontiers, and over which captives were conveyed into
unenviable captivity. This was the route traversed by delegations
engaged in diplomatic relations between the French and English
colonists, and was used by agents employed to arrange an exchange
of captives. The valley was a highway of commerce, particularly in
the operations of the fur trade. Its Indian name, meaning “door of
the country,” was an apt designation, for into it there marched
the flower of contending armies of France, England, and the United
States, who struggled persistently for its control. The destinies of
the United States and Canada and of England’s colonial policy were
largely decided by what occurred in the Champlain valley.
An unjust historical perspective is often created by placing too high
value upon the significance of figures. Large armies do not always
count for as much in their influence upon the course of the world’s
history as events more hidden from view and surrounded with less of
glamour. The one more easily bewitches the eyes, but the other is
more likely to appeal to reason. The history of the Champlain valley
exhibits in relief momentous martial and naval engagements and in
intaglio the deeds of individuals and collections of men pregnant
with far-reaching results in the evolution of the continent of North
America.
Samuel Champlain laid the foundations of New France at Quebec in
1608, and in 1609 led an expedition into the Richelieu River,
accompanied by a retinue of Algonquian and other Canadian Indians.
At the falls of Chambly he abandoned the vessel in which he had
sailed, and by portaging and canoeing reached the entrance of a great
lake, which he named Lake Champlain. Its confines constituted one
of the hunting grounds of the well-organized Iroquoian Confederacy.
The Iroquois were then at great enmity with the Algonquians and the
Canadian Hurons.
On the night of July 29, 1609, Champlain fell in with one of the
hunting parties of the Iroquois. They spent the night in parleying
and uttering defiance at one another, and on the morning of July
30 the now well-known battle of Champlain took place at or near
the site of Ticonderoga, as is generally believed by the best
historians. The significance of this battle is attested by the
alienation of the Iroquois from the French and their affiliation with
the Dutch and English, and was one of the embryonic factors which,
under development, ultimately saved northern New York and a large
contiguous territory to English instead of French interests.
France claimed the region by right of discovery, but England sought
to repress her by the limitations of treaty. In 1731 France violated
the compact of peace by the erection of Fort St. Frédéric on the
peninsula known better as Crown Point. The Iroquois, as claimants of
territorial ownership, in June, 1737, protested against the French
occupation. In 1739 the French commandant promised the Iroquois that
France would not encroach or settle south of Fort St. Frédéric,
but he claimed for his King all the watershed of the St. Lawrence,
inclusive of Lake Champlain and Lake George. In 1742 the fort,
having been enlarged, was the strongest work held by the French in
Canada—Quebec and Louisburg only excepted. The five years’ war,
familiarly known as King George’s war, involved the subjects of
France and England in conflict, both in Europe and in America. A
nominal peace was established by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in
1748. But soon the Acadian and other boundary contentions between
the two Crowns were in ferment.
France practiced subtlety in her diplomatic negotiations,
strengthened her frontier posts, and inoculated her Indian allies
with hatred of her English colonial neighbors. In 1755 she built Fort
Carillon, afterwards Ticonderoga, and thus advanced her outposts.
Henceforth, and in a seven years’ war, Fort Carillon and Ticonderoga
bore the brunt of frontier aggrandizement. In August of that year
Dieskau occupied Crown Point with 700 regulars, 1,600 Canadians,
and 700 Indians. In 1756, 2,000 men of France were engaged on
Fort Carillon; in 1757 it was garrisoned with 9,000 men under the
Marquis de Montcalm. On July 8, 1758, Abercromby, with regulars and
provincials, unsuccessfully stormed its works and lost nearly 2,000
men. In the same year Robert Rogers, the intrepid ranger, lost 125
out of a total of 180 men. Upon the evacuation of the region by the
French in 1759 General Amherst took possession of Ticonderoga in
July, and of Crown Point in August. In 1760 Amherst assembled an army
of 15,000 men at Crown Point, and in August of that year Colonel
Haviland, with about 3,300 men, opened fire upon the French post at
Isle aux Noix, forced the French commander, Bourlamaque, to withdraw,
and captured the garrison that remained behind.
For a time after the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the region rested
in comparative quiescence. England’s acquisition by treaty of the
vast domain of Canada eradicated the long-standing imbroglios with
France in North America; but the intercolonial wars had schooled the
English-American colonists in the arts of prowess and of war. The
colonists also had greater freedom to consider internal interests,
being now relieved from the erstwhile collisions with the French. A
narrow colonial policy lent itself toward the growth of a spirit of
resentment in the colonies, and England’s determination to enforce
obedience to her will by the employment of military authority
served only to fan the slumbering embers into a conflagration. It
was under these conditions in May, 1775, that the audacious Ethan
Allen, accompanied by only about 83 men, surprised the English
garrison at Fort Ticonderoga and that Seth Warner took Crown Point,
in each case without bloodshed. When De la Place, the English
officer at Ticonderoga, asked Allen by what authority he demanded
the fort’s surrender, he replied with these now memorable words: “By
the authority of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.”
The personality of Allen was and is yet a subject of academic
controversy, but his action in this affair is a landmark in the
romantic history of America.
Benedict Arnold has been execrated for his treason to his country,
yet his name is connected with one of the greatest of patriotic
services during the American Revolution. On October 11, 1776, he
engaged in an extraordinary naval battle on Lake Champlain against
the overwhelming odds of the British fleet under Sir Guy Carleton.
This battle is in our naval annals of the Revolution what Bunker Hill
is to our military history—“a battle wherein glory and renown were
gained in defeat.” Spears, the naval historian, has characterized it
thus: “Not only was the moral effect of this battle quite as great
in the courage it gave the Americans, and the pause for thought it
gave the enemy; it served to head off a victorious invading British
army bound for Albany and the subjugation of northern New York. It
taught the British that the Americans were not only willing, but they
were able fighters. In spite of the tremendous odds against them, at
the last they had proved themselves as unyielding as the rocks that
echoed back the roar of the conflict.”
Burgoyne made an unsuccessful attack upon the American occupants of
Fort Ticonderoga in June, 1777, but with 7,000 men had forced the
abandonment of Crown Point in that month; and in July, having erected
a battery on Mount Defiance, which commanded Fort Ticonderoga, forced
the Americans to evacuate it on the night of the 6th. The termination
of the American Revolution, save for internal controversies between
New York and Vermont, ended the storm and stress period in the
Champlain valley for many years, until our second war with Great
Britain.
From September 6 to 11, 1814, various land engagements took place
about Plattsburgh. The British forces, numbering about 11,500 troops
and including many of Lord Wellington’s veterans, were under Sir
George Prevost, governor and commander-in-chief in British North
America; the Americans, commanded by Macomb and Bissell, numbered
4,500 men. On September 11, 1814, the American navy on the lake,
commanded by Thomas Macdonough, defeated the British squadron under
the command of Commodore George Downie. This naval battle was crucial
in bringing the war of 1812 to a termination. The success was
acclaimed by the American people everywhere by rejoicing, bonfires,
and illuminations, and was sung in the folk and war ballads of the
day. Congress recognized its national significance by officially
thanking the whole force engaged, and by voting gold medals to
Macdonough, Henley, and Cassin, and a silver medal to each of the
other commissioned officers. In this victory the United States gained
prestige for the demands of the treaty of peace, and an estoppel was
put upon England’s endeavor to get possession of the northeast corner
of the State of Maine.
If the lake itself was the door of the whole northern country,
Larrabee’s Point, on the Vermont side, opposite Fort Ticonderoga, was
a side door to New England, and from that side door the New England
frontiers suffered repeatedly the havoc of Indian devastations. But
there are other places, besides those hitherto mentioned, whose
historic associations are inseparable from a narration of the
landmarks of the Champlain valley. At Burlington, Vt., the first
steamboat on the lake was launched in 1808 and bore the name of that
state. This was only a year after Fulton’s steamer, the _Clermont_,
first plied the Hudson from New York to Albany. Shortly thereafter,
during the period of our second war with Great Britain, Burlington
was a garrisoned post and a base of supplies.
On the Isle La Motte (named from Pierre de St. Paul, sieur de la
Motte-Lusière, a captain of the famous Carignan regiment), the
French built a fort in 1666, which was named Ste. Anne, and in
July of that year, while garrisoned by several companies of the
regiment above alluded to, was invested by hostile Mohawks, whose
depredations included the death of Captains de Traversy and de Chazy.
In October, 1666, M. de Tracy, governor-general of New France, guided
and assembled an expedition on the Isle La Motte for the purpose
of chastising the Iroquois. Twelve hundred combatants, borne by a
fleet of 300 bateaux and canoes, and strengthened by two pieces of
artillery, were engaged. They penetrated to the remotest hamlets of
these Indians and planted the arms of France, in token of taking
formal possession of the whole northern part of New York. The French
remained undisturbed from the Mohawks for nearly a quarter of a
century. Fort Ste. Anne became a Jesuit mission station and was
visited by Bishop Laval in 1668. In August, 1690, Capt. John Schuyler
camped there during his return from a foray into Canada. Gens. Philip
Schuyler and Richard Montgomery met on the island in September, 1775,
during their advance against St. John’s and Montreal, and laid there
the plans for that invasion of Canada. Now the shrine of Ste. Anne,
on the west side of the island, is visited annually by thousands of
devout pilgrims.
Maj. Robert Rogers and 142 men came into Missisquoi Bay in the autumn
of 1760, secreted their boats and some provisions, and went off on an
expedition against the St. Francis Indians, near the village of Three
Rivers, which they burned. Earlier in that year this same intrepid
ranger had landed at the place called Rouse’s Point, near which he
was attacked by a superior body of French from the Isle aux Noix. The
French were defeated and their commander was slain.
Swanton, in Vermont, at an early period formed a considerable
settlement of the French and Indians, being then “probably the
largest in the Champlain valley with the exception of Crown Point.”
At the mouth of Otter Creek, the largest river in Vermont, where Fort
Cassin was built, the American squadron was fitted out in 1814 for
battle against the English navy. This fort was named for Lieutenant
Cassin of our navy, who, with Captain Thornton of the United States
Artillery, in May, 1814, had defended the American fleet then
building there from attempted destruction by the British.
A little to the north of Rouse’s Point are the ruins of Fort
Montgomery, built by error in what was then Canadian soil, and often
called on that account “Fort Blunder,” but corrected by international
boundary concessions. Rouse’s Point is a place of commercial interest
and the most important port of entry on this frontier. Near by is
Point au Fer, fortified in 1776 by the patriot General Sullivan, but
occupied by the British in June of the next year and relinquished
by them only as late as 1788. At Valcour Island, off Bluff Point
and Hotel Champlain, the scene of Arnold’s naval battle of 1776,
the wreck of the _Royal Savage_ lies under water to this day as a
reminder of the beginnings of our national naval adventures. At the
head of the lake to the south, near the present Whitehall, Maj.
Israel Putnam, in August, 1758, was engaged in watching the enemy’s
maneuvers, and had a fierce encounter in the forest with French and
Indians. He was captured, tied to a tree by the Indians, who made
preparations to roast him alive. Only the stern interposition of
the French officer, Marin, prevented them from dispatching him thus
cruelly and robbing the patriot cause of one of its bravest leaders
during the American Revolution.
The New York and Champlain commissions have concluded contracts with
Mr. L. O. Armstrong, of Montreal, to present Indian pageants on
Lake Champlain during the tercentenary celebration. These will be
presented by 150 native Indians, descendants of the original tribes
that occupied portions of the Champlain valley at the time of its
discovery by Champlain. They will reproduce the battle of Samuel
Champlain with the Iroquois and also present a dramatic version of
Longfellow’s Hiawatha on floating barges anchored on the waters of
the lake at various places where exercises are to be held.
It is desirable that the United States detail national troops and
the States of New York and Vermont regiments from the National
Guard to present military pageants at Ticonderoga, Plattsburgh, and
Burlington. The two commissions have decided to hold formal exercises
on July 5, 1909, at Crown Point, on July 6 at Fort Ticonderoga,
on July 7 at Plattsburgh, on July 8 at Burlington, and on July 9
at Isle La Motte, at each of which places Indian pageants will be
presented.
The proposed celebration of the discovery of Lake Champlain may also
include a celebration of such colonial, national, and international
events occurring since the discovery of the lake as to make it
eminently proper that the Government of the United States officially
participate in the exercises commemorating these historical events.
Historical addresses and other literary exercises are to be held,
and it is important that the United States Government invite and
entertain representatives of the Republic of France, the Kingdom of
Great Britain, and the Dominion of Canada. The celebration is of
national and international importance, and the committee recommends
that the resolution do pass.
II. ENGLISH FORTS
The Crown Point forts standing within the confines of the State
Reservation at Crown Point, were frequently mentioned during the
Tercentenary celebration exercises as well as during the dedicatory
ceremonies of the Champlain memorials.
They are of historical and public interest, now that they belong to
the State, through the generosity of Witherbee, Sherman & Co., and
will be preserved from further devastation.
Fort Frédéric was built by Marquis de Beauharnois in honor of the
French Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Frédéric Maurepas, in 1731.
The English forts were constructed under the supervision of General
Jeffrey Amherst as will appear from the following excerpts of the
official “Correspondence of William Pitt,” edited by Gertrude Selwin
Kimball and published by the Macmillan Company.