Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • From Bloody Pond to Winter Street

      During the French and Indian War the pristine Lake George saw some horrific battles for control of the lake.  The British and French continued attempts to push each other out of the region with force.  The Battle of Lake George in 1755, the siege on Fort William Henry in 1757, the Battle on Snowshoes in 1758 and countless skirmishes in between let to high body counts on both sides.  One relatively small battle in 1755 illustrates just how bloody the fighting was.

      The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment, consisting of a company of men led by Colonel Nathaniel Folsom (including Robert Rogers in his first battle) plus another 40 New York Provincials under Capt. McGennis came across the baggage and ammunition that the French had left protected with a guard.  They quickly overwhelmed the guard and waited for the larger force of French Canadians and their Indian allies to return.  Late in the afternoon a combined force of roughly 300 returned to the camp and walked into a field of fire from the New Hampshire and New York milita.  In this battle over two hundred men were killed, and subsequently rolled into the pond, which turned red as the blood of the French, Canadians, Native Americans, and colonial militia mixed together in the water.  Enemies returning to the earth together.

      McGennis didn’t survive the battle.  Folsom did, and would go on to participate in other battles of the French and Indian War, and then took up arms in the Revolutionary War.  Folsom and John Stark were both leaders in the New Hampshire Militia.  Folsom  was a delegate representing New Hampshire in the the Provincial Congress and ultimately the Continental Congress.  By all accounts I’ve read he led a life of service to New Hampshire and the country.

      I visited the Winter Street Cemetery to visit Major General Nathaniel Folsom.  I wasn’t sure where his gravestone was when I got there, but looking around I noticed that there weren’t that many that had American flags posted next to them so I used that as my starting point.  I walked around that cemetery for 40 minutes reading each gravestone.  Most of the Revolutionary War veterans had a similar shape and size, with the unique badge carved in the front.  And yet I couldn’t find Folsom’s gravestone.  Folsom was a hero of two wars for the American Colonies, he must have a flag, right?  No flag.  Perhaps it blew over in the wind, or someone took it, or someone forgot to place one next to his gravestone to honor him.  Who knows?

      My time was limited, and I still hadn’t found Nathaniel Folsom.  But I did find the graves of his fellow Revolutionary War veterans, and read the family names of the people who were his neighbors and friends.  And finally it was time to go, and as I stood near the gate I thought I’d just walk down the middle one last time and try an area I hadn’t recalled walking past in my search… and there he was.  His was quite literally one of the very last gravestones I came across.  It’s almost like he wanted me to pay my respects to the rest of the people in the cemetery before coming to see him.

      Like other roadside monuments, the small memorial on Route 9 in Lake George, New York, crowded by motels, auto parts stores and a sushi restaurant, called out to me as I drove by.  It led me to read more about Nathaniel Folsom and eventually to my visit to his home town and final resting place.  For all that he did for his state and his country, his grave is modest – no different than those of other soldiers from the Revolutionary War buried nearby.  If these two modest monuments bookend his life, they served their purpose by helping me get acquainted with this gentleman from Exeter.

    • John W. Weeks

      Today is Earth Day, and a good opportunity to celebrate the life of John Weeks.  You may not know John Weeks, but if you’ve hiked in the White or Green Mountains in New England you’ve directly benefited from the Weeks Act, which was designed to protect the headwaters of rivers in the eastern United States.

      Weeks made his fortune in banking, became Mayor of Newton, Massachusetts and then steadily advanced in politics first as a United States Representative and then as a Senator.  He became Secretary of War after World War One.  His most notable accomplishment in his political career was the passage of the Weeks Act, which he had introduced to Congress on March 1, 1911.  More than 20 million acres of forest were protected with the passage of this Act, including the White Mountain National Forest, Green Mountain National Forest, Allegheny National Forest and others.  There’s also a State Park named after him near his summer resort in Lancaster, New Hampshire.

      As a rower, I’ve known John Weeks’ name without realizing the things he’d accomplished in his life.  The Weeks Footbridge connects the Harvard University campus at a critical bend in the Charles River.  Critical because if you’re racing in the Head-of-the-Charles Regatta this particular bend in the river combined with the choke point of the bridge arch and some very aggressive coxswains, leads to some notable collisions under the Weeks Footbridge.  It thus became a popular spectator destination.

      So while I know his name from the bridge, I’ve come to appreciate him through his Weeks Act and the preservation of lands that I’ve come to love.  On this Earth Day, with so many weak politicians in Washington doing nothing notable except protecting their careers, it’s nice to reflect back on a different kind of Week.  I’ll be sure to toast the late Senator next time I’m hiking in the Whites.

    • Crown Point

      The strategic importance of Lake Champlain during the early colonial years when the French and British and later the Americans and British were wrestling for control of this region is well documented.  Controlling the flow of supplies and men along the lake was critical, and the French chose a point of land where the lake narrowed significantly on the southern end to build Fort Saint-Frédéric in 1734.  This gave them both a foothold of consequence at a choke point on the lake and a launching place for attacks into British territory.  They held this ground until 1759, when Jeffrey Amhert’s 10,000 man army marched northward from Albany to take it.  The French destroyed Fort Saint-Frédéric as they retreated, but the strategic importance of the location wasn’t lost on the British.

      When Amherst’s army reached the destroyed French fort, they immediately set to building a much larger fort next to the location of the original.  In fact, if you look at satellite  image of the location you can see the faint outline of the French fort right next to the larger British fort that replaced it.

      Walking around on this site you feel just how exposed you are to the elements.  For the soldiers stationed here, it must have been brutally cold in the winter.  The large fireplaces for the upper and lower floors in the officer’s quarters must have been heavily utilized during those winter months.  Officer’s quarters were much nicer and the fireplaces much bigger than those of the enlisted men.

       

      Ultimately Crown Point fell into disrepair as the threat from the French disappeared and threats from the Native American population moved further and further west.  The strategic importance of Crown Point was also diminished by the decision to strengthen Fort Ticonderoga closer to where Lake Champlain and Lake George overlap.  The other concern about Crown Point was that it was set on a peninsula, and thus soldiers manning the fort would become trapped there should the land it connected to be controlled by the British and their Native American allies.  That proved a salient point as the Continental Army was barely controlling the lake at this time let alone the western lands adjacent to Crown Point.

      Walking along the top of the earthworks the British built, it’s easy to see just how clear the sight lines were for the cannon overlooking the lake.  Ironically the fort was never directly assaulted and never fired a shot at a passing ship as far as I can tell.  The Green Mountain Boys overwhelmed a skeleton crew manning the fort in 1775, shipped many of the cannon to Boston (along with many from Ticonderoga), and then the Continental Army opted to abandon Crown Point in favor of what they believed to be stronger ground at Ticonderoga and Fort Independence in 1777.  The British took back control of Crown Point and held it until the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783.  This was the last hurrah for Crown Point, and it fell further into disrepair until it was declared a National Historic Site.

      I’ve walked the grounds of Crown Point once in the spring, and hope to get back there sometime when they’re open for tours.  Perhaps I can combine a visit with one I’m planning later this year for Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Independence.  I’d also like to hike up Mount Defiance to round out my knowledge of the campaign and to complete my tour of this region.

       

    • Lake George, 1757

      When you stand along the shore of Lake George and look to the northeast on a quiet April day as I did recently, you’re struck by how beautiful the lake is.  Lake George still looks pristine, surrounded by conservation land and state parks.  The Adirondacks rise up in the distance.  Lake George, like the finger lakes to the west and Lake Champlain to the north, is a long and sometimes narrow body of water, very much like a river.  It was the primary transportation channel for countless generations of Native Americans and the French and English settlers who came after them.  A relatively short portage to the Hudson River to the south and Lake Champlain to the north made this body of water a critical link in the chain.

      There were several battles and skirmishes on this lake in the early colonial period, but two stand out during the French and Indian War.  Just beyond the farthest point of the lake you can see in this picture the lake jogs eastward and narrows to a point of land where it turns northward again.  This spot is called Sabbath Day Point, and it was here on July 23, 1757 that 350 New Jersey provincial soldiers (the “New Jersey Blues”) on a reconnaissance mission were surprised by hundreds of Indians who paddled out and attacked them in their boats.

      “The whoops of our Indians impressed them with such terror, that they made but a feeble resistance; two barges only escaped; all the others were captured or sunk. I have 160 prisoners here, 5 of whom are officers. About 160 men have been killed or drowned.” — M. de Montcalm to M. de Vaudreuil. 

      On August 3, 1757 this pristine view of the lake terrified the troops stationed at Fort William Henry, as hundreds of bateau boats and canoes filled the lake forming a massive fleet rowing and paddling right towards where I was standing when I took this picture.  They laid siege on the fort for six days until they forced the British to surrender as their cannon began to overheat and fail and the French artillery breached the walls.  During the surrender a horrific massacre ensued as the Indians descended on the men, women and children surrendering to them looking for their plunder and scalps.  That’s a story for another day, but there’s an excellent account of it from The Lake George Examiner worth reading.

      I’ve looked out on this view of Lake George a few times over the years and it always fills me with awe at how beautiful the lake is.  It’s hard to imagine the horror experienced by those soldiers in the summer of 1757 close to where I’d been standing.  The Indians who committed the massacre – or their tribes – would suffer their own horrors in the years to come.  There’s an inevitable friction that comes with expansion, and as Native Americans, the French, English and others wrestled for control of this continent violence would continue to escalate.  This beautiful waterway, as with so many other beautiful places around the world, was once the center of violent conflict.  And 1757 was a particularly dark time for this lovely place.

       

    • Battle Hill at 50 MPH

      Located on Route 4 in Fort Ann, New York between the Champlain Canal and Battle Hill is an unusual monument to the Revolutionary War battle that took place here on July 8, 1777.  You’d be forgiven if you miss it as you cruise on past at highway speed.  I only knew about it from a rest area attendant who described exactly what to look for.  As with many historical markers, it tells a story if you stop long enough to listen.

      While the tablet is barely noticeable as you speed along, Battle Hill is of course much larger, and the land above the highway sign is in the beginning stages of historic preservation.  For now, there’s only this simple marker, mounted on the ledge cut into Battle Hill in 1927, when cars came by much less frequently than they do now.  The tablet is decorated with American flags, which serve both as a tribute to those who fought here and as a way to visually find the tablet recessed into the ledge as you’re driving by.  I had to double back and park across the highway from the sign in a small pull-off.

      The Battle of Fort Anne started with defeat and retreat, as the Continental Army (mostly New Hampshire met) retreated from Fort Ticonderoga and then Skenesborough.  General Burgoyne hoped to cut off this retreat and landed 200 soldiers let by Lieutenant Colonel John Hill.  The American’s made a stand at Fort Anne, bolstered by the arrival of reinforcements led by Colonel Henry Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, who provided key leadership in the battle despite being wounded.

      While not the largest battle in the war, Fort Anne served to delay the British on their march to take Albany and create an unbroken water route from Canada to Manhattan.  This delay was critical for the Americans.  It’s was Burgoyne’s biggest mistake; instead of sailing his army right down Lake Champlain and Lake George and storming into Albany, he got sidetracked chasing retreating soldiers.  He won the battle, but helped lose the war as the delays of Fort Anne and defeat at Bennington set the stage for a larger defeat at Saratoga.  That set the dominoes in motion as the French would eventually join forces with the Americans, upping the ante significantly.

      Two interesting footnotes from the Battle of Fort Anne were the use of deception on both sides.  The Americans planted a fake deserter who convinced the British that the Americans had more than 1000 soldiers at Fort Anne waiting for them, which led them to wait for reinforcements instead of attacking.  Not to be outdone, when the British were running out of ammunition and on the verge of being overrun in the battle, a British quartermaster named John Mone used Indian war cries to make the Americans think that a much larger force of reinforcements were rushing in.  This allowed most of the British to retreat safely.  I’ve read about some of these events, but as with everything a visit helps you get a lay of the land and if you’re lucky hear the whispers of history over the roar of the traffic wizzing by.

    • We May Never Pass This Way Again

       

      What good is livin’ a life you’ve been given
      If all you do is stand in one place? – Lord Huron, Ends of the Earth

      I was in Rutland, Vermont today and had to be in Burlington several hours later.  So naturally I wanted to check off some historical ghost dancing while I was in the area.  There’s a direct route to Burlington from Rutland – drive up Route 7.  I chose a more roundabout way to get there that added an hour of driving and another hour of walking around and seeing what I came for.  I’ll write about each stop over the next few days.

      One stop that proved futile was the primary objective of my side trip.  I’d hoped to make a quick stop at Fort Ticonderoga to look around a bit.  Unfortunately it doesn’t open until May, which of course means I’ll have to find another reason to detour through this part of the world.  The Lake Champlain/Lake George waterway was the superhighway into the interior and served to transport several armies back and forth between the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.  Fort Ticonderoga was an important link in the chain of fortifications defending this route.  Alas, I’ll have to dance with it another time.

      One of the joys of travel is finding the unexpected.  I found plenty of unexpected on this trip, and that hour of driving out of the way turned into two extra hours in the car.  I don’t regret the extra time, and will gladly trade off some of my evening hours tonight and some of my day off tomorrow to pay back that time for work.   Seals and Crofts had a soapy hit song in the 70’s called We may never pass this way again.  That’s how I feel about these side trips: I’m there anyway, why not dance with the local ghosts?

      Such is the freedom a sales job affords me.  As long as I don’t abuse the privilege, a side trip when I’m in an interesting place is a worthwhile investment.  Making calls along the way means that I’m killing two birds with one stone.  The inner critic tells me not to waste valuable selling time on such pursuits.  Will side trips make me rich in sales?  Definitely not.  Will it give me something more important than money?  I think so.  Balance is the key of course.  Work hard, play hard and all that.  Or at least make the most of your opportunities on both sides.

    • Car Stickers

      Today I was driving through Connecticut when I passed a car with seven or eight stickers on various rear and side windows.  The one that caught my attention was a profile of a backpacker with a dog on a leash.  Another one that interested me was an Ithaca College sticker.  I didn’t know the driver of this car, but I’m confident that I’d have an interesting conversation with them if the opportunity ever presented itself.  Stickers say a lot about the driver.

      The vast majority of drivers – myself included – have no bumper stickers or their magnetic cousins on their cars.  Maybe a parking sticker for work or school, but nothing that announces who they are or what they believe in.  Contrast that with the in-your-face nature of the overtly political advocate’s car.  Pro-Trump and anti-Hilary.  Anti-Trump and pro-Hilary.  Either way I see the stickers on their car and I definitely don’t want to have a beer with them.

      Stickers announce affiliation with a school, a sports team, a community, military branch, or a favorite vacation spot.  I have no problem with this.  Embrace your tribe and be proud.  You want to show how many kids and pets you have with stickers?  Have at it.

      I do have a problem with antagonists and posers.  You want to put an extra-large bumper sticker on your car telling the world what you believe?  You’ll be noticed, but you’ll be thought poorly of by the majority of people you’re sharing the road with.  You’re probably blocked or muted by your Facebook friends too.  The world is seemingly full of antagonists lately.  Sorry, I have no time for your agenda.

      Posers are another troubling lot.  Your kids got into four of the best colleges in the northeast?  Good for you.  I’m not having a beer with you, but good for you.  Stickers are innocent enough on their own.  It’s the driver’s approach to this rolling art that makes me shake my head.  Such are the roadways of 2019 America.

       

    • Patriots Day

      While national holidays are commonly observed by an entire country, state holidays obviously differ from place to place.  Some places, like Boston, celebrate their own holiday too, as Boston does with Evacuation Day every March 17th.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of Maine, once part of Massachusetts, celebrate Patriots Day.

      If you aren’t from the area Patriots Day may seem strange to you.  But the name hints at its roots as a day to celebrate the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord.  This occurred on April 19, 1775, and Patriots Day is celebrated on the third Monday in April to commemorate the events of that day.  Re-enactments take place in various places in Massachusetts, most notably in Lexington and Concord, but also Boston.

      For Massachusetts, Patriots Day also coincides with the Boston Marathon and the Boston Red Sox hosting a game at 11 AM.  These combined events make being in the City of Boston, or along the Marathon route, a special occasion.  Patriots Day is one of the great days to be in Boston.

      Participating in the Boston Marathon is a Holy Grail experience for most runners, and the race is a point of pride for anyone from the region.  That’s why it was such an affront when two brothers targeted the race with two bombs in 2013.  While they succeeded in creating initial panic and immediate attention from the world, they failed to sustain it as they completely underestimated the resolve of the people of Boston.  Like the nation as a whole, if you want to unify us against you attack us.  As in 1775 in Lexington and Concord, so again in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, on 9/11/2001 in New York and Washington and in Boston in 2013, you’ll find out that this community that is divided on so many issues unites when you bloody our nose.

      Boston is back to celebrating Patriots Day, but the city remembers 2013.  Security has significantly increased and people are more aware of what’s around them than they were then.  The race is stronger for having survived the bombing, and so is the city.  So here’s a toast to the runners, to the Red Sox, to our ancestors who faced the British that April 19th in 1775, and for those who rallied together to unite in a common effort when things got rough.  That’s what Patriots Day is about.

    • General John Stark

      If New Hampshire has a favorite son, it’s John Stark.  The State Motto is a truncated quote from Stark, “Live Free or Die” and of course the people of New Hampshire have a certain Stark independent streak that lives on to this day.  As a transplant from Massachusetts who lives 7 miles from where Stark was born, I’ve come to appreciate the New Hampshire way of thinking more each year.  This is my 25th year in the Granite State and it’s high time I focus on New Hampshire’s Revolutionary War hero.

        In each phase of John Starks adult life he had extraordinary moments that would on their own be the highlight of someone else’s story.  As a 24 year-old young man he was captured by the Abenaki while hunting near the Baker River/Mount Moosilauke area.  In captivity he was forced to run the gauntlet but grabbed the stick from the first warrior in the line and attacked him instead!  This endeared him to the Abenaki and they adopted him into the tribe.  He was eventually ransomed back to freedom but this time with the Abenaki would remain a part of him.
      Five years later, with the French and Indian War making New Hampshire a war zone, Stark joined Robert Rogers as a Second Lieutenant and later Captain in Roger’s Rangers.  He participated in many of the legendary battles of the Rangers, including Battle on Snowshoes and other skirmishes around Lake George, New York.  Stark learned a lot from the tactics of Rogers, who in turn had adopted the tactics from the Native American warriors they were fighting against.  This would prove handy in the war to come.
      One event that Stark chose to sit out was the raid on St. Francis, an Abenaki village just over the present-day border of Canada.  Stark opting out was a sign of respect for those who he lived with five years before during his captivity.  It’s a great indicator of his character.
      After the war, Stark returned to his home in Nutfield (Londonderry) to work his farm.  Stark was married to Molly Page Stark, a legend in her own right, and had 11 children.  The Starks were clearly productive on the home front when they weren’t fighting wars.  Molly was a champion for smallpox vaccination, which involved deliberately infecting yourself with a small bit of smallpox, which, if it didn’t kill you, would make you immune to a worse case of it.  Smallpox was a major threat to the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
      During the Revolutionary War, John Stark became a legend.  He was one of the first to answer the call to arms, and fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill, where his experience in the Rangers paid dividends.  Stark’s saw immediately what the vulnerabilities were on the northern flank in the defense of Breeds Hill and built a breastwork from old stone walls to defend the Americans from a possible beach landing on the Mystic River.  This proved to be salient as that’s exactly what the British did.
      In a brilliantly orchestrated defense, the first line of New Hampshire militia fired on the attacking British and ducked down to reload.  The British kept advancing with fixed bayonets but were mowed down by a second line.  And then a third line mowed down the advancing British.  By then the first line had reloaded and mowed down the still advancing British and they finally retreated, abandoning the flanking strategy for a full frontal assault elsewhere.
      Stark would later serve George Washington at Princeton and Trenton, but unlike Benedict Arnold, he chose to tell the Continental Congress to take a hike when they passed him over for politically motivated promotions to General.  He returned to New Hampshire but left the door open for further action if needed.  And he was absolutely needed.
      In August 1777, the British Army was moving down from Canada, taking Fort Ticonderoga and working towards Albany.  The goal was to meet with the British forces coming up the Hudson River from the New York and cut off New England from the rest of the colonies.  This would effectively end the war as the British would control the flow of people and supplies.  British General John Burgoyne led an expedition to Bennington to raid supplies stored there.  That’s where he ran into the combined forces of Vermont and New Hampshire, led by 49 year-old John Stark.

      As Stark rallied his troops to attack the British, he shouted the second-most famous sentence he ever produced; “There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!”  The first half of that statement is contested.  What seems to have consensus is the “Molly Stark sleeps a widow” part.  Hell of a rallying cry for sure.  During the battle, Stark showed his strategic mind once again by flanking the combined forces of the  British, Loyalists, Indians and Canadians in a double envelopment, creating panic in the ranks of the enemy.  Many of them fled, leaving the British to face a full frontal assault from the majority of Stark’s New Hampshire men, which routed the British and set the stage for victory at Saratoga.

      John Stark, like General Sherman after the Civil War, chose to retire from the spotlight and move back to his farm in New Hampshire.  He lived out his life on his farm in Derryfield (now Manchester).  At the age of 82 he declined an invitation to participate in events commemorating the Battle of Bennington as his health was declining.  Instead, he sent a note with a toast to his old soldiers participating in the events.  It contains his most famous words, familiar to most everyone even if they don’t recall the source; “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.”

    • Live Free or Die

      New Hampshire has a strong bond with Quebec, even if most people who live in the state aren’t always aware of it.  There’s an independent streak in Quebec that strongly mirrors the independent streak in neighboring New Hampshire.  There’s an obviously population blending as many French Canadians moved to the jobs the Industrial Revolution offered in America.  One clue of the bond is the highway signs, which welcome French Canadians in both English and French.  Welcome and Bienvenue are prominently displayed, along with the state motto “Live Free or Die”.  If New Hampshire is famous for anything, it’s Live Free or Die.

      The expression is more meaningful if you reflect on the entire phrase written by General John Stark to commemorate the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Bennington;  “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.”  John Stark is a fascinating, bad-ass kind of guy who I’m going to write about more in a separate post tomorrow, but suffice it to say, he lived the words.

      The expression isn’t entirely an American concept.  Around the time that Stark wrote these words, the French were saying the same thing in the French Revolution; Vivre Libre ou Mourir, which literally means Live Free or Die.  So perhaps changing the highway signs to reflect both the English and French words would be appropriate.  It would be a nice way to bookend the sentiment: Welcome, Live Free or Die/Bienvenue, Vivre Libre ou Mourir.  I think our neighbors in Quebec would appreciate that.