Fort Ticonderoga: A Short History

When Columbus was landing in the West Indies, and discovering America, the Champlain Valley was thickly populated. There are signs of Indian village sites all along the shores and the thousands of stone implements, arrow and spear points, scrapers, hatchets, pestles and mortars that are turned up each year indicate an occupation of hundreds, probably thousands, of years. But when the first white man arrived all was silence and desolation. The fierce Iroquois from the south had not long before slaughtered the peaceful Algonquin Indians and driven the survivors back into the mountains, where they were living a hand to mouth existence. In fact so degenerate had they become that the Iroquois referred to them as “Adirondacks” or “Bark-eaters,” because of their necessity of depending on the bark of trees during the winter when game was scarce. Remains of these people are so many that for a hundred years arrow heads and other stone implements have been found on the shore of the lake under the walls of the Fort and yet each rain and wind storm discloses new ones. These Indians were a partly agricultural people as shown by the many bits of pottery and hoes that are found, but little is definitely known of them or their habits. In May, 1609, the same year that Hendrick Hudson discovered and named Hudson’s River, Samuel de Champlain with a contingent of eleven Frenchmen, a small body of Montagnais Indians and between two and three hundred Hurons left Quebec on an exploring expedition to the south.

At the rapids of the Richelieu, Champlain quarreled with his Indians, who had assured him that there was smooth water from the St. Lawrence to the great lake to the south. Three-quarters of them went home and with them he sent all but two of his white companions. His force now consisted of three Frenchmen and sixty Montagnais and Hurons.

They traveled in twenty-four canoes and soon entered Lake Champlain, and, as they now were approaching the Iroquois country, they traveled by night and hid in the woods by day.

Champlain’s own description of his discovery and the battle at Ticonderoga from his “Voyages and Discoveries” published in Paris, 1613 ... reads as follows:

“We left next day, continuing our route along the river as far as the mouth of the Lake. Here are a number of beautiful, but low islands filled with very fine woods and prairies, a quantity of game and wild animals, such as stags, deer, fawns, roe-bucks, bears and other sorts of animals that come from the main land to the said islands. We caught a quantity of them. There is also quite a number of beavers, as well in the river as in several other streams which fall into it. These parts, though agreeable, are not inhabited by any Indians, in consequence of their wars. They retire from the rivers as far as possible, deep into the country, in order not to be so soon discovered.

“Next day we entered the lake, which is of considerable extent; some 50 or 60 leagues in length, where I saw 4 beautiful islands, 10, 12 and 15 leagues in length formerly inhabited, as well as the Iroquois river, by Indians, but abandoned since they have been at war the one with the other.

“Several rivers, also, discharge into the lake, surrounded by a number of fine trees similar to those we have in France, with a quantity of vines handsomer than any I ever saw; a great many chestnuts, and I have not yet seen except the margin of the lake, where there is a large abundance of fish of divers species. Among the rest there is one called by the Indians of the country Chaousarou, the divers lengths. The largest I was informed by the people, are of eight to ten feet. I saw one of 5, as thick as a thigh, with a head as big as two fists, with jaws two feet and a half long, and a double set of very sharp and dangerous teeth. The form of the body resembles that of the pike, and it is armed with scales that a thrust of a poniard cannot pierce; and is of a silver grey colour. The point of the snout is like that of a hog. This fish makes war on all others in the lakes and rivers and possesses, as those people assure me, a wonderful instinct; which is, that when it wants to catch any birds, it goes among the rushes or reeds, bordering the lake in many places, keeping the beak out of the water without budging, so that when the birds perch on his beak, imagining it a limb of a tree, it is so subtle that closing the jaws which it keeps half open, it draws the birds under water by the feet. The Indians gave me a head of it, which they prize highly, saying, when they have a headache they let blood with the teeth of this fish at the seat of the pain which immediately goes away.