702 [Assembly 



Ticonderoga. He efficiently aided in the transportation of the 

 American army in the invasion of Canada, and at its retreat from 

 that calamitous campaign, his dwellings and gariaers were thrown 

 open to relieve their necessities. His patriotic and generous mu- 

 nificence seems to have had no limit, but the ability to perform. 

 Seventy head of beef cattle, and fifteen hundred salted salmon, 

 ■were, in one season, among the items of his liberal and free con- 

 tribution. 



At the retreat of the American army, the inhabitants of this 

 settlement, who had been prompt and decisive in avowing a hos- 

 tility to England, and conspicuous for iheir progress and pros- 

 perity, were apprehensive of attacks from the Indians, and hasti- 

 ly abandoned their farms and dwellings, endeared to them by ten 

 years of toil and privation, most of them never to return. 



Gilliland, with his family, withdrew to the vicinity of Crown 

 Point, but returned, with part of his tenants, to secure their 

 harvests, and to remove and secrete their property. Ponderous 

 articles were buried or sunk in the lake. ^ Many families, home- 

 less and destitute, embracing Carlton's offers of amnesty, joined 

 the British forces, and in a few cases, adopted the interests of 

 England. Much valuable property, thus secreted, was, by the 

 agency of these loyalists, exposed to the British officials, and 

 seized and confiscated. 



On the 21st of June, 1777, Burgoyne landed with his brilliant 

 army on the banks of the Boquet. Ten days w^ere occupied in are- 

 connoisance of Ticonderoga, in reorganizing his forces, in drilling 

 his boatmen, in the estuary of that river, in the evolutions inci- 

 dent to their duties, and in holding his celebrated congress with 

 the Indian tribes. 



The selection of this point, as the scene of so important an 

 event, indicates its prominence. The summons of the British 

 general had been responded to by the savage warriors, in far 

 greater numbers than he had expected or desired. A redoubt, 

 standing on an eminence above the river, and near the falls, wa« 

 signalized by this picturesque and impressive spectacle. The 

 operations of agriculture have now obliterated all vestiges of this 

 work, although, until recently, its lines could be distinctly traced. 



