NEWSLETTER
Lake George, NY – Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance member and historian Mark Silo kicks off the organization’s 2026 programming with his presentation, “Sir William, Where Exactly Were Your Lines?”, on Saturday, January 17, 11 AM at the Holiday Inn Resort Lake George.
The event is free to the public. To ensure sufficient space, those planning to attend are requested to RSVP in advance by registering at the following email address: info@lakegeorgebattlefield.org.
Mark Silo shares the results of his 3+ year analysis of the Battle of Lake George (1755), its landscape and associated mapping from his civil engineering perspective, along with primary and secondary sources published over the past 270 years. Not only was this battle the initial conflict witnessed by what is today’s Lake George Battlefield Park—it was the first significant victory for the British in the French & Indian War and gave American-born provincial soldiers valuable experience that would serve them well in the Revolutionary War 20 years later.
Silo recalls the evolution of his research into the location of British battle lines on September 8, 1755:
“I had long wondered when visiting Lake George Battlefield Park exactly where Sir William’s improvised barricades were. My serious inquiry began when the Park Visitor Center opened in 2022 and I was more frequently on-site. After a while I started to find strong correlations among the present terrain, contemporary map details, and historic accounts. Those correlations aligned completely to produce my findings and conclusions with full confidence.
“In first publishing the results of my investigation (in the Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance’s journal, the Fort George Post, Winter 2023 edition), I realized I was not the only person wishing to know where and how the British held off the French and their Native allies! To address this interest from Alliance members and other history buffs, we’ve hosted a series of tours and presentations over the past three years. For a civil engineer whose principal retirement hobby is American history, this has all been thoroughly enjoyable.”
Mark Silo's original 2023 published findings can be accessed
here: https://lakegeorgebattlefield.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/newsletter-Winter-
Mark Silo is a native of Yonkers who relocated to the Albany area after receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and his master’s degree from Cornell University, both in civil engineering. He spent his professional career in transportation engineering, most recently as an Assistant Commissioner at the New York State Department of Transportation in Albany. Silo is the author of The 115th New
York in the Civil War (McFarland Publishing, 2007), the unit history of a local civil war regiment.
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About the Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance: The Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance is a not-for-profit organization of volunteers who have an abiding interest in the Lake George Region’s critical role in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The Alliance manages the Battlefield Park’s Visitor Center and sponsors events throughout the year that educate the public about the site and its unique history. It is working closely with the Town of Lake George and State of New York on the “Repose of the Fallen” project, which will reinter in 2026 the remains of 44 Continental Army soldiers and support personnel in the Battlefield Park. For more information, visit www.lakegeorgebattlefield.org.