(1) In 1908, Stephen Pell began a restoration of Fort Ticonderoga; the fort opened to the public as a tourist attraction the following year.

(2) Located on Lake Champlain in northeastern New York, Fort Ticonderoga served as a key point of access to both Canada and the Hudson River Valley during the French and Indian War.

(3) Following his capture of Fort Ticonderoga and initial successes, his weakened forces fell to American troops led by Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold.

(4) As the first rebel victory of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga served as a morale booster and provided key artillery for the Continental Army in that first year of war.

(5) With the fort now under their control, the British renamed it Fort Ticonderoga.

(6) In the years following the Revolutionary War, no military regiment would occupy Fort Ticonderoga, though at times the fort provided shelter for scouting parties or raiding detachments.

(7) Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys and Benedict Arnold surprised the British at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain with an attack on May 10, 1775.

(8) By April 1775, when hostilities broke out between colonial militiamen and British soldiers at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, the British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga numbered barely 50 men.