Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1909-07-09
FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1909.
IN CHAMPLAlN'S HONOR,
Grown Points Big Day. Governor
Hughes and Ex-Msyor Seth
Low Make Addresses,

POrt Henry, N, y, July 0.-At hlstOr.
ical old Crown Point, where three cen.
turies ago Samuel Champlain with his
Algonquin allies engaged in battle
against the Iroquois, struggle which
has been described as one of the cardi.
nal events of American history, there
began to-day ceremonies which will last
week. They have been undertaken by
the states of New York and Vermont in
celebration of the tercentenary of Cham.
plains discovery of the lake that bears
his name.
The occasion took on a dual signifi-
canoe in that it celebrated the three hun.
dredth anniversary of the discovery of
the lake and the 1880 anniversary of the
inde pendence of the United States.
Governor Hughes said in part
Three nations join to-day in common
recognition of the sons who here dis.
played valor and heroism worthy of the
highest standards of each. Without
taunt or bitterness, without vain regret
for the inevitable, without the suspicious
of i'll will or the boastings of ill natured
rivalry, we retrace the paths of early
strife.
Champlain and Montcalm, Lord Howe
and Amhert, Ethan Allen, Seth Warner,
Israel Putnam, Philip Schuyler and
Richard Montgomery forever invest this
beautiful valley with the charm of heroic
deeds and chivalric loyalty. Here French
man, Englishmen and Americans may
find their heroes. and in examples of
bravery, of high resolve and fearless un-
selfish devotion no one of them need
yield the palm to others.
POINTS STIRRING HISTORY.
But these ruins, suggestive as they
are of enterprise, of skillful preparation
and of lavish outlay are in truth the
monument of batfled ambition and of
disappointed hopes.
The French destroying their own
work, abandoned their fort to the En-
glish. Only few years later, in 1915,
the Green Mountain boy, Seth Warner,
with his little band, took possession
without blow. The next year, retreat
ing from Canada the Americans regard
Led Crown Point as indefensible, and,
burying here hundreds of their comrades.
pushed on in distress and restitution. to
Ticonderoga.
1t was from Crown Paint, later in the
year 1776, that Arnold set forth with his
little fleet to check the designs of the
English General Carlton and in defeat in
the battle of Valcour Island won lasting
Iaurels for the American name by his
military skill and indomitable courage.
Hither by rare strategy, he succeeded in
returning, but not to stay; and Crown
Point again came into possession of the
British. The next year arrived Burgoyne
with his great army, spreading terror
and confusion, issuing grandiloquent
and insolent proclamation, sweeping
with resistless force to Fort Edward,
holding Crown Point and reducing Ii
conderoga, only to meet the appalling
disaster of Saratoga, where the success
of the American arms DESTROYED the
basis for British hope of dominion over
the Colonies and assured the final success
of the cause of independence.
Upon this vantage point have stood
French and English, each in its turn
bent upon dominatingl the future of
this favored land. Each regarded the
other as the foe of its ambition, and its
rival in the scheme of conquest. But
destiny would have it otherwise, and
amid these ruins of ambition were laid
the foundations of the Republic under
whose banner we meet to- day, the friend
both of France and of England, in whose
blessings the children of both the rivals
share, whose peaceful progress is boon
to all mankind.
Ex-Mayor Seth Low who followed the
Governor, said:
This celebration carries us back to the
Frances of Henry of Navarro and to the
England of James l. 1t also carries us
back, upon this continent, to the suprem-
acy of the Five Nations of the Iroquois,
among the red men of the forest. Crown
Point has this significance, in the history
of all this region, that it was near here
that Champlain with his Canadian Indian
allies of the Huron and Algonquin tribes,
first met the Irquois in battle.
Up to that dramatic moment the
Irsquois had never seen firearms, and
when, in the course of the fight, Cham
plain stepped forward, clad in armour,
and with his arquebuse killed one of the
lroquois chieftains, at distance, the I'M