Fort Ticonderoga - Geography and Early History

Geography and Early History

Lake Champlain, which forms part of the border between New York and Vermont, and the Hudson River together formed an important travel route that was used by Indians before the arrival of European colonists. The route was relatively free of obstacles to navigation, with only a few portages. One strategically important place on the route lies at a narrows near the southern end of Lake Champlain, where Ticonderoga Creek, known in Colonial times as the La Chute River, enters the lake, carrying water from Lake George. Although the site provides commanding views of the southern extent of Lake Champlain, Mount Defiance, at 853 ft (260 m), and two other hills (Mount Hope and Mount Independence) overlook the area.

Indians had occupied the area for centuries before French explorer Samuel de Champlain first arrived there in 1609. Champlain recounted that the Algonquins, with whom he was traveling, battled a group of Iroquois nearby. In 1642, French missionary Isaac Jogues was the first white man to traverse the portage at Ticonderoga while escaping a battle between the Iroquois and members of the Huron tribe.

The French, who had colonized the Saint Lawrence River valley to the north, and the English, who had taken over the Dutch settlements that became the Province of New York to the south, began contesting the area as early as 1691, when Pieter Schuyler built a small wooden fort at the Ticonderoga point on the western shore of the lake. These colonial conflicts reached their height in the French and Indian War, which began in 1754.