page_title: Mount Independence (Vermont)
section_title: Origins of the American fort
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Independence (Vermont) / History / American Revolution / Origins of the American fort
caption_attribution_description: English: Philip John Schuyler (1733 - 1804), general in the American Revolution and a United States Senator from New York.
context_page_description: Mount Independence on Lake Champlain in Orwell, Vermont, was the site of extensive fortifications built during the American Revolutionary War by the American army to stop a British invasion. Construction began in July 1776, following the American defeat in Canada, and continued through the winter and spring of 1777. After the American retreat on July 5 and 6, 1777, British and German troops occupied Mount Independence until November 1777.
  After the American Revolution, Mount Independence was farm land, used for grazing sheep and cattle. It is now a state historic site, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972 for its historical significance.
context_section_description: The decision to fortify Mount Independence was made at Fort Crown Point on July 7, 1776, by a Council of War presided over by Northern Department Commander and Major General Philip Schuyler. Less than a week earlier, an American army had returned after a disastrous ten-month invasion of Canada. Morale was low, and the defeated army was ravaged by smallpox.
  In a letter, Schuyler told commander in chief George Washington, the peninsula opposite Ticonderoga was "so remarkably strong as to require little labour [sic] to make it tenable against a vast superiority of force, and fully to answer the purpose of preventing the enemy from penetrating into the country south of it."
  Twenty-one field officers objected to the move from Crown Point to Mount Independence, but on July 11 work began on the new site under the direction of military engineer Jeduthan Baldwin of Brookfield, Massachusetts. Within the week, much of the army relocated to Ticonderoga while men labored on Mount Independence to clear the forest and build huts and barracks.
  The peninsula gained its new name on Sunday, July 28, 1776, after Colonel Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania read the Declaration of Independence to assembled troops.
caption: Major General Philip Schuyler
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