Lake Champlain Maritime Museum by Arthur B. Cohn
L
ake C hamplain today seems an unlikely place for a maritime museum . Ser between Vermont's Green Mountains and New York's Adirondacks, Lake C hamplain gives the sense that it has always been a serene place of overwhelming beaury. The few sailboats dotting the horizon in the summer belie a profoundly rich maritime history. Lake Champlain's role in North American history can be credited to the happenstance of geography. The lake is a 120-mile long navigable waterway in a region that, for much of the historic period, was considered an im penetrable wilderness. Roads were awful, if they existed at all, so the movement of people and supplies by water was the most reasonable option.
This 1771 map ofthe northeast colonies shows the important geographical position ofLakes Champlain and George.
Human occupation along the shores of Lake Champlain began roughly 12,000 years ago as Paleo-Indian cultures hunted game in the shadow of receding glaciers. For millennia native cultures flourished; however, with the 1609 arrival of French explorer Samuel de C hamplain , the whole complexion of human history in the region changed. For rhe next 150 years military conflict between France and Britain dominated the C hamplain Valley. Ir was
18
the lake's geographic position in those nations' contested colonial hinterlands that led to its intensive military use, with forrs erected along its shorelines and warships sailing its waters. 1he end of hostilities came with the British victory in the Seven Years War in 1763. Peace, however, was short-lived, with the American Revolution soon engulfing the region. The early years of the struggle for independence saw considerable conflict on Lake Champlain, culminating in the October 1776 fleet engagement at the Battle of Valcour Island. With the 1783 Peace of Paris, settlement of the Champlain Valley began in earnest. Lake Champlain's final military episode occurred during the War of 181 2 with a fleer action between the Royal Navy and the US Navy at the Bartle of Plattsburgh Bay. The American victory helped bring an honorable end to the war. During the nineteenth century, the development of steamboats and construction of canals transformed Lake C hamplain into a dynamic commercial superhighway. During all of these complex and layered years of confli ct and commerce on the water's surface, many vessels found th ei r way to the bottom of the lake. Ir is the smdy and preservation of these shipwrecks that marks rhe cornerstone of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum's mission. The museum's origins can be traced to the early 1980s, as shipwrecks fro m the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the lake's nineteenth century commercial era were located and smdied. The region lacked an outlet to share this wealth of new knowledge with the public. The time was right to establish a new institution devoted to the discovery, smdy, preserva tion, and public interpretation of Lake Champlain's shipwrecks. The museum, inco rporated in 1985 as a private non-profit, opened its doors at historic Basin Harbor, Vermont, on Lake C hamplain in 1986. The venerable Basin H arbor C lub, a Lake C hamplain resort operated by four generations of the Beach fami ly for more than a century, donated the land, while the neighboring town of Panton contributed an 181 8 stone schoolhouse. Eighteen months later, the schoolhouse had been reconstructed stone-by-
The still-intact wheel of the 0 .] . Walker attests to the excellent shipwreck preservation conditions in Lake Champlain.
stone on the three-acre site, and the Lake Champlain M aritime Museum was born. Over the years the LCMM's significant nauti cal archaeology studies have contributed to the public's renewed interest in Lake C hamplain and stimulated a rapid expansion of the museum site. The Stone Schoolhouse is now surrounded by a dozen other buildings, including the Nautical Archaeo logy Center, Conservation Laboratory, Small Boat Collections building, an eighteenth century-sryle blacksmith shop, the Boarbuilding Shop, and a visitor center. A wide variery of exhibitions, educational opportunities, and courses and workshops, both o n campus and off, have been developed and implemented. The public is connected to Lake Champlain's extraordinary histo ric and archaeological legacy through LCMM's production of films, publication of books, and the development of youth and family boar building experiences. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum's research arm, the Maritime Research Institute (MRI) , spearheads the archaeological study of Lake Champlain archaeological sites and also partners with other organizations for shipwreck smdies in the Great Lakes, the Azores, Oklahoma,
SEA HISTORY 11 1, SUMMER 2005