Take a Revolutionary day trip in Vermont
Here's one way to celebrate Independence Day — go back to the holiday's roots. Vermont has a few state historic sites with ties to the Revolutionary War and the birth of the United States. Three of them can be easily visited within a day's drive of the Burlington area, with 90 minutes to two hours spent at each site. Follow the route south on Vermont 22A to Chimney Point and Mount Independence and then southeast to Hubbardton Battlefield, as the Burlington Free Press did one day last week, and you'll find yourself diving deeper in to the Revolutionary War with each stop.
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Chimney Point
Driving south from Vermont 22A, it's easy to miss the left turn off Vermont 17 to the Chimney Point State Historic Site in Addison. The spot is literally in the shadow of the graceful, 4-year-old Lake Champlain Bridge to New York, and a driver distracted by that lovely bit of civil engineering might wind up on the bridge in no time, heading into the Empire State.
Lots of people have found Chimney Point, however, according to Allison Stetzel, site interpreter at the historic spot. "Everyone wanted to be here," she said.
As displays at the site's museum explain, the chunk of land that juts off Vermont into the lake was occupied in 8500 B.C. by Native Americans. The French began settling there in 1731. The French left for Canada after British victories in the French and Indian War, and of course the spot officially became a part of the United States on that nation's birth date in 1776.
Chimney Point has significant ties to the Revolutionary War — they're just not necessarily true ties. "Popular tradition claims that Ethan Allen planned the 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga in this tap room," a placard at the site's museum reads. "Another colorful legend states that during one of their many visits to the tap room, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner narrowly escaped arrest by British soldiers from Crown Point (N.Y.) by feigning drunkenness and slipping out of the tavern."
The truth is, according to the placard, that the tavern could not have been built until the late 1780s at the earliest, which would have delayed Allen's capture of the fort on the New York side of the lake until well after the Revolutionary War ended. The tavern did, however, host a visit from founding fathers and future U.S. presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison after the war in the early 1790s. Chimney Point also saw "occasional occupation" during the American Revolution by the American and British armies, according to a sign at the museum.
The grounds at Chimney Point slope toward the lake, offering expansive views of land and water those Native Americans saw more than 10,000 years ago. One of the top things to do at Chimney Point is walk to the adjacent bridge and across to New York and back, admiring the views of the lake and the structure of the bridge along the way. Those early settlers in their human-powered boats would envy the ease of that trip.
Mount Independence
Speaking of a good walk, that's the best activity to the south of Chimney Point at Mount Independence State Historic Site. Mount Independence, half a dozen miles west of Vermont 22A in Orwell, is threaded with six miles of trails retracing the places where American soldiers lived and were eventually squeezed out by the approaching British army.
The star-shaped fort that once stood on the lakeside location is no more; the British, who forced the Americans to abandon Mount Independence in 1777, burned it as they themselves left not long after. Detailed signs along the trails fill in the gaps that might not be apparent to visitors' eyes as they walk.
The top stroll is along the 1.6 miles of gravel and boardwalk that constitute the Baldwin Trail. Visitors taking that easy amble can see remnants of the fort's hospital, storehouses and soldier huts. Most evocatively, they can gaze across Lake Champlain toward Fort Ticonderoga in New York; the two spots were linked by a floating bridge and became key to American defense of the lake after Vermont hero Ethan Allen (and eventual American disgrace Benedict Arnold) led the capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775.
On a weekday afternoon you might have the trail all to yourself, or maybe share it with a few squawking crows and chirping chipmunks. With no real sites to see, visitors are left with an imagination to use and a presence to feel.
Hubbardton Battlefield
The Revolutionary War came to this small town in Rutland County, several miles east of Orwell off Vermont 30. Though the Battle of Bennington is the best-known fight from the war that's associated with Vermont, most of that skirmish took place across the border in New York; Hubbardton is the only site where an entire Revolutionary War battle was fought.
That fight took place on July 7 — the seventh day of the seventh month — in 1777, involving soldiers who had just left Mount Independence. The first shot was fired at 5 a.m. The battle raged at its peak, numerologists should note, at 7 a.m., and was done by 10 a.m.
In the short term the British won, as they drove American soldiers off the hills and fields of Hubbardton. But the Brits suffered heavy losses and stayed at Hubbardton for several days to care for the wounded and bury their dead. That allowed the Americans to strengthen their defenses at their arsenal south of Hubbardton in Bennington. By winning the Battle of Bennington that August, the Americans were strong enough to prevail two months later at Saratoga, spelling the end of British Gen. John Burgoyne's plan to split New England from the rest of the American colonies and creating a turning point in the Revolutionary War.
The Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site includes a small but thorough museum that explains the battle in detail. The top feature of the museum is a fiber-optic map with lighted points on the three-dimensional display noting where key moments of the battle took place, as a narrator explains what happened.
Visitors can then walk the short, sloping trail behind the museum to see for themselves the hills and fields where the action took place. Signs along the trail point out key moments in the battle, including one at Monument Hill where British troops began their assault. The views looking south toward the Taconic Range alone are worth the site's $3 price of admission.
It's a view that site interpreter Carl Fuller knows well. Fuller, who's in his 60s, has worked at Hubbardton Battlefield for 27 years.
Fuller said his parents owned 300 acres of farmland on the battlefield site. He spent much of his youth searching for artifacts left behind after the battle, but figures they had all been picked up by then.
Visitors to Hubbardton Battlefield can learn a lot from the exhibits there, but they may glean even more information from the gregarious site interpreter. Fuller not only grew up there and works there, he attended a one-room schoolhouse on the battlefield grounds.
"This," he said, "is home."
If you go
WHAT : Chimney Point State Historic Site
WHEN : 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays through Oct. 12.
WHERE : Vermont 17, Addison
UPCOMING EVENT : 1:30-3:30 p.m. July 18, "Blast from the Past: How They Did It in New France," with craft and skill demonstrations.
ADMISSION/INFORMATION : $5; free for 14 and under. 759-2412
WHAT : Mount Independence State Historic Site
WHEN : 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily through Oct. 12
WHERE : 497 Mount Independence Road, Orwell
UPCOMING EVENT : 1 p.m. Sunday, "Withdrawal from Mount Independence," commemorating the July 5, 1777 American withdrawal from the site with activities including reenactors with a small cannon.
ADMISSION/INFORMATION : $5; free for 14 and under. 948-2000.
WHAT : Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site
WHEN : 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Oct. 12.
WHERE : 5696 Monument Hill Road, Hubbardton
UPCOMING EVENT : 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. July 11-12, "Battle of Hubbardton Revolutionary War Encampment," with reenactors spending the weekend portraying soldiers who fought on the site 238 years ago.
ADMISSION/INFORMATION : $3 ($6 on July 11-12); free for 14 and under. 273-2282.
• http://historicsites.vermont.gov/
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.