“These are the guys that started it all,” said Lyn Hohmann, waving her hand toward the granite monument decorated with a wreath and fresh flowers for Memorial Day. Hohmann, President of the Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance, spoke this morning at a ceremony to honor the fallen soldiers buried in Lake George’s Battlefield Park. The ceremony, which included a wreath-laying, prayer and gun salute, was held at the grave of four unnamed soldiers killed the morning of Sept. 8, 1755 as the British and French Empires struggled for control of the continent.
“I call them Americans — yes, they would have thought of themselves as British, but at that time, as the Colonies were becoming themselves and Britain was kind of moving away, they became, it seems, their own people in essence,” says Hohmann. “They gave their lives, these four guys and 136 other of them, in the Bloody Morning Scout as well as here in the park, to preserve their homeland much as many of our men have done in the hundreds and hundreds of years subsequent to that.”
How these soldiers came to be buried in Battlefield Park
In the fall of 1931, construction work on the Glens Falls-Lake George Road came to an abrupt halt when the highway crew unearthed four human skulls and skeletons. The men were excavating near the site of the Col. Ephraim Williams monument, digging out a culvert about one-half mile north of present day Route 149, when they discovered the bones under three feet of earth.
According to a report published in the Oct. 8, 1931 Washington County Post, “Examination of the skulls showed that death in each case was caused by a head wound. Two of the skulls showed fractures, while a third had a bullet wound through the lower jaw.” A forensic study determined the bones were of white men, and historians affirmed they were the remains of soldiers killed during the Bloody Morning Scout.
The Bloody Morning Scout
The Bloody Morning Scout was the first of three Sept. 8, 1755 engagements collectively called The Battle of Lake George. Mohawk Chief King Hendrick led 200 Iroquois allies followed by Col. Williams of Massachusetts, who led a column of 1,000 British soldiers and American Provincials. The men were marching to lend support to Fort Lyman (Fort Edward) when they were ambushed by the French under the command of Baron Dieskau.
“The trees were thinly scattered where our Men were thus fired upon, and the Shrubs but low: However, they made the best use of them they could, and continued Fighting here for some Time with the greatest Resolution. The greater Part that were killed in this Fight, whether of the Enemy, or of our People, were found the next Day at this Ambuscade, or not far distant from it; tho’ they lay scattered more or less all the Way to the Camp.” — A Prosepective Plan of the Battle near Lake George, on the Eighth Day of September, 1755. With an explanation thereof; Containing a full, tho’ short, History of that important Affair. By Samuel Blodget, Occasionally at the Camp when the Battle was fought.
Both Hendrick and Williams were killed in the attack; however, the French were successfully driven back when they marched on the encampment at the head of Lake George. Baron Dieskau was captured, and this success encouraged British General William Johnson to build a permanent fort, Fort William Henry, at the site.
The oldest government-recognized unknown American soldiers
The remains of those soldiers uncovered by a highway crew were reinterred in Lake George’s Battlefield Park, miles away from their Massachusetts homes. Their bones rest on a bluff overlooking the rolling park grounds and Lake George. The monument marking their grave was unveiled in September 1935 with much fanfare.
The North Creek Enterprise reported that the unveiling was to be performed by 94-year-old Civil War Veteran Leroy L. Barnard of Granville, New York. Bernard, the Enterprise notes, is the great grandson of Captain Remember Baker, who was with Col. Williams that fateful morning. A parade traveled from the County Court House on Canada Street to the park where nearly 3,000 attended the ceremony, which included speeches by historians and prominent veterans.
Hohmann commented that although the reburial of these soldiers drew much attention, over the years, people seem to have forgotten about them. “These are the oldest government recognized unknown American soldiers in the United States,” says Hohmann. “These are four of our men, our men from who we are descended, who began the fight for our independence. ..I think it is appropriate for us to say thank you to them for giving their lives so that we could eventually become a free people, free citizens of this country.”