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.