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Photos by Dick Beamish |
Officers’ barracks
and parade grounds at the British
fort at Crown Point. |
Biking through history
By Dick Beamish
The Champlain Valley comes pretty close to
Bikers’ Heaven, with its quiet country roads, friendly villages,
rolling farmland, and frequent views of lake and mountains. It also
offers some fascinating glimpses into American history, especially
in the corner of the Adirondack Park that we’ve chosen for
a leisurely, two-day trip that will take us only 38 miles on our
bikes but 250 years into the past.
To begin with, Rachel and I check in at the state campground at
Crown Point. At this narrow “choke point” on the lake
there once stood formidable Fort St. Frederic, where the French
held sway over the North Country, to be followed by the British
with their massively enlarged Fort Crown Point.
Tent pitched and sleeping bags, foam pads, pillows and toiletries
stowed inside, we drive south to Ticonderoga where another peninsula
creates another narrows from which the French, English and Americans
would alternately control this crucial waterway.
Though they share the same Park, the village of Ticonderoga is a
world away from the boutiques and bustle of Lake Placid. We stop
at Burleigh’s Luncheonette and Soda Fountain, across the way
from where the Hotel Burleigh once stood in Victorian splendor.
(Alas, there are no hotels or even B&Bs these days in Ti.) A
framed photograph on the wall shows the five-story building with
its mansard roof and cupola, and another shows the building in flames.
(A drab-looking bar and restaurant resides there now.)
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| Victorian house
on Maple Hill near Crown Point. |
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Above the lunch counter a sign cautions us:
“This is not Burger King. You don’t get it your way.
You take it my way or you don’t get the damn thing.”
Another notice from the owner reinforces the message: “WARNING.
You are looking at a high performance WOMAN. I can go from 0 to
bitch in 2.1 seconds.”
Nevertheless, the place seems more reflective of the Norman Rockwell
Saturday Evening Post covers that adorn the walls. Good cheer pervades
this local hangout.
With bikes still atop car, we motor uphill from the village center,
past elegant old buildings of another era, along the street (aptly
named The Portage) where the bateaux of an earlier day were hauled
several miles between Lake George and Lake Champlain. The ascent
up the hill, known as Mount Defiance, is unrelentingly steep, and
we’re glad to be driving. On top are some old cannons pointed
toward Fort Ticonderoga down below. It was here in 1777 that General
Burgoyne caught the American forces in the fort by surprise—the
defenders never thought the British could haul their heavy artillery
up there. The sight of the big guns convinced General St. Clair
to evacuate the fort and head south, where his troops would soon
help turn the tide in the battles at Bennington and Saratoga.
From the summit pavilion we take in long views up and down Lake
Champlain. On the Vermont side stretches a long, wooded promontory,
christened Mount Independence soon after July 4, 1776. That year,
some 12,000 American troops were encamped there.
We head back down through town, past the fort entrance to the ferry
landing, where we leave the car and take to our bicycles. The cable-guided
ferry, by far the smallest on Lake Champlain, rests on the Vermont
side at the moment, a quarter-mile away. We signal, as a sign instructs,
by pulling a rope that raises a red sign visible across the way.
The ferry’s vital statistics are also posted: Capacity 18
cars. 7 minutes one way. Cars $7. Bicycles $2. Foot passengers:
50 cents. We’re soon aboard the Addie B, churning toward Larrabee’s
Point.
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Map by Nancy Bernstein |
A sign on the ferry tells the story of the
first American victory of the Revolutionary War. “As dawn
came on May 10, 1775, a small assault force of Green Mountain Boys,
led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, set out from Hand’s
Cove on the Vermont shore. 83 men made it across Lake Champlain
in the dark—a surprise attack on Fort Ticonderoga. The fort
and prize supply of cannon and ammunition fell into the hands of
the revolutionaries.”
We walk our bikes off the ferry and check out an old stone building,
the 1823 Lakehouse, Store and Wharf on the shore, then pedal up
a hill into beautiful farmland. Cows, corn, hay in big, tightly
packed rolls, apple or-chards, big old barns, traditional New England
farmhouses, the Adirondack foothills across the lake and the Green
Mountains to the east—such scenery would enrich the rest of
the afternoon.
A sign tells us the road to the right leads to the Mount Independence
Historic Site. The sign says 6 miles (though it’s more like
10). It’s a tempting side trip, but lacking the time and ambition
for extra work, we continue toward Shoreham, passing a nearly hidden
cemetery at the top of a rise. Some Revolutionary War veterans are
buried here, including Thomas Rowley, remembered on his tombstone
as “Chairman of the Committee on Safety, Revolutionary soldier,
poet and wit. Died about 1803.”
As we pass Douglas Orchards, the sweet smell of strawberries wafts
toward us from the fields across the road. A sign invites us to
pick our own. Soon Shoreham announces itself with a tall white steeple
above the trees. Five miles from the ferry landing, it’s a
tidy little village with picturesque churches, inn, old school building
and fine old houses, mostly centered on the village green. But all
the action seems to be at the Mobil station and convenience store
at the edge of town on Route 22A, where we stop for air and ice
cream.
Heading back toward the lake, we go straight on Watch Hill toward
the International Paper Co. mill across the water. It stands as
a landmark north of Ti, a looming pile of concrete and smokestacks
whose emissions serve as a weathervane. The thick gray smoke is
spewing northward, reminding us that a wind from the south has made
this a warm, muggy day—a good day to be exposed to the cooling
breeze we create while cycling. Down a long hill with apple trees
on both sides, then right on Lake Street where we’ll have
about four miles of dirt surface, now turned muddy after an earlier
downpour. This is the only section we’d gladly trade our thin-tired
road bikes for fat-tired mountain bikes. Mud splatters our legs.
We slip and slide and have to concentrate hard to keep from going
over. But the dirt soon turns to pavement, and we can relax and
enjoy the scenery.
Hordes of swallows settle on the utility lines, then swarm into
the air, erratic and batlike, chasing after their insect dinners.
Around a bend a fox stands in the road, eyeing us. We stop and stare
back. Evidently young and rather naive, he eventually lopes off
into the cornfield. Then we catch our first glimpse of the Crown
Point Bridge several miles down the lake (that is, to the north,
which is the way these waters flow). Where Lake Street intersects
Route 22A we swing left and pass fisherfolk on both sides of the
road where it skirts the shore. Then on to Chimney Point, the Vermont
side of the bridge, and, more important, to the Bridge Restaurant,
a favorite of both locals and tourists. As always the soup is great,
and our stir-fry entres hit the spot. When I request milk with my
coffee, the small, bouncy waitress responds: “No, I’m
sorry, we don’t have any cows in Vermont.” But she laughs
and brings the milk anyway.
After dinner we pedal slowly up the long rise to the top of the
bridge, which marks the spot where the Adirondack Park boundary
runs down the middle of Lake Champlain. Some High Peaks can be seen
in the distance. Looking down on the campground where our tent awaits
us, we see people fishing on the pier that extends out from the
lighthouse memorial to Samuel de Champlain.
The sun hasn’t set yet, so we cycle around the old fort grounds
for a self-guided tour. We’re alone except for a group of
Amish, all in traditional dress, viewing as we are the remains of
the British barracks bordering the parade ground. Nearby are the
ruins of Fort St. Frederic, established here by the French in 1734.
Two decades later the British took control of that fort, which was
destroyed by the retreating French. Over the next three years the
Brits built here one of the largest fortifications in North America.
We’re puzzled by an unidentified, ovenlike structure near
the small museum and visitor center, a feature that will take on
added significance in our travels the next day. Back at the campground,
we check out the memorial lighthouse, where a sculpture of the great
explorer stands tall, looking out over the lake that bears his name.
On the pier beyond, a teenage girl reports catching lots of perch
and some smallmouth bass. But yesterday, she said, she hooked a
largemouth bass measuring 18 inches and weighing 5€ pounds. “It
really bent the rod,” she beamed.
We bike to our tent, hit the showers nearby and turn in. Next morning
we pile our camping gear on a nearby picnic table and cover it with
a tarp—to be picked up later during our drive home. We bike
over the bridge for a lumberjack breakfast, then pedal back past
the campground and onto Lake Road, past a busy dairy farm. We stop
at Ledgetop Orchard, a place once advertised for sale in the Adirondack
Explorer. The ad pictured a farmhouse that, along with the big barns
and 75 acres of mostly apple orchards, was listed for $199,000.
The ad drew responses from all over the country, but for some reason
the place didn’t sell. But now it appears to be under new
management. The man riding a lawnmower around the front yard shuts
off the motor and fills us in. He bought the place a year ago, he
says, and intends to make it productive again.
His name, believe it or not, is Maurice Chevalier. He has owned
a nursery in Massachusetts, his wife still works for the state in
Rhode Island, and his daughter and her boyfriend actually run the
farm. They are growing corn and other vegetables and have begun
to replace the hundred-year-old apple trees with young ones. These
will yeild an old-fashioned “heirloom” variety called
Wolf River apples, which are enormous. “You can make a pie
with just one of them,” he says.
But it’s a real challenge, Maurice tells us, what with the
weeds, drought, insects and critters. As we talk, three chickens
forage around the yard. Maurice says he plans to sell eggs someday,
if a neighboring fox doesn’t eat the chickens first. We wish
him luck and continue to the end of the road, where a memorial plaque
on a boulder announces: “182 feet north of this spot stood
the oak to which Israel Putnam was tied and tortured by the Indians
in 1758.” It was tough then, too.
A brief, busy stretch of Route 22 takes us into the village of Crown
Point. Turning right onto Park Avenue, we circumnavigate the old
village square (a rectangle really), bordered by some ancient maples
and flanked by a church and its cemetery behind a rusty iron fence.
The gravestones reveal an influx of settlers here immediately after
the Revolution, since many died in the early and mid-1800s.
Across the green we visit an impressive memorial to the war veterans
from the area, with the names adding up to: Revolution—9,
War of 1812—106; Civil War—146; WW I—88; WW II—
48; Korea—37; Vietnam—32. A Civil War monument honors
those “who gave their lives as a sacrifice for their country
and humanity in the suppression of the great rebellion of 1861-65.”
We count 63 dead, a staggering toll for a small, rural community.
Another monument honors Pink, who died May 1886 at age 30. His story
is engraved in the granite. “This horse carried his master
25 years. He was never known to show fatigue while other horses
in the cavalry and flying artillery were dying from want of food
and exhaustion. He was present in 98 skirmishes and 34 battles.”
These included Second Bull Run, Gettysburg, The Wilderness and Spottsylvania.
It appeared that Pink and his grateful master led charmed lives.
On the main (and only) drag through town we stop at Frenchy’s
Creamee Stand for the best fat-free frozen yogurt imaginable—the
flavor of the day being maple. Across the street we visit the Crown
Point Bread Company, where we find a delectable array of breads
and pastries presided over by the young, crew-cut proprietor, Yannig
Tanguy. He says he often starts baking at 4 a.m. and some nights
he never goes to bed. He grew up here, he tells us, but spent summers
with his French grandparents in Brittany, where he learned to make
bread the old way.
“I bake in the tradition of the region,” he explains.
“All my bread is made from stone-ground flour. It’s
all milled in back, and it comes from organically grown wheat in
Essex County. The Champlain Valley was one of the breadbaskets of
America in the 19th century. Now all our food comes from somewhere
else. We need an advertising campaign to get people to buy their
food locally, and seasonally. Think of the fuel we’d save,
and the air pollution we’d avoid, and the economic benefits
in restoring agriculture to the region.”
The sour cherries in his tarts, as one small example of what he’s
advocating, come from Ledgetop Orchards on Lake Road. Yannig also
conducts workshops in bread baking, and it was he who built the
French field oven we saw at the Crown Point Historic Site, as well
as others at Fort Ticonderoga and the Trenton Barracks in New Jersey.
In parting, Yannig gives us a baguette, which we tie on the rear
rack of Rachel’s bicycle, in the French style.
We continue on peaceful back roads most of the way to Ti—up
Sugar Hill Road from the village of Crown Point, onto Sam Curran
Road to the foothills behind town, along Vineyard Road and down
a long hill to Route 22. Just past the intersection we stop at Drinkwine
Produce, a vegetable stand with the first sweet corn of the season.
“A German couple stopped here to buy wine last week,”
said the friendly woman behind the counter. “They were confused
by the name.”
We cut off Route 22 toward the lake on an unnamed back road, working
our way through wide-open, rolling farmland around the edge of Ticonderoga,
then onto the long entrance road to the famous fort and back into
the storied past—to a fife-and-drum corps performance on the
parade grounds, a history talk on the ramparts by an Abanaki Indian,
a tour of the cozy museum above the reconstructed barracks. We marvel
at the cannons and mortars that ring the fort and wonder at the
herculean effort of the Americans, who captured the place in that
surprise raid and then hauled much of the artillery 300 miles through
the wilderness to Boston. Just the sight of these weapons of mass
destruction was enough to end the siege of Boston Harbor and send
the British packing.
Vowing to return—you can’t do Fort Ti justice in a few
hours—we cycle the last half-mile down the hill to our car
and the return trip to the 21st century.
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