Lake George (New York)
| Lake George | ||
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| Lake George, west side, view of Tongue Mountain (center) and Black Mountain (right) | ||
| Geographical location | Adirondack Mountains | |
| Drain | La Chute | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 43 ° 31 ′ N , 73 ° 39 ′ W | |
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| Altitude above sea level | 97 m | |
| surface | 114 km² | |
| length | 52 km | |
| width | 5 km | |
| Maximum depth | 61 m | |
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| West side near Sabbath Day Point | ||
Lake George is a long, narrow lake at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York State .
geography
Lake George is 52 km long, its width varies from 1.5 to 5 km. It is connected to Lake Champlain by a short river, the La Chute , with numerous falls and rapids, which loses about 50 meters in altitude over a length of 5 km. At the southern end of the lake is the village of Lake George, at the northern end is Ticonderoga .
The name of the lake in the Iroquois language is said to have been Andiatarocte (the enclosed lake).
history
The French explorer Samuel de Champlain was the first European to travel to the area. According to his diary, he saw the lake on July 3, 1609, but gave it no name. In 1646 the French missionary Isaac Jogues named it Lac du Saint-Sacrement ("Lake of the Holy Sacrament").
During the French and Indian War ( Seven Years War ) (1754–1763), British troops under Sir William Johnson occupied the area of the lake on August 28, 1755. They renamed it Lake George after King George II . At the southern end of the lake, the British built Fort William Henry . On September 8, 1755, the Battle of Lake George took place in the vicinity , in which the British defeated a French expeditionary force under Ludwig August von Dieskau .
The French responded to the construction of Fort William Henry with the construction of Fort Carillon ( Fort Ticonderoga ) at the point where the La Chute flows into Lake Champlain. These fortifications controlled the waterway between Canada and New York and were therefore contested several times. The French under Louis-Joseph de Montcalm captured Fort William Henry in August 1757, the British suffered a defeat in the Battle of Ticonderoga on July 8, 1758, but were able to occupy the fort on June 25, 1759. This allowed the British to finally claim ownership of the region.
