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Archaeologists are
wrapping up the first week of a two-week excavation at an Essex
County historic site that was considered one of the most strategic
military outposts in North America.
A team of
archaeologists from the state parks department is digging at the
Crown Point State Historic Site, on the southern end of Lake
Champlain. They're looking for artifacts dating back to when the
site was home to a French fort and later a larger British
fortification.
The French blew up
their own fort as a British army approached in 1759. Afterward the
redcoats turned Crown Point into Britain's largest fort in North
America. A fire destroyed that fort in 1773.
The likes of George
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Benedict Arnold
were at Crown Point at different times in the 18th century.
“The two forts there
really played a major role in shaping North America,” said Russell
Bellico, a Massachusetts college professor and author of several
books on Lake Champlain's history. “All the great figures in
American history came to see Crown Point.”
Although no battles
were fought at Crown Point, an untold number of military casualties
from the two wars are believed buried there, along with various
settlers.
That fact, plus the
barracks ruins and high grass-covered earthen walls of the British
fort, tend to give Crown Point what Bellico called a “ghost town
quality.”
Next week's
archaeological digs are open to the public.
-the Associated
Press, 7-18-08 |