Jeduthan's Great Bridge at Ticonderoga
- westmohney
- Oct 14, 2023
- 11 min read
Updated: Jun 8, 2024
It may be compared to the work of the colossus in the fables of the heathen ~ Hessian officer, Du Rot the Elder
Jeduthan's holiday
Hostilities had been halted between the British and the Americans during the long winter of 1776-7. While Washington and his troops suffered through a harsh winter at Morristown, NJ, our cousin Col. Jeduthan Baldwin (7C3X) was awarded a nice little working holiday away from Fort Ticonderoga. He traveled 170 miles to spend almost a month, from 12 Dec to 7 Jan, at home in Brookfield, MA with his family.
Following a long tradition of hobnobbing with generals, on the 8th of January, Jeduthan "rode to Boston, waited on (our cousin) Genl. (Artemas) Ward (4C7X)" who was the former commander in chief of the American army. For the next two weeks, Jeduthan stayed in Boston, dining with a large host of mucky mucks. On 21 Jan, he moved on to Newburyport where he "Lodgd. at Greenleaf." Since Jeduthan hung with mostly the upper crust, I'm imagining that he meant Jonathan Greenleaf (4C7X), our shipbuilding cousin who lived in Newburyport. We wrote about Jonathan in our "Continental Navy" post.
After his travels around Massachusetts, which included stops in Salem and Ipswich, Jeduthan returned to Brookfield on 2 Feb. He spent a nice week at home, then began his journey back to Ticonderoga on the 8th of February. On the way, he made an important stop in Albany to meet with General Philip Schuyler.
Note: Philip Schuyler was Alexander Hamilton's future father-in-law.
Included in their defense discussions was a idea for a more substantial bridge to be built across Lake Champlain from Ticonderoga on the west bank to Mount Independence on the east bank where plans for another fort were already in the works.
By the 13th of February, Jeduthan was back at Ticonderoga where he received the following letter from General Schuyler:
The honorable Continental Congress by a Resolution of the 28th of December last have ordered 'That a Fort be constructed at Mount Independence; that the Navigation of the Lake near that place be obstructed by Cassoons to be sunk in the Water at small Distances from one another and joined together by Stringe-pieces, so as at the same time to serve for a Bridge between the Fortification on the East & West sides. . .'
It was also decided that a new hospital would be built on the west side. Jeduthan spent many hours at the site with various generals, colonels and majors making initial preparations for the grand project that lay ahead of him.
Divide and conquer
While Jeduthan had been enjoying his holiday and making plans for the reinforcement of Ticonderoga, the British were making plans of their own. Not happy with the progress made after two years of warfare, they came up with a scheme to split New England from the more loyal to Britain, they believed, southern and western colonies. By capturing Albany, the British could effectively cut off the New England states from Pennsylvania and the South, leaving the more rebellious eastern colonies alone and vulnerable.
The British game plan called for a three pronged attack: General John Burgoyne would march to Albany from the north, General Barry St. Leger from the west and General William Howe from the south. The British were counting on their belief that the Americans would never be able to withstand such an onslaught.
the work begins
On March 1st, Jeduthan posted in his journal that he "began to build the Great Bridge, from Ticonderoga to Independant point." Arthur Cohn, in his article "The Great Bridge from Ticonderoga to Independence Point," wrote of the difficulties facing Jeduthan:
Just how Baldwin built and placed multiple 30 foot-wooden towers from the ice to the lake bottom is an engineering puzzle. Did he assemble a quantity of logs and ballast stone for the structure and then begin construction? Did he build them full height on the ice and then drop them to the lake bottom? On March 9th Jeduthan wrote that he "Sunk 10 Cassoons & put down many of the posts. . ." Perhaps further research coupled with the archaeological remains will add to our understanding of what was for that time a truly incredible engineering feat.
The building of the bridge was certainly not without problems. On March 26th, Jeduthan wrote that "one Peer (pier) of the Grt Bridge fell to peices" and on the 27th "the Bottom of another Peer fell out." He kept Schuyler apprised of his progress: "sent a plan of a proposed fort to be built on mount Independance. . .& laid out a large garden at ye foot of the Mount."
Cohn also described other aspects of Jeduthan's monumental task:
It is hard to comprehend how difficult the work must have been for these poorly equipped men working on the ice in the middle of winter. And yet for Baldwin the bridge was just one of several complex projects he had to superintend simultaneously. At the same time he was struggling to complete the bridge, he was also engaged in building a 250-foot long hospital, a new fort for Mount Independence, and a crane to effectively raise supplies from the lake. But by March 21, the intrepid engineer reported he was taking an interim step to make the bridge serviceable and "putting ye foot Bridge in order to cross the Lake."
One of the men working to bring timber for the bridge described what he saw:
It was a bridge of communication, built of wood, which was supported by twenty-two sunken pieces of large timber at nearly equal distances. The spaces between them were filled by separate floats, each fifty feet long and twelve wide, strongly fastened by chains and bolts, and affixed to the sunken piers. In front of this was a boom made of large round pieces of timber, secured by riveted bolts and double Chans of inch and a half iron. It was a strong work.
By the 14th of April, the weather had improved and the men at Ticonderoga began seeing more enemy activity. Jeduthan wrote that "the Lake is now open for the Enemy & our Numbers inconsiderable by no means Equal to a body to defend this place. drank Tea punch & wine at Mr. Adamses & live as gayly as if danger was at a distance." For the rest of of April and the month of May, Jeduthan's journal reads like a who's who of generals and colonels that he hobnobs with as he works on the bridge, fort and hospital. By June, the Great Bridge was nearly complete.
Burgoyne on the move
The winter and early spring of 1777 had remained relatively calm. By May, however, British General John Burgoyne was in Quebec making plans for an invasion into American held territory. His first objective was to wrest back control of Fort Ticonderoga which had been taken from the British by the Americans two years earlier.
By mid-June Burgoyne's army of 7,000 had begun their southern march. The troops made their way down Lake Champlain and arrived back at Crown Point, about ten miles from Ticonderoga, on June 21. Jeduthan's entry for June 23: "a scout came in from Onion River & says that the enemy are incamped at Gillillands in a great No. of Tents the Indians very thick..." By the 24th "the regulars came to Crown Point." On the 28th Jeduthan reported that "the enemy are 8000 regulars, 1500 Canadians & Indians, that they had near a 1000 Tents pitched." He later reported that they were at the "3 mile point with 18 Gunboats, two large ships and 41 battoes which landed on the east side."
The British tested the waters of Jeduthan's defenses including his newly built bridge and found it was "impracticable to force their Boom with our Shipping." That was the good news. The very bad news was that an attack from the water wasn't their only option. The British quickly found that Sugar Loaf Hill, only a short distance south of Ticonderoga, had been unaccountably left undefended by the Americans. This major oversight would prove to be extremely costly.
The photo below paints a crystal clear picture of the vulnerability of the fort in the event of an attack from Sugar Loaf Hill.
American command at Ticonderoga had recently undergone an upheaval with General Arthur St. Clair taking over on June 12th. The timing couldn't have been worse for the new commander as the threat of a British attack increased daily. Jeduthan's entry on July 4 reported that the British on Sugar Loaf Hill were "putting up the Block house, moving som cannon, laying platforms & preparing for the Siege, the enemy Numerous & bold."
As St. Clair became increasingly aware of the size of the British army, more than 9,000 to his own 2,000, he decided to take a page from George Washington's notebook. His gut feeling was that he could "save his character and lose the army" by trying to hold the fort, or he could "save the army and lose his character" with a silent retreat. On the night of July 5th, according to Jeduthan's journal, St. Clair ordered "a Speedy retreat. . .and the main boddy of the army got off from Ty & Mount Independence a little before Sun rise followed by the Enemy but did but little damage."
The American troops had loaded as much of their armaments and supplies onto boats as possible and the troops began their march toward Hubbardton, VT, a little less than 20 miles southeast of Ticonderoga.
Note: In our next post we'll have details of the minor battle that ensued at Hubbarton and one of our relatives who fought and was captured there.
Jeduthan spent the night of the 6th in safety at Castleton, VT. He woke in the morning to the sound of "heavey fire" from the battle raging in Hubbarton. What was left of St. Clair's army then made their way through Vermont and New York to meet up with General Horatio Gates' army in Saratoga, NY.
The map below shows Jeduthan's somewhat circuitous route according to his journal entries from the 5th through the 12th of July : (1) Ticonderoga, NY; (2) Hubbardton, VT; (3) Castleton, VT; (4) Skenesborough, NY; (5) Arlington, VT; (6) Fort Edward, NY; (7) Saratoga, NY
On the 12th Jeduthan reported that he had lost all his baggage at Skenesborough "with my papers with 6491 Dollars of Publick money (used to pay his workers) & left destitute of a second Shirt, stockings or breeches. . .the long and fatigueing march of 110 Miles thro the woods has brought me Very dirty and uncomfortable, all the Artillery, Stores & Provision & Baggage of all kinds Lost."
In spite of his losses, Jeduthan got busy doing what he did best: working on fortifications, including a brand new bridge, in anticipation of yet another upcoming battle.
Our relatives at Ticonderoga
Many of our relatives participated in the debacle of Fort Ticonderoga in June of 1777. Some were at the fort at the time of the assault, others marched in relief. Sadly, the relief efforts fell into the category of too little, too late.
Our cousin Peter Kimball (3C9X) of Boscawen, NH joined the Continental Army shortly after Washington's evacuation of Long Island in August of 1776. The next year he was made captain in a regiment headed by our cousin Colonel Thomas Stickney (2C8X). From Peter's journal entries in early July, we learn that his regiment was heading out to relieve Fort Ticonderoga:
July 1st 1777: orders came from Col. Stickney to me to muster and Equip one Quarter part of the Company to march at a minits waring and in consequence of the same we met to git the men.
July 4 orders came to march 13 men Immediately to tie (Ticonderoga).
Peter and his men marched out for five days but returned home on the 11th of July after learning that Ticonderoga had been taken by the British. We'll hear more about Peter and Col. Stickney and their role in the Bennington battle in a future post.
Our cousin Stephen Greenleaf (6C5X) seemed to frequently arrive a day late and a dollar short. After the defeat at Ticonderoga, Stephen arrived with his company at Hubbarton once the action was all over. Again, at Bennington, he arrived the day after the battle. He finally saw some action on the march to Saratoga where he joined with the Green Mountain Boys as "a scout for observation and discovery."
Two of our Proctor cousins, brothers William (2C7X) and Nathan (2C7X), arrived from New Hampshire just in time to witness the full blown scramble away from the fort. Like many others companies, the New Hampshire soldiers turned tail and made a hasty retreat back to their home towns. We'll follow the story of the frenzied American retreat from Ticonderoga in our next post with the story of our cousin Ebenezer Brooks Fletcher (4C5X).
Our cousin Seth Wyman (5C6X), was among the Ticonderoga troops making their way to Hubbartan, VT when he “was wounded in the side by a rifle ball, and at last escaped from the British only by rolling on the ground till out of the sight of the party who were in pursuit.” Cousin Seth survived the melee and later took part in the defense of Rhode Island in 1778.
William Baldwin (4C6X)
James Baldwin (4C6X)
Josiah Baldwin (5C6X)
Nathaniel Baldwin (6C7X)
Dane Ballard (2C7X)
Joel Ballard (4C6X)
Joseph Ballard (1C8X)
John Ballard (3C7X) reported sick at Mt. Independence
Josiah Ballard (3C6X)
Jonathan Chamberlain (2C7X)
Jonathan Chamberlain, Jr. (3C6C)
William Crosby (4C9X) Concord
Benjamin Dalton (2C8X) Hampton, NH Ben Simond's Berkshire Co.
Stephen Greenleaf (6C5X) Brattleboro, VT
Moses Greenleaf (5C6X)
Simeon Hildreth (3C7X)
Stephen Hildreth (3C7X)
Abel Kidder (3C6X) and brother John Kidder (3C6X)
Zephaniah Kittredge (3c7X)
Elijah Littlefield (4C8X)
John Littlefield (3C9X) major, later col. Wells
Johnson Littlefield (4C9X)
Colonel Noah Moulton Littlefield (3C9X) later brigadier general
Nathan Proctor (2C7X)
William Proctor (2C7X)
Asa Richardson (3C7X)
Robert Richardson (5C6X), Chelsmford
Richard Stickney (3C8X)
Probable relatives that I can't place:
William Baldwin
Joseph Baldwin
John Baldwin
Samuel Baldwin
Jeremiah Proctor
the fate of Jeduthan's bridge
The British, now firmly ensconced at Fort Ticonderga, had a little time to contemplate Jeduthan's great project. One of Burgoyne's Hessian officers, Du Rot the Elder, was so taken with the bridge that he admiringly described it in detail:
The whole was well done and showed no lack of clever engineers among the rebels.
A bridge of more than 350 feet long, was built from Ticonderoga to Mount Independence, which served not alone for the purpose of communication between the two forts, but also to block completely the passage and entrance for ships to South Bay, a piece of work which should be noted for curiosity's sake, and which does honor to human mind and power. It is only to be regretted that the work was commenced for fighting purposes. It therefore, will hardly be completed as it deserves. It may be compared to the work of the colossus in the fables of the heathen.
For supporting and strengthening the bridge 23 caissons filled with stone, had been put into the water in a straight line across. . . In the beginning they were kept in place by anchors. After they had been built above the water, they were filled with quarry stone. . .
If you take into consideration the depth of the water, you can get an idea of the amount of work involved. . .It is well worth mentioning this fact [the cost in lives to build the Great Bridge], as such perseverance is seldom found in history, except in a republic, where a general participation in a common cause would inspire and hold it. It is really, if ever, found in monarchies.
Burgoyne, much less impressed, described what an easy time the British had destroying Jeuthan's grand project: "The boom and one of the intermediate floats were cut with great dexterity and dispatch. . .a passage was formed in half an hour for the frigates also, through impediments which the enemy had been laboring to construct since last autumn."
Below is a map of the area, now housed at Brown University, which was created by British Lieutenant Charles Wintersmith after Burgoyne's troops took over the area. Included are "the Rebel Works of Batteries as they were when His Majesty's Troops took Possession of them. . ."
So Cousin Jeduthan's bridge, built with months of blood, sweat and tears, came to its sad end. A British sergeant, there at the time, wrote his own account in which he observed, "This bridge, on which the Americans had bestowed so much Labour for ten months, and which was deemed by them to be impregnable, was cut through in less time by British seaman, than it would have cost them, to have described its structure."
In 1790, French artist Charles Fevret de Saint-Memin painted a view of Lake Champlain which shows that some of Jeduthan's piers, which still existed at that time, "had been adapted to a new purpose: serving as the foundations for a pier. . .to afford a dock landing for the new passenger sailing vessels on the lake."
Today, no traces of Jeduthan's bridge remain:
finding the sunken caissons
In 1983, a project was begun by the Champlain Maritime Society, now the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, to locate the remains of Jeduthan's "Great Bridge." When plans to use sonar didn't pan out, the Society decided to use a dive team. Not only did the divers discover many of the the Great Bridge caissons, they also found sunken ships. One of these ships was the Spitfire, a gunboat that had fought in Benedict's Arnold's Battle of Valcour.
Below is a mural by Ernest Haas which was commissioned by the Mt. Independence Coalition showing Juduthan's bridge as it might have looked on July 4th, 1777, just before it was destroyed.
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