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Home , Lake George (New York)

THE LEGACY OF LAKE GEORGE

The Quickening of a Nation

So shall the world go on,

To good malignant, to bad men benign.

Under her own weight, groaning

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Robert H. Christenberry MD

Milton Society

Nashville, Tennessee

May 8,2014 ------

.'

Dedicated to the memory of:

Rev. William Winston Parkinson, a passionate

and wise student of history Lake George, , is an American treasure, not only because of its unparalleled beauty, but also because of its paramount position in early American history. Native Americans called it Andia-ta-roc-te or "where the mountains close in". James Fennimore Cooper referred to the lake as Horicon in his classic 1826 novel, "The Last of the ".

Now often called the "Queen of American lakes", Lake George has evolved through several names, even as it has been a key instrument in the evolution of the human experiment on the North American continent. It provided a prodigious backdrop for centuries of drama for Native American alliances and warfare, and became the epicenter of the .

Only a few years after those cannon were quiet, the birth pangs of the of America generated in this region spread across the Atlantic between Europe and the young American colonies to the south. The likes of Mohawk chiefs, , Ethan Allen, Henry Knox, and, yes, were present in the birthing room. Lexington and Concord would forever hold their town greens sacred, but without the fire- lit stories from this naked wilderness, the American tapestry is incomplete.

PART I: Early History

The lake is in current day in the easternmost part of what would become the . 32 miles long with a maximum width of approximately two miles, it is just under 200 feet at its deepest point, and boasts over 150 islands. It was '" formed from multiple geological faults resultant from continental rifting as the were taking shape about 650 million years ago. Two rivers once flowed where the lake now exists, one flowing north to today's , and the other south to the river now known as the Hudson. Majestic mountain ranges define the contours of the basin, then and now. Those mountain peaks are still slowly increasing in height every year.

During the most recent ice age, glaciers covered the entire region, and upon receding some 10 to 12,000 years ago, the lake's features were sculpted to the appearance that we essentially know today. The glacier's gouge was massive enough to transform the former rivers into a deeper and broader lake basin. Natural dams were formed at the north and south ends as the glaciers departed, and today the lake is primarily fed by mountain streams in its watershed, and underground springs. It flows northward to its terminus at the , where it cascades 230 feet downward { r- _ .._------I

for just three and a half miles through the present day town of Ticonderoga, before emptying into the southern part of Lake Champlain.

Earliest human history of the region probably begins about 10,000 years ago when "Woodlands" Indians developed well-worn footpaths in their nomadic hunting along the natural waterway corridors. This was the vast scape along the now in the south to the St. Lawrence River and estuaries to the north. Just north of the Hudson, the long tandem paddles of Lake George and Lake Champlain were natural expanses in this water route, with relatively short portages between the major rivers and lakes. Indeed, there were less than 20 miles of canoe foot work to do, even in those ancient times, between the respective mouths of the Hudson and the 8t. Lawrence. The dense wilderness was otherwise largely impenetrable without this long highway.

Eventually, the two groups of Native Americans who shaped the destiny of this region were the Iroquois Nation and the amalgam of Algonquin tribes. The Iroquois were largely settled in present day New York and Ontario, and to some extent further south in parts of what would become New England. The Algonquin peoples were embedded to the north of the Iroquois in Canada, mostly in what is now the province of Quebec. The Hurons can be grouped with the Algonquins in the historical significance of this time and region.

The Iroquois Nation (Confederacy) was a league of 5 tribes, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk. A more minor tribe of about 1200 warriors, the Tuscarora, joined the confederacy later in 1722 when they were driven out of North Carolina by colonists. The Mohawks were the most formidable tribe, both in terms of numbers and bellicosity. They controlled the largest and easternmost part of the territory, encompassing the Lake George and Lake Champlain region, as well as most of the upper Hudson River valley. .:

Incidentally, Mohawks are often confused with the Mohicans. These two tribes were bitter enemies, the latter being Algonquins. Mohicans had originally populated the upper Hudson River banks, only to be displaced to the south and east toward Delaware by the Mohawks.

History suggests the Iroquois warred enough amongst themselves, but they hated the Algonquins more. The Iroquois moved toward long term settlements and agriculture before the Algonquins, living communally in long houses, whereas the Algonquins sheltered in wigwams, which were more portable for their hunter-gatherer culture. The word "Adirondack" is derived phonetically from the Iroquois word meaning "bark eater". The Iroquois disdainfully described the Algonquins as inept in providing food for their women and children in the hard winters: suggesting they were forced to subsist only on --I

tree bark! In the era before European exploration, the Iroquois were successful in driving the Algonquin people out of their own territories into Canada.

The hatred and polarity between these two nations would help to galvanize the foundation for future conflict between Europeans as they arrived in the New World to begin their own theater of war.

PART II: EUROPEANS ARRIVE

We do not know whether Samuel de Champlain ever saw Lake George, but we are sure he knew about it, as his Indian guides in the New World described it to him. The alliances he forged with the Algonquin and Huron peoples, and his actions indelibly set the future of Lake George into fiery motion.

Champlain first sailed to the Americas in 1599, and as the new century dawned, he turned his attention to what was soon to be called Canada. In 1608, he established Quebec where Quebec City now stands, one year after the first settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, and eleven years before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. His first settlement fared no better than Jamestown, with 20 of the 28 inaugural settlers dying that first winter, most of dysentery, the others from scurvy.

This man sailed across the Atlantic no less than 29 times, each voyage of three months or so tantamount to an astronaut venture today! He was married, but somehow that relationship did not go so well. We remember him best as a colossal explorer, but his most important contribution was as a social engineer and nation builder . ..: He had a great vision for a true New France in Quebec, and tirelessly tried to bring his dream to fruition. His plan was to incorporate the native people into societal harmony and cooperation with the imported souls from France. The totem or clan government of the Algonquins challenged Champlain's sensibilities, and initially impeded his work. Each band or tribe of Indians was led by a chief required to meet approval by all of the clan leaders, necessitating Champlain's multiple personal journeys to different tribes for diplomacy and persuasion. The Algonquins were less interested in Champlain's grand scheme than they were in recruiting the newcomers in the fight against their foe of the centuries, the Iroquois.

Champlain's letters testify to his beliefs and efforts to forge a working reconciliation between these two warring factions, but in the end, he failed rather miserably in that aspect of his dream. 3 In 1609 he ventured south from Quebec with a band of around 60 Algonquins and Hurons to keep his promise to them in dealing with an immediate Iroquois threat. On that journey, he first saw, and then christened with his own name the largest lake in North America other than the Great Lakes.

Scholars disagree where the climax of this trip occurred, but not upon what transpired. Somewhere probably near today's Ticonderoga, very near the northern end of Lake George, this compact group encountered a larger, angry war party of 200 Mohawk, who retreated overnight to prepare for battle the next day. As that battle materialized, Champlain stood in armor before the Mohawks who were in rigid formal lines. His guides pointed out the chiefs, as the French leader quietly shouldered his arquebuse a rouet, the first self-igniting musket precursor. This weapon utilized a wheel lock flint mechanism, and could be loaded with multiple shot. Champlain took his aim and with one shot mortally dispatched two of the chiefs and one warrior at their side. His lieutenants killed another chief immediately afterwards on the other flank. The skirmish ended immediately thereafter with the bewildered and frightened retreat of the Mohawk band.

In that moment, there is no doubt that Champlain re-wrote the Indian conflict on a new canvas of raw hostility, that would persist for almost two centuries. The Iroquois learned well from that humiliating day, thereafter developing and perfecting a new "more skulking" type of warfare from the shadows. After another century and a half of incubated anger, Indians would eagerly inflame and escalate their war, with the help of the Europeans, in one of the most colorful chapters in our history. And it took center stage on Lake George.

PART III: The French and Indian War

The ensuing one hundred and fifty years on Lake George, before the French and Indian War were quiet ones in recorded history.

The first white man known to have seen Lake George, was Isaac Joques, a young Jesuit missionary. He was steadfast in bringing Christianity to the Indians of Canada, but in 1643 was captured by a band of Mohawk, who imprisoned and tortured him, amputating several of his fingers. He was ultimately martyred in 1646 by the same tribe who were convinced that he was responsible for sickness and poor crops that year. The site of his miseries was only a few miles away from the lake. He first saw Lake George that year, and struck by its beauty, christened it, Lac du Saint Sacrement. The Jesuits now own small Hecker Island, on Lake George, where they constructed a beautiful tiny chapel in Father Jogues' honor in 1909, accessible only by boat.

It would be over one hundred years after Joques' death before Lake George, (renamed yet again in the 18th century by the British in honor of their king), would become the crucible of an epic battle for dominion and commerce between major world powers. Lake George was the focal point of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the outcome of which would be largely decided by the climactic events on and near the lake between 1757 and 1759.

The British colonies and the French settlements in Quebec were humming merrily along, but the wilderness of the Lake George/Champlain region dividing the two was up for grabs. The rivers and lakes that bisected that frontier provided an almost contiguous interstate artery that vitalized it for over 500 miles.

The war was arguably more about fur than anything else. Fur apparel in Europe was all the rage. The European beaver population had been largely decimated to keep everyone fashionable, and, moreover, to have a fur hat or garment from North America was particularly exotic. The mark up for a beaver pelt in France was one thousand percent.

The Europeans needed the Indians to help them feed that demand, and to help buffer them from rival Indian attacks. The Indians were pleased to have European fire power to help them in their pugnacious acrimony toward each other. The French had a natural ally in the Algonquins whom they had befriended and cohabitated with for over a century. The British and Iroquois arrangement was more mercenary, and it is unlikely that the Iroquois liked the redcoats very much, but it seemed to work.

Fort William Henry was a British log fort at the southern end of Lake George, built in' 1755 to defend their frontier efforts against Indian attack. Meanwhile, 32 miles away at the northern end where the La Chute River empties into Lake Champlain, the French were completing their more substantial fort of limestone, Carillon.

The French Marquis Montcalm decided to attack the British fort in August 1757. He had amassed at least 5000 soldiers (some historians say 8000), approximately 2000 of which were irritable Indians. housed some 2300 souls, many of whom were not soldiers. Using an awesome flotilla of bateau to transport men and artillery down Lake George, the French pummeled the fort day and night. Lieutenant George Monro, the English commander, having unsuccessfully appealed for reinforcements from Fort Edwards, 15 miles to the south, finally surrendered to the French in the civilized European manner with tablecloths and candelabra. The Indians, angry over denial of a place at the negotiation table, finalized the English defeat on their own terms, murdering some 200 of the surrendered British, including many women, children, and the infirmed left behind in the fort, 'and scores in the retreating line. The massacre is dramatized in the opening lines of Cooper's novel, Last of the Mohicans.

The humiliated British resolved that 1758 would be their year. Demoralized by a French sniper's quarry of their charismatic and inspiring young leader, Lord Howe, 15,000 British regulars were sailed up Lake George in July 1758 by their new leader, Major General James Abercrombie. The disgruntled force was positioned around Carillon, and with artillery, upon a formidable promontory dubbed Mount Defiance.

There were a paltry 3500 French soldiers at Carillon, but they had constructed abatis, an impossible bramble of felled timbers, sharpened to points, and from which the French could take cover and pick off the advancing British at will. The artillery position, though tactical, was ineffective. Abercrombie, stodgy, rigid, and with an apparent stiff upper lip, commanded wave after wave of British assault against the hopeless disaster before them. In the end, the British suffered almost 2000 casualties, and retreated, leaving less than 500 French wounded or killed.

After that battle, the French crippled Carillon, blowing up the powder magazine, abandoned their position and skedaddled northward on the water pathway to Quebec. The English chased them to Quebec, by land and by water to prepare for the next showdown.

A much prepared for and anticipated battle of pageantry occurred between the French and English on the beautiful "Plains of Abraham" just outside the city of Quebec in 1759. In a mere fifteen minutes after the swords were leveled, the now familiar Fr.ench leader Marquis Montcalm, and the English commander, G~neral James Wolfe lay dead, the fight and the war then essentially over.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris culminated the conflict, the French ceding enormous loss of most of their land holdings in North America to the British.

PART IV: The Eagle is Spawned

The British unceremoniously set up housekeeping at in 1759, re- naming it . It was only a backwater outpost by then, though, as the French had made sure it was in shambles before their exit. It would lie fallow for the next 15 years or so until May of 1775 when a colorful flamboyant American patriot b named Ethan Allen and his rowdy Green Mountain Boys would take the fort by night by simply knocking on the British commander's bedroom door and demanding his sword, while his frightened wife looked on. Very much present and posturing with Allen to lead the maneuver, was none other than Colonel Benedict Arnold.

This man's name says "traitor" like no other words in the English language. But before his infamous defection, he was one of America's most inveterate and effective heroes. Dogged, seemingly physically indestructible, and planning constantly forward, he was paradoxically brooding, bereft of humor, and not well-liked among those he sought to lead.

Arnold would build and command America's first fledgling navy. His courageous and tactical naval blueprint stalled a critical southward British advance, severely hobbling their chances of success at the high stakes Battle of Saratoga which was to follow in 1777. Indeed, he would be fighting fearlessly and effectively there, too. He seemed to be in all the right places in the infant America 1775-1777. In the end, he was perhaps just too human, and feeling under-appreciated by General Washington for his unwavering service, he unwittingly became the most un-American name in history.

Still an uber patriot in October 1776, he was instrumental in creating a small flotilla of crude gunboats on Lake Champlain, attempting to thwart a far superior and menacing British naval force encroaching from the north. The battle commenced near Valcour Island, and Arnold's fleet was predictably severely defeated, but not without a long and convoluted water dance. The flagship Philadelphia, which Arnold skippered, was a 54 foot single-masted square rigger. She took a 24 pound ball below the water line at the starboard bow, and sank in 60 feet of water but with minimal loss of life. The British had won decisively but Arnold's scheme to stop the British advance had worked, as they decided to hole up for the winter. The ensuing year of de@y allowed the COlonials to soundly defeat the redcoats at Saratoga in the autumn of 1777, turning the tide of the war permanently, and encouraging the formerly reluctant French to side with America.

Philadelphia, her armaments, and most of her artifacts were discovered by an accomplished marine engineer, Lorenzo Hagglund in 1935. She was sitting upright on the lake floor, and was raised remarkably contained and preserved from her long sleep in the frigid water. Now she enjoys a permanent berth in the National Museum of American History in the Smithsonian, complete with the cannon ball that took her down. She is the oldest American naval vessel in existence.

Boston had troubles in 1775 that could not be solved by Benedict Arnold's naval brilliance. Besieged, and seemingly hopelessly occupied and oppressed by the British, the city was out of reach of General Washington's resources or ingenuity to take her 1 back. Artillery w?s vital to do the job, and there was none to be deployed. It was Colonel Henry Knox, a gregarious and rotund 25 year old Boston bookseller, who suggested to Washington, that cannon could be transported from sleepy Fort Ticonderoga, down Lake George and the Hudson, then across Massachusetts for an eventual Boston surprise. Thus began one of the most romantic and exhilarating stories of America's beginnings.

Knox and his 19 year old brother, William, traveled from Cambridge to Fort Ticonderoga on horseback in the winter of 1775, sometimes clocking as much as 40 miles a day. Upon assembling a group of local soldiers and hired men, they packed up no less than 60 tons of cannon from the fort, and with gargantuan difficulty moved them to the head of Lake George.

Racing winter before the lake would freeze, they departed with their cargo on December 9th in three crude boats with oars and sails. It is an intrepid and rare thing, indeed, to see a vessel of any sort on present day Lake George in December! Knox recorded in his diary an arduous first day moving down the lake. The stiff head winds from the south were relentless as they shoved off at 3pm, reaching their first landing by oars at Sabbath Day Point at 9pm that night, exhausted and hungry. The diary records that "we ashore and warm'd ourselves by an exceeding good fire in an hut made by some civil Indians who were with their Ladies abed-they gave us some Venison, roasted after their manner which was very relishing".

It took eight days to course Lake George against a punishing southerly wind, more often requiring sustained excruciating rowing rather than sailing. At times they had to break through ice to move down the lake before finally reaching the precarious safety of Fort George (the former Fort William Henry). Here they had to bide their time until after Christmas, now yearning for thick ice to provide their highway down the Hudson.

With eighty oxen and an assortment of sleds and carts, they continued the slog southward, at least once losing a cannon through the ice, only to recover it intact from the bottom of the river. In less than 60 days, they arrived in Boston with every piece of artillery accounted for.

Dorchester Heights above the city afforded the mile and a half artillery range necessary to hit the British infantry lines, and just enough to also threaten the British fleet in the harbor. The leviathan task ahead was to position the cannon on the Heights th in a single night whilst the British slumbered about. On the night of March 4 , the carefully planned clandestine efforts of over 10,000 soldiers and other patriots from all walks of life were rewarded at first light by the reaction of the incredulous British. The British General Howe was reportedly heard to exclaim, "My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months!". The 8 cannon were perched as strategically as planned, and the British began to hastily fold their tents. It was March s", the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

PART V: The Legacy of Lake George

Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter in 1791 that "Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw ... ". With the arrival of the railroad and steamships, the lake became the playground of the very rich from downstate and New England. Opulent hotels and camps dotted the lake's shores, and the well-healed would arrive with steamer trunks to stay for weeks in the temperate months. The Sagamore Hotel in Bolton Landing is the only crown jewel of those resorts that survives. As more reliable ocean ships and air travel came to be, the very rich were replaced by the not so rich. Georgia O'Keefe lived on the lake in her twenties, and some of her most treasured works were painted there.

Today the lake is within the Adirondack Park, the largest parcel of public protected land in the lower forty eight. Created in 1892, the park began as an early visionary move to conserve not only the Adirondack region, but those lands and waters downstate that would be forever damaged by the sequelae of logging. At 6 million acres, it is larger than Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and the Great Smokey Mountain parks combined.

Lake George is an oligotrophic lake, a fragile ecosystem characterized by low nutrient salts and organic plant life, producing an oxygen rich and crystal clear body of water. It is constantly threatened by fertilizer and road salt run-off .from. its immense watershed, and by inadvertent introduction of invasive plant and animal species such as Eurasian milfoil, zebra mussels, and the Asian clam. All of these, along with indiscriminate development, imperil the lake with potential algae blooms and other unwanted underwater plant growth.

Fortunately, there is today a healthy consortium of people with vision and determination to preserve this great historical monument. Most of the sites in the Lake George region described herein are well-preserved, and in some cases, even restored. The and resolve of the fledgling American nation is revered and emulated still the world over, and no better inscribed and worthy of honor than here. It is a stirring experience to behold this alluring place, arid to contemplate its rich stories and legends that form so much of the earliest American fabric. ------

SOURCES:

Fischer, David Hackett, Champlain's Dream, Random House, 2008

Lake George Association.org

Lewis,Tom, The Hudson: A History, Yale University Press, 2005

The Knox Trail, New York State Museum, www.nvsm.nvsed.gov

McCullough, David, 1776, Simon and Schuster, 2005

Nelson, James, Benedict Arnold's Navy, McGraw Hill, 2006

Schneider, Paul, The Adirondacks: A history of America's First Wilderness, 1998

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