What We Do
At the Lower Adirondack Regional Center for History (LARCH), we work to inspire an interest in the unique history of our area and to showcase the contributions of our region to the history of New York and the United States. We strive to provide engaging programs and exhibits that link the cultural, military, environmental and scientific history of the region to current affairs and the Adirondack environment. We keep an on-going historical record of our region and preserve books, artifacts and genealogical records of interest. We maintain the Hancock House Museum and are developing the Lord Howe Heritage Preserve (not yet open to the public) for the education and enjoyment of the region’s residents and visitors.
Mission Statement
The Lower Adirondack Region Center for History (LARCH) focuses on the cultural, military, environmental and scientific history of the Adirondack Mountains and the Lake George and Lake Champlain regions. We preserve and promote our unique history and showcase contributions of our region to the history of New York and the United States.
Our History
LARCH was organized in 1897 as the Ticonderoga Historical Society. The goal of its founders was to bring to the nation’s attention the poor state of the ruins and grounds of the old Fort Ticonderoga. Not only had local citizens found its ruins a convenient source of building stone, but with the era’s improving transportation and the growing appeal of vacations at the lakes, increasing numbers of tourists were visiting the site and, with their desire for souvenirs, gradually dismantling it.
According to the Ticonderoga Sentinel of December 2, 1897, the organizational meeting was held at the home of the Honorable Henry Gordon Burleigh, the great grandfather and great-great grandfather of several of our current board members. That year the next Sentinel issue reported a membership of 50 and ongoing negotiations for a Society room.
During the next decade the Society’s focus was redirected by the 300th Anniversary celebration of Samuel de Champlain’s visit to Lake Champlain. He was the first European to reach the Lake, which he named after himself. That celebration lasted throughout the summer of 1909, with festivities up and down Lake Champlain, including the town of Ticonderoga. It reached a high point at Fort Ticonderoga with reenactments of Champlain’s encounter with the Kanienkehaka People (the Iroquois Mohawks) in 1609 and the Battle of Carillon in 1758, plus addresses by President William Howard Taft, New York State governor Charles Evans Hughes and both the British and French ambassadors to the US.
In that year the Society was chartered by the Board of Regents of New York State as a historical society with 15 trustees, to be elected by the Society’s members ($1 for annual membership, $5 for lifetime membership). Its stated purpose was “to have a particular reference to the historical, educational, scientific and social aspects of the Town of Ticonderoga, County of Essex, the Adirondack Mountains and the lakes region of Lake Champlain and Lake George; to preserve genealogical records and other items of local historic interest; to keep and maintain an on-going historical record of the area; and to promote and assist the education, study, research and knowledge of the general public and all recognized institutions of learning and research.”
The first Ticonderoga Historical Society headquarters were in the Buskirk Building, which burned in 1931. Fortunately, the Society had already moved its headquarters and collections to the Black Watch Memorial Library, constructed in 1905. The Library came to house some 4000 of the Society’s artifacts and records by 1924.
In 1925, Ticonderoga’s Hancock House Museum was built by the paper magnate and philanthropist Horace A. Moses as the headquarters, library and museum for the New York State Historical Association. Along with his business interests, Mr. Moses was an ardent history buff and supporter of Ticonderoga, his hometown. He had directed and funded the installation of the Liberty Monument shortly before beginning construction of the Hancock House. The Moses-Ludington Hospital, the Valley View Cemetery Chapel and the Ticonderoga Community Building are all his gifts.
Over the next 14 years, economic fortunes waxed and waned, and in 1939 the NY State Historical Association (NYSHA) transferred its activities to Cooperstown, leaving the Hancock House Museum to be operated as a local library and depository of artifacts and records. In May of 1958, NYSHA closed the Hancock House.
In the autumn of 1974, the Hancock House Museum collections, both those belonging to the NYS Historical Association and to the Ticonderoga Historical Society, were transferred to the Cooperstown Museum. At this time the THS, as its national bicentennial project, undertook efforts to ensure that materials pertaining to the history of our area would be returned to Ticonderoga. After serious negotiations with the NY State Historical Association and warm support from many concerned citizens, the Hancock House Museum was leased to the THS, and the Society’s collections returned to Ticonderoga.
On August 21, 1976, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Hancock House Museum. A highlight was the re-laying of the building’s cornerstone. Items from the building’s dedication in 1926 were examined and items relative to the 50th Anniversary and the Nation’s Bicentennial were added. We can look forward to opening the building’s cornerstone again in 2026, at the Hancock House’s centennial celebration.
Each year since 1976, the Hancock House Museum has been the site of performances, programs, exhibits and lectures sponsored by the THS. From Thanksgiving to New Years, since 1991, the annual Festival of Trees has brightened the Hancock House Museum with as many as fifty trees and decorations by area families, organizations and businesses. The first Summer A’Faire was organized in 2002 and is a summertime fixture. We weathered the 2020 COVID pandemic by holding programs outside, under a tent. The Colonial Herb Garden, designed and installed in 2017, enlivens the west lawn with plants of the colonial era: blossoms of calendula, bee balm and echinacea and the scent of dill, fennel and sage. In August of 2022 we celebrated the Society’s 125th birthday with a gala party on the Hancock House Museum lawn.
In November 2023 the Society was able to purchase approximately 7 acres of land between Route 9N and Trout Brook, directly across Moses Circle from the Hancock House Museum. This property is of unusual historic and ecological significance. It is relatively undisturbed land near downtown Ticonderoga. The property is bounded by Trout Brook (called Bernetz during the New France era), an ecologically important major tributary to the LaChute River. It was both a battlefield site during the French and Indian wars and a troop transit corridor during the American Revolution. Here or nearby the British Brigadier General George Lord Howe was killed by a musket ball during a skirmish between British and French scouting parties on July 6, 1758 (French and Indian War). His sudden death seriously demoralized General James Abercrombie’s army and contributed significantly to their rout by the French two days later at Fort Carillon (now Fort Ticonderoga).
Beginning with trails down to and along Trout Brook, volunteers are developing the property as the Lord Howe Heritage Preserve. We envision a park and eventually an interpretive center that would display both the ecological and military importance of this land.
In recent decades our interests and programs have grown to include the lower Adirondacks and the Lake Champlain and Lake George region. Accordingly, in 2024 the Society changed its name to the Lower Adirondack Regional Center for History (LARCH). As this region’s Center for History, we strive to preserve our area’s historic record and, through our exhibits and programming, bring a greater understanding of that record to the region’s citizens and visitors. We aspire to connect our lives today with the lives and experiences of the past peoples of our region’s towns, villages, rivers, lakes and mountains.
Officers of the Board of Trustees
President: William G. Dolback
Vice President: Virginia LaPointe
Secretary: Susan Hayes
Treasurer: Linda Bhatia
Board Members
Colleen Bessett
Charlene Dreimiller
Karlene Gonyeau
David Hayes
Tina Huestis
Marsha LaPointe
Christopher Michalak
Brian O’Connor
Mary Jo vonTury Smith
Sandra Trepanier