FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Three weeks before the first battle of the revolution at Lexington, an emissary was sent to Canada by the Committee of Correspondence in Boston, to ascertain the feelings of the people, and to make such reports as his observations might suggest. His first advice was that Ticonderoga should be seized as quickly as possible. The "Green Mountain Boys " were at this time fresh from their resistance to the new grants, and were immediately fixed upon as the best force to achieve this object. The little army, already organized under the famous Ethan Alien, assembled at Castleton, and the main body, consisting of one hundred and forty men, marched directly to the shore of the lake, opposite Ticonderoga. It was important to have a guide who was acquainted with the ground around the fortress and the places of access. Alien made inquiries as to these points of Mr. Beman, a farmer residing near the lake, who answered that he seldom crossed the Ticonderoga, and was little acquainted with the particulars of its situation; but that his son, "Nathan, a young lad, passed much of his time there in company with the boys of the garrison. The boy was called, and appeared by his answers to be familiar with every nook in the fort, and every passage and by-path by which it could be approached. In the eye of Alien, he was the very person to thread out the best avenue; and by the consent of the father, and a little persuasion, he was engaged to be the guide of the party. The next step was to procure boats) which were very deficient in number. Eighty-three men only had crossed when the day began to dawn; and while the boats were sent back for the rear division. Alien resolved to move immediately against the fort. He drew up his men in three ranks, addressed them in a short harangue, and, placing himself at the head of the centre file, led them silently, but with a quick step, up the heights of the fortress. Before the sun rose, he had entered the gate, and formed his men on the parade between the barracks. As Alien passed the gate, a sentinel snapped his fusee at him, and then retreated under a. covered way. Another sentinel made a thrust at an officer with his bayonet, and slightly wounded him, but Alien cut him over the head with his sword, and he threw down his musket and asked for quarter. Standing on the parade-ground they gave three huzzas and aroused the sleepers. Alien inquired the way to the commandant's apartment, hastily ascended the stairs, and called out with his stentorian voice at the door, ordering the astonished captain instantly to appear. Startled at so strange and unexpected a summons, he sprang from his bed and opened the door, when the first salutation of his boisterous and unseasonable visitor was an order immediately to surrender the fort. Rubbing his eyes, and trying to collect his scattered senses, the Frenchman asked by what authority he presumed to make such a demand. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" replied Alien. Not accustomed to hear much of the Continental Congress in this remote corner, nor to respect its authority when he did, the commandant began to speak; but Alien cut shore the thread of his discourse by lifting his sword over his head, and reiterating the demand for an instant surrender. Having neither permission to argue, nor power to resist. Captain De la Place submitted, ordering his men to parade without arms, and the garrison was given up to the victors. This surprise was effected about four o'clock in the morning on the 10th of May. The remainder of the troops arrived after the fort was taken, and the prisoners, consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and forty-eight subalterns and privates, were sent on to Hartford under an escort. As soon as the bustle was over, Alien sent off a detachment to take Crown Point, a small fortress higher up the lake. Strong head winds drove back the boats, and the party returned the same evening. The attempt was renewed a day or two afterwards, and the garrison, consisting of a serjeant and eleven men, were brought in prisoners. /p> The principal advantage of these captures, besides the possession of the posts, was the acquisition, at Ticonderoga, of one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, some swivels, mortars, and small arms; and at Crown Point, of sixty-one cannon and some small stores. The Green Mountain Boys were at this time under sentence of outlawry from the Provincial Government; but after the good service they had done at Ticonderoga, they were formed into a separate regiment, and permitted to nominate their own officers. Their services to the cause of Independence are well known. BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST AND HISTORY OF THIS PRINT: William Henry Bartlett, (born in London, 26 March 1809; died at sea off Malta, 13 Sept 1854) was an English draughtsman, active also in the Near East, Continental Europe and North America. He was a prolific artist and an intrepid traveler. His work became widely known through numerous engravings after his drawings published in his own and other writers' topographical books. His primary concern was to extract the picturesque aspects of a place and by means of established pictorial conventions to render 'lively impressions of actual sights', as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849). The background for his work on his views of American Scenery, of which the picture represented is one of his several hundred illustrations on the subject, is as follows: In early 1836, having just returned from completing a series of sketches of the Low Countries of the Netherlands area, Mr. Bartlett's success with prior illustration projects allowed him to remain at home for only a month. His name, as an artist, was exceedingly popular. Everything to which he lent the charm of his pencil was crowned with success; and thus encouraged, his publisher, George Virtue and Sons of London, resolved upon another extensive illustrative work, that of the new lands of America. The idea was suggested by Mr. Nathaniel Parker Willis, to whom Mr. Bartlett had struck up a promising friendship. In April 1836, Mr. Bartlett went to Paris, and then to Havre where he boarded a large steamship to New York. This would be one of three visits to North America by Bartlett, this first venture lasting the longest, from July or August of 1836 to July 1837. The second tour in 1838 lasted from early summer to December, and the last in 1841-1842 was more focused on drawings of Canada than the USA. All of his American Scenery plates bear the date of 1837, 1838 or 1839. Bartlett's illustrations were of most of the popular views and places of the time. Not willing or able to take the time to leave the more frequented routes, Bartlett usually sketched the picturesque or sublime views that were reasonably close and often identifiable because other travelers and artists had referred to them. Working as he did on commission from Virtue, having no "permanent share or copyright" on his works, being often absent from home for long periods, it was really little wonder that he kept to fairly well-known itineraries, which would give him the best chance to fill his portfolio with sketches for the machine of which he was so important a part. He was also able to get assistance from NP Willis in planning his route, as this well known American author and journalist had traveled extensively in the Eastern US and in 1827 and 1836 had visited Niagara Falls by way of the Erie Canal. Bartlett was quoted as saying that nothing struck him as much in America "so much as its comparative want of associations". Here he had to accept a landscape nearly empty of a long tradition of architecture, of all the antiquities and monuments found so often in his views of Europe and the Middle East. However, the opposite was true that America offered Bartlett to record a landscape before it became settled. "He who traveled in America", said Willis, "must feed his imagination on the future. Instead of looking through a valley, which has presented the same aspect for hundreds of years, the American sees a valley with what it will be, the villages that will soon sparkle on the hill-sides, the mills, bridges, canals, and railroads that will span and border the stream. And it is for this fact that Bartlett's views of America are so valuable, because they capture the landscape before the developments of man set in: the buildings, barges, viaducts, cart paths and roads and deforestation that now make certain views nearly unrecognizable from this period.
Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, heliogravure, lithograph, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood. "ENGRAVINGS" is the term commonly used for these paper prints that were created from a master plate, and were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books. These paper prints or "engravings" were inserted into the book with a tissue guard or onion skin frontis to protect them from transferring the image to the opposite page. These prints were usually on much thicker quality woven rag stock paper, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone lithographs. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper. A NOSTALGIC VIEW OF AMERICAN SCENERY ! | |