The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-03-27
OLD TICoNDERoaA.
Traditions Of the Fort That Occupied a Con-
spicuous Place in the Revolutionary War.

pretty village of Ticonderoga, up the
outlet of Lake George, where one finds
good hotels and all the amenities.
Lake George is three miles away on
the south, and Lake Champlain two
miles on the east, while at the door in
the falls of the outlet is almost every
variety of form that falling water caD
assume. This outlet as it leaves Lake
George, is a considerable mill-stream
of clear, cold water, sparkling and
murmuring among meadows until,
reaching the village, it falls 250 feet
in as many yards, covering almost at
3 leap the difference III level between
the two lakes. In its natural state
the cataract must have been a romantic
picture, but it's waters are now so OBJ
stucted by dams and vexed by mill
wheels that much of their beauty has
vanished.
The great feature of interest, how
ever, is old Fort Ticonderoga. As one
glides from the outlet into the lake he
sees over a marsh on the left a gaunt,
craggy promontory rising abruptly
out of the water, and stretching back
into the forest n well-defined wall or
trap 100 feet above the level of the
lake. The railway coming up from
Whitehall pierces the barrier by a tun-
mel. On the right, in the curve of the
bay, formed partly by this promontory,
is the dock where the large steamers
land their passengers for lake George.
This promontory is Ticonderoga, one
of the most historic spots in America.
C~lambering up its lodges to the sam
NIT, n finds a green, slightly-rolling
plateau, with black rocks o%utcropping
here and there among the grass, and
in the center gaant and ragged walls
of masonry. In some of them
enclosures still cape, and beside
them moat and s%ally-port, north and
west bastions, parade and barracks,
are still traceable. A little further
east, where the cliff projects over
the water, may be defined the outlines
of a redoubt. Sheep are feeding now
among the grim ruins, and one may
linger all day without being disturbed
by any chance passer. 1t is a strange,
eventful history that of this rock.
When the French engineers of Baron
Dieskau first selected it, and raised
here the walls of their Fort Carlton,
they did tito command the great high
way between the English colonies on
the south and their own dominion of
Canada, a highway which, making use
of the Hudson and the two lakes
George and Champlain-gave almost
uninterrupted water communication
between the st. La wrence and the At
lantic at New York. And so it came
about that all the wars between these
French and English colonies resolved
themselves into a struggle for the POI
session of this commanding rock. In
like name it became The first point
aimed at and won by the American
colonies in their later struggle with
England for their independence.
Strange memories cluster about the
gray old ruin, which a dreamy Octo-
Der day is apt to revivify. First, one
thousand gay Frenchmen in blue coats,
and half as many Iroquois in war-paint
and feathers, march away up the out
let toward Lake George, bound on the
congenial errand of a midnight as
sault on some unguarded fortress or
~sleeuing settlement. But in a few
days, come streaming back, broken,
defeated. They have met johnson
and the proyinciais at Fort William
Henry, at the head of the lake. Next,
Vaudreuil on the same errand,
wading through the March SHOWS, but
is broken on the same sturdy barrier.
But the Frenchmen will persist, and
five months later Montcalm, with
pennons waving over eight thousand
men in arms, comes ZIP the lake, bound
to sweep the English from George.
He does it, but the year is hardly out
ere Ambercrombie, with fifteen thous-
and Englishmen, sits down before the
fort and demands its surrender. There
is a heavy fight, but the English re-
treat only to appear the next year
under an ADLER general and overthrow
the French power in America.
Under English rule the old fort saw
peaceful days. The quiet lakes we're
no more the field OF ~contending ma
tons. Iroquois and Mohawks went
no more on the war-path. A corpor-
ais guard of forty men lounged about
the crumbling ramparts, watched the
lizard basking in the ~sally-port, drank
King Georges health, and shuffied
cards ON unused drum-heads. Then
came the morning of the 10th of May,
1875. when in the gray dawn a motley
band of frontiersmen in backwoods
garb, headed by one Ethan Allen, of
Bennington, swarmed over the para
pets and drew up OF the parade. We
should like to have seen the expression
Of the old red-faced martinez who
commanded when confronted by this
of farmers and ordered to surrender
I'm the name of the great Jehovah
and the continental congress"
One more eyentful action took place
here, and then the old pile was re-
legated to its present state of desola-