The job of repairing and restoring Fort Ticonderoga has consisted mostly of putting stones back in place. At least ninety per cent of the walls are built from the original stone, which had fallen or slipped into the moat. (The floor tiles were originally made on the place from a blue clay from the lake shores by French potters. The same clay was used in the restoration, and the same methods, and it is impossible to tell today which are the originals and which the copies.) Every bit of iron work used in the restoration was copied from an example found in the ruins. The great oak beams came from a half dozen jobs in the Adirondacks and were rough-hewn as were the originals. The carriages upon which the guns are mounted, if not original, are exact copies and the cannon themselves are all French, British and American of the period, presented by the American, British, Dutch, Haiten, San Dominican and Nicaraguan Governments, or presented by individuals (notably DeLancey Kountze) or purchased whenever they were found on the market. An immense amount of material has been found on the place itself—a cannon, thousands of cannon balls, hand grenades, swivel balls and grape shot, barrels of bullets and barrels of flints, tomahawks, hatchets, axes, hoes, gun barrels, gun locks, bayonets, sword blades, keys, hinges, door locks and every kind of tool—everything that an army could use—dug up wherever a spade is put in the ground and only a couple of years ago one of the rarest finds we have ever made—the breast plate of a suit of half-armor, French, early 18th century.
First restorations actually were carried out a wall a season. The first wing completed (the officers’ mess and quarters) was filled with relics which Mr. Pell and other members of his family had been accumulating through the years. This was accomplished just in time to lock it for protection of its contents when he went off to World War I.
Before Mr. Pell had gone to France he had no idea of charging admission to see the ruins and relics. But during his absence so many visitors came asking for admittance that Mrs. Pell, who spent her summers there superintending the work while her husband was overseas, was forced to hire a full-time guide and charge sight-seers a small sum to pay his salary. The first balance left after his salary was paid was used for the purchase of some cannon of the Revolutionary period which Mr. Pell had located in the West Indies years before.
When restoration got under way after the war, Mr. Pell’s infectious enthusiasm for Fort Ticonderoga and his host of friends all over the world, brought forth assistance from many unexpected sources. Only a few of the cannon actually used at Ticonderoga could be located, since George Washington himself had ordered those there during the early days of the Revolution sent over the snow to the siege of Boston. But Mr. Pell wanted the demilunes rearmed with authentic guns of the period. Lord Charles Beresford and Lord Haldane, hearing of the effort to restore the fort where some of their ancestors had fought, became interested and persuaded the British government to send fourteen large 24-pounders, actually cast in England for use in America during the Revolution but never shipped because the war ended too soon. After that, as Mr. Pell expressed it, he was literally bombarded with cannon, from unexpected sources.
The Ethan Allen Door (Upper Left)
Colonel Robert Means Thompson, father of Mrs. Pell, found and purchased twelve French bronze guns and mortars of the type used by the fort’s first builders. Yale University deposited cannon donated by an old graduate, DeLancey Kountze, but never displayed for lack of space. H. Jermain Slocum, retired Charleston, South Carolina, financier and nephew of the late Russell Sage, at his own expense went cannon hunting through the West Indies and South America, buying and donating many, and persuading Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Nicaragua to send others to the fort. The Netherlands, as well as the United States Army, also helped him arm the ramparts until they took on their original warlike aspect.
Archer M. Huntington became interested, and through the years was a large contributor to Ticonderoga’s restoration fund.
Scions of Philip Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton, Israel Putnam, Anthony Wayne and many other men in some way connected with Ticonderoga have deposited possessions of their ancestors within the fort. Collectors of Revolutionary rifles, swords, powder horns and snuff boxes have willed their entire collections, the result of many years’ searches, to be kept intact here. Even casual visitors have been so impressed that they have gone home and shipped family relics that the museum could never have acquired by purchase. Others have appointed themselves Ticonderoga scouts who voluntarily tipped Mr. Pell off when they located desirable objects.
One of the museum’s proud possessions is a blunderbuss used by Ethan Allen in taking the fort from the British, then given by him to Benedict Arnold, who in turn gave it to John Trumbull, the Revolutionary artist. It was purchased by the grandfather of Maj. Philip Rhinelander at a sale of Trumbull’s effects, and the Rhinelander family in turn presented it to the museum. Mr. Pell’s pet treasure was a hollow silver bullet taken from one of Sir Henry Clinton’s messengers to Burgoyne just before the latter surrendered at Saratoga. On capture, so papers accompanying the bullet show, the courier swallowed this container of secret dispatches and refused to take a “physick” until tough colonials threatened to “rip his bellie” open. The silver bullet was presented to the fort by Henry O. Tallmadge, a descendant of a Colonel Tallmadge, who was present when it was captured. Other bullets show marks of teeth made while being held in soldiers’ mouths during floggings or amputations.