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Fort Ticonderoga Announces Digital Campaign: A Virtual Opening

Offering a unique virtual experience with programming, lecture series, social media events, and other activities

Aerial View of Fort Ticonderoga
Photo credit Carl Heilman II

Fort Ticonderoga announces a 2020 Digital Campaign – an exciting virtual campus opening. This Digital Campaign features interactive programming, engaging lectures series, and a preview of the many experiences which will be featured on-site once Fort Ticonderoga’s gates open in 2020.  The museum and cultural destination’s 2020 opening has been postponed due to COVID-19.

This unique opportunity brings to digital visitors the layers of history and natural beauty into their homes across the globe. Featuring the museum’s annual interpretation (2020 is 1774!), Fort Ticonderoga staff continue to press forward with their commitment to providing resources and entertaining programs to engage, inspire, and give context to the world around us.

“In the 18th century, spring usually meant that armies began to emerge from their winter quarters.  However, campaigns were often delayed due to various reasons such as raising troops, moving supplies to magazines and depots, collecting vehicles and establishing communication lines,” said Beth L. Hill, Fort Ticonderoga president and CEO.

Like the armies in the 18th century, typically this time of year Fort Ticonderoga emerges from its Winter Quarters scheduled programs to embark on a fresh visitor experience including daily visitation to our 2000-acre historic property.  Unfortunately, according to Hill, Fort Ticonderoga’s Campaign Season and daily visitation is delayed due to the current COVID-19 crisis and the related state and federal directives.

“Through this Digital Campaign, we are eager for our virtual visitors to enjoy behind-the-scenes information, previews of our upcoming programs, and special insider content on the 2020 season wherever your ‘fort’ may be. We look forward to inspiring visits and welcoming guests again to Fort Ticonderoga sometime in the not-too-distant future,” said Hill.

Featured on our Upcoming Digital Campaign Event Calendar:

May 2, 2020: 11am Facebook Live
Cannon Firing Demonstration
Discover why a British fort, hundreds of miles from the sea, had French cannons and naval carriages for the big guns of Fort Ticonderoga during a 1774 cannon firing demonstration!

May 3, 2020: 1pm Facebook Live
Lecture Series: 26th Foot in America up to 1774
Join Fort Ticonderoga Curator Matthew Keagle for the surprising history of the 26th Regiment’s North American service which took from them from the Big Apple to the New Jersey countryside and all the way to Canada in the years before the American Revolution.

May 5, 2020: 1pm ZOOM
A Soldier’s Life: 26th Foot Equipment & Food
Join Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History for a sneak peek of our 1774 portrayal! See the personal effects of a British soldier and discover the carefully crafted system to supply the necessities to keep a British soldier ready to fight at all times.

May 7, 2020: 1pm ZOOM
A Soldier’s Life: 26th Foot Clothing
Join Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History for this sneak peak of our 1774 portrayal! Dive into the details of buttons, facings, and trimmings that distinguished the 26th Regiment of Foot from others in the British Army. Explore seasonal and regional uniform adaptations that allowed British soldiers to serve around a global empire!

May 8, 2020: 11am Facebook Live
Demonstration: Oxen & the 26th Foot
Watch Mick & Mack in action and learn more about oxen’s role with the British guards of Fort Ticonderoga! Whether carting barrels of food up from Lake Champlain or fixing the road to Crown Point, oxen provided the pulling power to make garrison life possible for soldiers of the 26th Regiment of Foot!

May 9, 2020: 11am Facebook Live
Facebook Live: Green Mountain Boys: Live from Hand’s Cove
Fort Ticonderoga digitally visits Shoreham, Vermont where the Green Mountain Boys made their final preparations and crossing of Lake Champlain. Learn about the key characters in America’s First Victory and the challenges they faced capturing this British-held fort!

May 10, 2020: 1pm Facebook Live
Lecture Series: Images of the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
How do you imagine the capture of Ticonderoga in 1775? For generations, artists have tried to visualize the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga. Join Fort Ticonderoga Curator Matthew Keagle for a look at a newly acquired painting and explore how art reflects myth, memory, and history.

About Fort Ticonderoga:
Welcoming visitors since 1909, Fort Ticonderoga preserves North America’s largest 18th-century artillery collection, 2,000 acres of historic landscape on Lake Champlain, and Carillon Battlefield, and the largest series of untouched Revolutionary War era earthworks surviving in America. As a multi-day destination and the premier place to learn more about our nation’s earliest years and America’s military heritage, Fort Ticonderoga engages more than 70,000 visitors each year with an economic impact of more than $12 million annually and offers programs, historic interpretation, boat cruises, tours, demonstrations, and exhibits throughout the year, and is open for daily visitation May through October. Fort Ticonderoga is supported in part through generous donations and with some general operating support made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.