Plattsburg & Valcour Bay- Sunday, October 11, 2026

      The reason for this weekend in the month of craziness is the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Valcour Bay (a.k.a., the Battle of Valcour Island).  Here's a good example of how educational these weekends are for Scott.  Truth be told, he didn't even recognize the name of this battle before this weekend, but has found it to be an extremely interesting and even important engagement in the Revolution. 

     The situation was this: General Guy Carleton, the British governor of Quebec, had repulsed an invasion of his province by the Americans and the Patriots had left there broken and in shambles.  Carleton used the opportunity to invade up the corridor of Lake Champlain.  American General Benedict Arnold, before he had become the infamous traitor, worked to build a small American fleet on that lake in order to help defend it.  Arnold knew the British had more guns and more boats, so he tried to set a trap for the British.  He positioned his boats in a line across the channel between the mainland and Valcour Island, and then tried to bait the British to engage him in the narrow passage, where the British wouldn't be able to bring all of their guns into the action.  Ultimately, the Americans lost, and many ships that weren't sunk in the ensuing battle were eventually destroyed in an effort to keep them from being captured.  Arnold had lost here, but had bought the Americans a little bit more time.  Upon reaching Fort Ticonderoga, Carleton decided not to try to face the winter here and turned back towards Quebec.  That delayed the capture of that fort until the next year, 1777, and the Americans used that time to continue to build their forces into what they would eventually use to force the British surrender at the Battle of Saratoga.

       By chance, Scott was able to get a hotel that was walking distance from the beach where this morning's activities were going to be.  We left there car parked there when we left the hotel at about 9:00 am.  We crossed the mostly empty main street to a convenience store- a "Stewart's Shops," a chain that Emma remembered from her time in the Hudson Valley.   We had a "second breakfast" there before heading to the Plattsburgh City Beach.

     What we will probably remember most from this morning is the wind and the cold.  We were just wearing hoodies but we would have been justified in wearing winter coats instead.  The wind was so powerful that the re-enactment was almost cancelled entirely because the boats couldn't make it out onto the lake against the heavy gusts.  Really, we had come down to the beach too early, since the doings weren't scheduled to begin until 10:00, but the hotel and car were just far enough away to make it impractical for us to walk back there and return again.

     The local Daughter's of the American Revolution chapter sponsored today's ceremony as they have every year since 1895.  In many ways, it was an oddly planned ceremony.  It was as if they weren't sure where the people were going to gather for it.  A large tent had seats for a band and a stage for the people who were taking part in the ceremony, but they were facing the beach.  No one wanted to stand down on the beach this morning with the cold winds blowing.   Nearly everyone there was standing between the tent and a large building that offered a tiny bit of a shelter from the wind.   Before the ceremony began, the master of ceremonies who was hosting had the common sense to turn the podium to face the crowd, but the loudspeakers were still facing the lake.  

    The US Navy Band Northeast from Newport, Rhode Island, played for about a half hour before the speakers began.  The Daughters of the American Revolution and some local politicians had turns to speak.   The mayor of Plattsburgh seemed to be a bit of a goofball.  He couldn't be found when it was his turn to speak, and when he finally did show up he was probably the only person in the crowd who was wearing shorts!  The honor guard of the American Legion post was dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms that didn't look too bad, but the were wearing modern shoes and glass and carrying rifles that were from a much later time period.  They raised the flag and fired a salute before taps was played and two bagpipers played Amazing Grace.  Scott was excited to see hear Stanley Ransom sing some of his song, "The Battle of Valcour Bay."   Scott had only just discovered this song earlier this week and had loaded onto his mp3 player this morning.  Ransom, who was known as the "Connecticut Peddler," and has a number of different CDs available with different themes.  He is elderly now and needed assistance while standing at the podium.  He made the wise choice of only singing four of the 13 verses of the song and didn't try to play his guitar in the cold.

    A re-enactment, of sorts, followed the ceremony.  We had watched the re-enactors struggling with their boats through the ceremony, and no one seemed surprised that they weren't going to make it very far out onto the lake.  There were about a half dozen small boats, a few with masts, but most with oars.  All but one stayed in the shallow area where it would have been deep enough to wade in if anyone would have been silly enough to try it on this cold day.  They fired small cannons in turn, apparently representing Arnold's line, while the boat further out on the lake must have been the British fleet.   People began walking down to the beach to get a close look at the boats, and since they were somewhat blocking the view of the people who stayed back on the sidewalk, so we decided to join them down on the beach.  We got a really close look at the boats by doing that, closer than spectators usually get at a re-enactment.  Scott was a little disappointed that he wasn't going to hear the historical narration from that distance, but after we returned to the tent area, we found that he was only just beginning the "good part" about the battle, so we stayed and listened for most of the rest of that.

     We decided to leave before the commemoration had fully concluded and went back to a restaurant we had passed on the walk down- Gus' Red Hots.  It was a quirky local place, and we welcomed the chance to sit and warm up.  The food was not bad, but not great.  Emma got a soup that was so bland that she said the only thing that she could taste was the oyster crackers.  Scott got a red hot with "Michigan Sauce" (which was like chili without the beans), mustard and onions, along with a second hot dog that was covered with macaroni and cheese with bacon.  They weren't bad, but we don't expect we'd come back here if we ever get to Plattburgh again.

    It was now about 1:00 and Scott had another stop he definitely wanted to go to.  We set the GPS for the Peru Boat Launch about 15 miles south from where we were.  Here was the spot closest to the location of the actual battle.  Across the water, we could see the distinctive looking lighthouse on Valcour Island.  The actual island can only be visited if you have your own boat or kayak to get there.  But here at the boat launch we were looking across the waters where the action took place.  A monument to the battle was recently relocated here and Scott wanted to get a picture of himself pointing at the October 11th date.  He took some time to read the historical panels nearby and talked with a friendly couple who had taken a Benedict Arnold themed trip.  

     Scott had one more stop on the want-to-do list, but we weren't sure if we were going to have time to try it.  The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum was almost an hour and a half away in Vermont, and closed at 4:00, but they seemed to have a lot of exhibits and activities related to the Battle of Valcour Island.  It would be close and would postpone our arrival back in Cheektowaga to probably close to midnight, but Scott decided to try it.  Just before the bridge to Vermont, Scott saw the sign for the state park that had the remains of Crown Point.  Scott swerved into the park to take a quick peek at the ruins of the fort here.  It was built by the British in the French and Indian War and was an important fortification in the Revolution as well.  Scott didn't know if there was anything left to see there, but he was pleasantly surprised to find very impressive looking ruins and fortifications.  But if he stayed too long here, we wouldn't make it to the Vermont museum before they closed.

      We arrived at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum shortly after 3:00 so we would have less than an hour to explore the site.  It was much bigger than we had expected from the pictures we had seen, and they were wrapping up a busy day of activities about the Battle of Valcour Island.  They had many people there because of that and were making use of a field across the street for overflow parking.  We entered through the gift shop.  Admission is based on donations because the site is run by the state of Vermont.  The first exhibit building that we saw was probably the one we wanted to see anyway.  It was filled with relics that archaeologists have recovered from Arnold's fleet.   Some wooden pieces of his vessels were there including one from the Royal Savage that still had a musket ball embedded in it.  By far, the most dramatic exhibit in this building was the pieces of the cannon from the gunboat New York.  The cannon had exploded in the battle and killed a young lieutenant named Thomas Rogers and seriously injured to others.  Several of the pieces of the cannon were recovered by archeologists and are mounted in the central display of this collection.  The final piece of the cannon was recovered this past July.  Throughout this building, panels describe the phases of the battle and brilliantly colored paintings illustrate many of its notable moments.

     In the center of the grounds of the museum, near a very large map of Lake Champlain that had been unrolled for the day's events, was the replica of the gunboat, Philadelphia.  The original Philadelphia was recovered from the lake bottom and is now displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington as the oldest surviving vessel in the US Navy.  The Philadelphia II was built in 1989, and until recently, still sailed Lake Champlain.  A failure of the ice protection caused it to sink into the lake a few winters ago.  While the ship was raised again, it had been heavily damaged.  Today, visitors can climb onto the boat and see it up close.  There were a lot of friendly, knowledgeable interpreters that wanted to talk to us too.  We learned that these two boats had no keel (and Emma was proud that she knew what a keel was), and this fact gave both of the boats a flat bottom but also made it a very slow vessel.   The docents pointed out the mast of the boat, which could be seen a little ways away, laying horizontally,  as well as the oars that would have to be used if they needed to go into the wind.

     At four o'clock, we called Julie from the parking lot and let her know we were starting the long trek home.  The drive was made difficult because it gets dark so early now, and just as we were entering the Adirondack Mountain region, it started to rain.  Scott stopped at a convenience store in Lake Pleasant to use the bathroom and found a long line for it.  While he was waiting, he had a slice of pizza for dinner even though it tasted like it had been rotating on the rack for a while.  There was an interesting board where people could record moose sightings.  We gassed up here but had lost about a half an hour while we were here.   We didn't see any big animals, thankfully, but Scott saw about a half-dozen young turkeys and Emma saw a red fox.  When we got to the Thruway, Scott was tired and Emma offered to drive.  That was good, but she was not used to our big car and the sensitivity of the controls.  A state police officer pulled us over just east of Clarence, apparently because she was swerving enough that she kept crossing the white lines.   He seemed to understand and let us go with a warning.   We got back home about 11:30, quite tired.  

 

Fort Ticonderoga- Saturday, October 10, 2026

     Today is the start of October Craziness.  It is the first of four weekends in a row that Scott is going off on adventures.  Two of the weekends are for Revolutionary War 250th anniversary events, and two are for music.  Scott says he's really not crazy.  Julie believes he most certainly is, but apparently loves him very much and is letting him go on his foolish quests.

     Usually in this blog, the pronoun "we" means Scott and Julie, but Julie is staying home, being Grandma to Wyatt this weekend.  This weekend, "we" means Scott and Emma, since she accepted Dad's invitation to tag along.  That meant that Scott had to wait for her to get home from her overnight shift, at 6:40 or so this morning.  She said she'd pack when she got home from work.  When Dad joking expressed concern, she said, "No, you of all people don't get to say that," and reminded him that he is usually the last-minute packer.  She took some satisfaction when she returned home from work and found that Dad was indeed still packing and still had to take a shower.

     We left home at a little after 7:00.  Emma made a nest for herself way in the back and slept nearly the whole way.  That left Scott able to listen to his music for the ride.  The fall colors may be a little past peak, but there were lots of pretty yellows and reds still on the trees and there was lots of them to look at, especially after the GPS took us off the Thruway and into the woods of the southern Adirondacks.  The sun was shining brightly, and we passed through some cute little mountain towns like Prospect and Lake Pleasant.  Scott stopped at the public library in Lake Pleasant to use the bathroom, and remarked to them that it was such a pretty little place.  We arrived at Fort Ticonderoga at about 1:30, with lots of time left in the afternoon to do things there.

     The fighting at Fort Ticonderoga was biggest during the French and Indian War, but there were several times when action took place here during the Revolution.  In May of 1775, just shortly after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, and about 80 Green Mountain Boys made a surprise attack on this fort and captured it for the Patriots.  It was the first offensive victory for the Americans and put this important fort and its valuable cannons in Patriot hands.  (Scott wasn't planning for this event last spring because he had just come back from Lexington and Concord.  Because he wasn't paying attention, he was taken by surprise when he saw on Facebook that Fort Ticonderoga was "now" controlled by the Americans.  He was almost as shocked as the British were.)  Henry Knox famously brought many of the cannon from here overland in his "Noble Train of Artillery" to aid in the siege of Boston.  (We got to see part of that commemoration last December.)  The American control of the fort ended when it was taken by the British in 1777 as part of General Burgoyne's campaign that would lead to his defeat and surrender at Saratoga that fall.  (Perhaps Scott will make it back here over the 4th of July weekend next year?) That September of 1777, there was a huge cannonade between Germans in Fort Ticonderoga using captured American guns and Americans on Mount Defiance using captured British guns.   American forces would attack the fort again at that time, though they weren't able to capture it. 

    What brought us here this weekend, though, was the actions of October 1776.  The British and Patriot navies fought in Valcour Bay near Plattsburgh, where we are going tomorrow.   The British were under the command of General Guy Carleton, the governor of Quebec.  The British goal was to send a force up Lake Champlain from Quebec to capture Fort Ticonderoga.  This fort had been the jumping off point that the Patriots used to try to invade Canada.  If it were in British hands again, it could also be an effective position for the British to move through New York State.   At the Battle of Valcour Bay, Arnold managed to slow the British navy down, but could not stop them.  (More on that tomorrow.)  Carleton brought his forces into this vicinity on October 28, 1776.  He was expecting to face the shattered army that he had chased out of Quebec, but was surprised to find a strong force of 13,000 Continentals waiting to defend the fort.    Knowing that the fort was nearly impregnable against an assault, and that the winter would make a siege difficult at best, the British withdrew back down Lake Champlain to Quebec, and left Fort Ticonderoga for next summer's work.

      When we entered Fort Ticonderoga's grounds, a staff member in a toll booth asked Scott if the admission would be for one adult.  Scott said, "No, two adults."  As we drove to the parking lot, we laughed about how he must have thought Scott was paying for an imaginary friend, since Emma was still laying down, hidden in the back.   The fort was quite busy, perhaps because it was an important anniversary weekend.  There were many people who were there for a three day conference-- "Arnold's Defeat or Ultimate Victory? Perspectives on the 1776 Campaign."  (It's probably good that Scott didn't know about this conference before.)   We used the bathrooms, browsed quickly around the gift shop, and then headed into the fort.  We admired the view of the lake below and entered the main gates.  A plaque read, "Through this entrance to the Place D'Armes of the fort have passed..." and then it had a list of 19 famous people, starting with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.  "You tread in their footsteps."

     Scott has only been to Fort Ticonderoga once before, back in 2004.  Anna was not yet 4 years old and Emma was still in China.  (That was before we started this blog too.)  Julie, Scott and Anna had left on the last day of the school year, anxious to go somewhere, anywhere, and we set up a tent at Lake George.  We didn't know that it was French & Indian War weekend at Fort Ticonderoga until we arrived and saw the crowds.  Scott and Julie remembered liking the fort then, but a lot has changed in the 22 years since.  For one thing, as Scott remembers it, the interior of most of the buildings were "primitive" looking, in an attempt to resemble what the fort was like for the soldiers.  Today, the buildings inside the fort have mostly been turned into museum exhibits.  The artifacts fill cases in brightly lit spaces.  The overall presentation is very nice, though, and we enjoyed exploring there.

     The first building that we entered had a video playing on a continuous loop.  It was titled, "Ticonderoga- A Place Between Two Waters" (It is available to be viewed on YouTube here.)  We watched most of the video.  When Scott turned around at the end, he was excited to see that the back of the room had relics from the schooner Royal Savage.  This ship was part of the American force at the Battle of Valcour Bay, where we are going tomorrow.   The ship had been run aground after being heavily damaged in the fight, and eventually exploded.  Archaeologists were able to uncover the gun carriage on display here and several cannonballs.  We exited the theater room and passed a shiny life-sized statue of Ethan Allen, and Scott had to explain to Emma why he made a joke about a furniture store.

     Elsewhere in that same building was an exhibit called, "A Revolutionary Anthology." This exhibit is scheduled to be here until 2028, and apparently this is part 3 of the exhibition, "Revolutionary Possibilities."    Among the many interesting artifacts was a lock of Benedict Arnold's hair!   Nearby, Emma liked seeing the seal of Angelica Schuyler, whom she knows as a character from the musical Hamilton.  Many of the artifacts were being discussed in videos playing there, which are also available online.  Upstairs, we saw a smaller exhibit called, "The Archaeology of Independence" with many artifacts that have been excavated here.  We went outside where it was a little chillier, and Emma noted that the dragonflies on the stone walls didn't seem to like the cold.  We didn't watch the whole of the cannon demonstration, but were able to get there just as they touched the powder off.

     We explored the exhibits in the largest of the three main buildings, which included many artifacts in the fort's collections.  There were animal bones that showed what the soldiers were using for meat- beef, pork, mutton, venison, etc., but the most interesting bones might have been those of the now extinct passenger pigeon, which the soldiers probably ate by the score.  There were many guns, swords, and even carved powder horns on display, but Emma noticed a strange circle in panes of one of the windows.  A docent noticed our interest in it, and told us that it was not from a bullet.  It was, in fact, a mark put in during the manufacturing process, and wasn't really intended to be put into the windows, but the guy doing the reconstruction work thought it added character to the glass and used it anyway.  We noticed many more of the same circular indentations in other windows as we went through the rest of the fort.  

     In another room, Scott noticed a small original cannon that the fort staff used in demonstrations up until the 1990s.  Even though this cannon was original, the fort staff fired gun powder out of it and fired "cannonballs" made of plaster of Paris at an iron target!   Scott couldn't imagine doing that at Fort Niagara, even though he would have been at about the same time.  In a display called "The Diaorama-Rama" we saw a number of different interesting recreations that had been used for interpretation here at the fort in the past.  We went through a musty smelling barracks, with beds that had ticks that must have been full of straw.  Outside, in the center of the "Place D'Armes," Scott found the marker that shows the beginning of the trail that Knox used for his "Noble Train of Artillery."  He had to get his picture there since he had one from on the trail itself, and of course, another at the end of the journey on Dorchester Heights in Boston.  We were entertained in one room that had very "hands-on" exhibits.  One allowed you to shoot tiny wooden "cannonballs" at a fort, almost as if it was in a giant pinball machine.  Emma laughed as Scott's first shot went dribbling limply out of the little cannon because he hadn't pulled the plunger back far enough.  Nearby, we explored some of the rooms that the military interpreters use and they had the same rustic quality that Fort Niagara's barracks do.  The embers of the fire that they were using for cooking were still hot and the peas porridge or stew or whatever-it-was was still there.   As we left the fort, Scott managed to get a video of the musket firing demonstration, just as he was about to shoot, the same way we had for the artillery demonstration.

    We went back to the gift shop and started spending money.  Scott bought a T-shirt that says, "Hold the Line- From Valcour Island to Ticonderoga."  He is certainly going to wear it tomorrow.  He also liked a shirt about Benedict Arnold that said "Patriot" on the front and "Traitor" on the back, but they were out of his size.    He was talked into two books by the fort staff, and he also got a patch for his bulletin board at school.  He wanted a pin, but couldn't find one.  We got something for Abby and something for Julie too.

     We left the gift shop and went around to below the fort to see the two oxen.  There was merchandise in the gift shop that told us that their names were "Mick" and "Mack."   We saw a sign that promised a 1.75 mile trail around the Carillon battlefield from the French & Indian War, and we started to try to follow it.  Even though Emma had a map on her phone from the QR code on the sign, it was difficult to tell exactly where we were supposed to be.  We saw some earthworks, but we weren't seeing any signs that we were expecting on the trail.  We made our way across the fields to an area where there are reconstructed soldier huts.  These wooden buildings were empty, but interesting, and smelled of fresh cut wood.  The American soldiers who built the original camp here in 1776 were apparently shocked to find that they were digging up graves from the British who had died here in the French and Indian War, back in 1758.  That British attack cost them 2,000 casualties and several times today, we heard it called the day of the bloodiest military action in North America until the Mexican-American War in the 1840s.  We gave up on trying to follow the trail, though.

     We got back in the car and drove to Mount Defiance.  This commanding position sits over 700 feet above the fort.  Once the British accomplished the amazing and unexpected feat of getting cannon up there in 1777, the Americans had little choice but to withdraw.  Later, the Americans would capture the guns there and turn them on the German Hessians in the fort.  We didn't come up here when we visited in 2004, so Scott didn't know what to expect.  We had a token from the admission that we paid originally, and we used it to raise a gate to allow a car to drive up the narrow road to parking near the top.  It was bumpy, and a little nerve wracking when we had to make way for cars coming down.  The parking lot was small, oddly shaped, and full, and we had to wait for someone to leave before we could fit in a place.  The steepest part of the road was the last bit that we had to climb on foot.  Once we were at the top, though, the view of Fort Ticonderoga and the surrounding area was tremendous.  A young but knowledgeable military interpreter was dressed as an American soldier and was talking to a crowd about the many military actions at Ticonderoga.  Scott thought his presentation was very good, especially considering the many different events he had to cover.  We took some time after to appreciate the view from the top.  

     It was about 4:30, and we had spent about three hours exploring the various aspects of Fort Ticonderoga.  We still had an hour and a half or so to get to our hotel in Plattsburgh, so we got back in the car, carefully went down the road on Mount Defiance and followed the winding roads north.  Emma slept for most of this car ride too.   Scott was hoping to find some place to eat because neither of us had really had anything since breakfast.  It wasn't until we got to Plattsburgh that we found a McDonald's.  Scott ate inside, while Emma continued to sleep.  We then went to their hotel and checked in.    The room is kind of nice, and Scott sat down to write this blog.  He jumped up with a shout when a large bug crawled onto the top of the desk right where he was typing.  He Googled it and found it was nothing to be concerned about.  It was a "conifer seed bug," which Google said was perfectly harmless and not an indication of uncleanliness.  They usually live in trees, but as the weather gets colder, they seek the warmth that can be found indoors.  Scott felt bad that he had killed it after reading that.