After 250 years, Revolutionary War-era soldiers finally laid to rest in upstate New York
By Ray Sanchez, CNN
(CNN) — For more than 40 Revolutionary War-era soldiers, the long journey to their final resting place fittingly ended on Memorial Day weekend in the idyllic southeastern foothills of the Adirondack Mountains.
Former service members donning white gloves carried small pine boxes from the New York State Museum in Albany and gently loaded them onto vintage military vehicles adorned with black funeral bunting and American flags for a solemn 60-mile procession north to Lake George, New York.
Along the way, people lined sidewalks to wave American flags and quietly salute the motorcade carrying the soldiers’ remains, which had been unexpectedly unearthed at a construction site in 2019.
“They were predominantly young, in their teens and twenties, probably recent recruits in the fight for independence,” Lisa Anderson, the museum’s curator of bioarchaeology, said in a statement.
“Among them also was a woman and a child, a poignant reminder of the extreme hardship for families during wartime. It is a privilege to help share their stories.”
What little is known about their stories is coming to light on the eve of the 250th anniversary of America’s war for freedom from the British. Their remains were laid to rest Friday at the new Repose of the Fallen memorial in Lake George Battlefield Park — about 200 miles north of New York City — with full ceremonial honors that they likely did not get at the time of their deaths.
“As our nation approaches its semiquincentennial, their reinterment carries profound meaning — an act of dignity, remembrance, and gratitude,” said Jennifer Saunders, the museum’s executive director, noting that preserving their stories ensures “they are remembered not as historical fragments, but as individuals who served and sacrificed.”
It all began seven years ago with the discovery of unmarked graves with skeletal bones, centuries old and fragile, during routine construction work in Lake George. Among the artifacts found buried in the frozen earth were pewter military buttons from the First Pennsylvania Battalion, established in 1775 — which helped archaeologists date the remains back to the Revolutionary War, according to the museum.
The artifacts also linked the grave site to the 1775–1776 Quebec Campaign of the American Revolution. It is believed the site was a burial ground for Revolutionary War solders who had been housed at a makeshift smallpox hospital at the southern end of Lake George, according to Anderson.
“Conditions at the hospital at Fort George were not like we think of hospitals today,” Anderson said in a recent lecture about the discovery. “It was essentially a place to warehouse, and in this case, just isolate the sick.”
Lake George had, until this discovery, been associated more with the French and Indian War than with the Revolutionary War.
“This entire episode has largely remained a footnote in history, particularly in Lake George — overshadowed by the much more dramatic events of the French and Indian War,” Anderson said, noting that Fort William Henry, the 1755 British colonial fortress, was reconstructed on its original site.
Anderson and other scientists spent months sifting through heaps of soil to recover as many remains as they could and then years analyzing them — including skulls, arm bones, parts of pelvises and femurs belonging to 44 people — to learn about how they lived and died. It’s believed most were part of a failed Continental Army campaign, beginning in 1775, to make Quebec the fourteenth colony.
“While they did not live to see the end of the American Revolution, it is fitting they will finally receive a dignified burial 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence,” Saunders said in a statement.
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