French and Indian War

In 2017,  Joan Hunsdon, town historian of Crown Point,
asked Dave and Pat Hall from the Penfield Homestead Museum
to research getting a replacement marker
for one erected on Sam Curran Rd in 1932 by the NYS Education Department.
The original sign, commemorating a battle on snowshoes
between Robert Rogers’ Rangers and the French,
had gone missing in the late 1960s or early 1970’s.

After researching battle narratives and documenting
the historic importance of the location, a grant from
the William G. Pomeroy Foundation was secured
allowing for purchase of a new marker.

The original 1932 sign position was probably based on
“The Military and Civil History of the County of Essex, NY”  by Watson
as he references the  battle as occurring
near the residence of M. B. Townsend.

From the French account by Loescher in his History of Rogers’ Rangers,
we learned that the battle was located at ‘La Barbue Creek’.
Maps show two possibilities for its location along Lake Champlain
between Fort Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga, Putnam Creek or Five Mile Creek.

It was a description of the Riviere a la Barbue
as given by the French Engineer, Captain Pouchot,
in his memoires that pointed us to Putnam Creek.
He describes the creek “as having a sandy bottom
and four feet of water at lowest, or at least seven in the spring.
Its bed is all covered with rushes, and very thickly bordered by willows.
It has no channel that we can find.
The breadth of the stream is a gunshot and it is length between 21 and 24 miles”.

The battle continued as the French pursued the Rangers
through the valleys along Vineyard Road and leading to Ticonderoga.

With the help of the Ticonderoga Chapter,
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
the marker was dedicated August 5, 2018.