House Occupied by Ethan Allen at Bennington... Facsimile of Act Admitting Vermont as a State of the Map Prepared by James Whitelaw, Surveyor General of Interior of Old Meeting House, Rockingham..... Rock Point, Burlington.... The First State House at Montpelier.. ARLY in June, when General Schuyler saw the E st don Canada in the near future, he began to make plans for strengthening the positions held on Lake Champlain. He hoped soon to send an engineer to repair Ticonderoga, if it was considered desirable to keep that position, but expressed the opinion that a post on the ground opposite the old fortress "would more effectually secure us against the enemy." Schuyler's views on the subject were made known to General Washington, who wrote him on July 13 that Messrs. Chase and Carroll, the commissioners who were sent to Canada by Congress, as associates of Benjamin Franklin, were of the same opinion that the eastern side of the lake was the more advantageous post to occupy. Admitting that necessary works of defence. should be thrown up with the utmost dispatch in the place most easily defended, Washington wished to know if it would not be desirable to fortify both Ticonderoga and the point opposite. Schuyler replied: "If a fortress was erected on the east side of Lake Champlain, nearly opposite Ticonderoga, it would equally command both communications, with this advantage, that the militia of the northern colonies are more at hand for immediate succor, may all march by land to the post, and attempt to raise a siege.' Early in July Generals Schuyler and Gates, having occasion to go to Crown Point, took Colonel Trumbull across the lake to inspect the site of the proposed fortifications, and the latter made such a favorable report that at a council of general officers held on July 7, "it |