Family Visit to Fort Ticonderoga, New York

A family visit to Fort Ticonderoga, New York will take some planning. Though Fort Ticonderoga is located in the state of New York, it is a good distance from any of its major cities like Buffalo, Syracuse or New York City.
The fort is located along Lake Champlain and across the lake from the state of Vermont. Travelers can however easily add Fort Ticonderoga on to their travel plans should they be vacationing in the Adirondacks or in Vermont. Visitors can find the fort by taking marked exits along NY Rt. 87 also called The Northway or by the more scenic if less speedy Rt 9N and 22.

However you get there you will feel like you not only have traveled across space but also back in time. A family visit to Fort Ticonderoga, New York makes good sense only if the family spends a little time, perhaps on the ride there, to review together the importance of Fort Ticonderoga in the history of our nation. The fort's checkered past began in the mid 18th century when it was constructed as part of a larger plan by the French in the New World to control the waterways in what is now New York state.

The French, after defending the fort from British attacks, eventually had to relinquish it. As the American Revolution began the fort was still in British hands. A daring and still much celebrated attack from Vermont by Ethan Allan and his Green Mountain Boys succeeded in wresting control of the pivotal fort from the British. In the process the American upstarts scored the first blow for the fledgling American forces. Battles were waged from 1775-1777 between the British and Americans. Finally, after the Americans defeated the British at the Battle of Saratoga the British withdrew from Ticonderoga

For decades after the American Revolution, Fort Ticonderoga gradually sank into near ruin, with only occasional attempts to refurbish the fort and its grounds. But in 1908, with President William Howard Taft leading the way, visitors began returning to the newly opened Fort Ticonderoga.

If your family is visiting Fort Ticonderoga then, you are arriving on the heels of more than a century of visitations by Americans and visitors from around the world. While much has changed over the years the setting is of course the same and you can still imagine the confrontations of major world powers like France and England and later the British and the Americans.

To help you immerse yourself in the history of Fort Ticonderoga authorities provide musket demonstrations, annual encampments, a museum, a fife and drum display and the presence of many costumed guides. What our family enjoyed most was the chance to wander freely and enjoy our own tour of the grounds and the views that surround the fort.

Fort Ticonderoga opens its 2010 season on May 20th and visitors are welcome from 9:30 a.m - 5 p.m daily . Price of admission for Adults $15; seniors $13.50 ; children $7 and under 7 years old free. The season will close on October 20,2010.

sources: www.fort-ticonderoga.org