CHAPTER TEN The Military History Ends

In 1781 Ira and Ethan Allen were negotiating with the British authorities as to the feasibility of making Vermont a Canadian province. Congress had refused to admit Vermont as the fourteenth state and were considering dividing it between New York and New Hampshire. Rather than submit to this the Allens and Governor Chittenden opened negotiations with Lieutenant-Governor Haldimand of Canada, the object of which was probably to force Congress to act in their favor, and they succeeded.

In July, 1783, General George Washington, accompanied by Governor Clinton, Col. Alexander Hamilton and others, visited the Fort on a tour of inspection, returning to the headquarters at Newburgh on the 5th of August.

Shortly after the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States was signed the whole country began to be rapidly settled. No guard was kept at Ticonderoga and it provided a convenient quarry for the early settlers. All the furniture and movable objects were taken first, then the doors and windows, floors were ripped up and the great beams removed, and in a short time the barracks collapsed. Even the abandoned cannon, most of them spiked, were removed to be melted up for their iron.

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Stephen H. P. Pell

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