(dramatic music) - [Sean] George Washington in this American army surrounding Boston didn't have the artillery to force the British Navy out.

Knox provided that.

- He comes up with this plan, this crazy plan to move 59 pieces of artillery from Fort Ticonderoga, which is in northern New York, all the way out to Boston, 300 miles through the woods in the winter.

- I can't imagine Henry Knox pulling 59 pieces of artillery.

It's amazing to me.

(canon firing) - [Lauren] The British had just won the battle of Bunker Hill.

What George Washington really needed was artillery.

He knows it's not going to be easy.

He's going to be up against adversity, but he's telling George Washington, keep trusting me.

I'm going to be able to do this.

This is the story of Henry Knox.

- [Narrator] 250 years ago, Henry Knox's leadership and people's determination delivered a Noble Train of Artillery.

60 tons of the impossible through the Champlain to Hudson Corridor, liberated Boston launching a revolution.

Today the Champlain Hudson Power Express follows this corridor helping power New York's future.

We salute the enduring legacy of courage and conviction of the people keeping this historic artery pulsing and serving another generation.

- Henry Knox was a young man who didn't have all of the advantages that a lot of the other people that you hear about in the revolution had.

People like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson that had wealthy families.

Henry Knox was not that guy.

He grew up in Boston.

He had a father who wasn't really able to provide well for them, actually abandoned the family when Henry was young.

- His father, he was a boat builder and a ship captain.

Some of his investments didn't do very well, so he found himself in the Caribbean and he lost his life.

Henry was the oldest son, so he took on this responsibility of taking care of his family.

- Henry goes to work to pick up the slack of his father, which is a very sort of quintessential New England story.

Death was all around them and Henry stepped into the role and he filled it as no other six foot three, 200 pound young man could.

- [Lauren] He had to work very young and ended up being apprenticed at a bookshop.

- And he learned that trade very quickly.

The bookseller took a liking to Henry, so would let him learn anything he wanted about the business, but also to borrow any books and to read 'em himself.

- [Lauren] In his early twenties, he was actually able to open his own bookstore in Boston, which he called the London Bookstore.

- Henry Knox through his bookshop, he had acquired dozens and dozens of military treatises and books.

He was particularly interested in engineering the mathematics behind it.

- [Sean] Henry Knox, he's active around some of the mobs that are in Boston at that time that did not like the British.

He is a witness to the Boston Massacre.

- His wife, Lucy Knox.

Her family was uniquely impacted by this revolution.

Her extended family identified as loyalist and she lost all of her family by choosing to marry Henry Knox.

She was separated from them.

For 10 years now the city of Boston has been simmering with tension.

They decide this is the moment to take their stand and they throw the tea into the harbor.

They know how provocative is it is to destroy British property in this way.

They're kind of crossing the Rubicon with this decision that is the straw that breaks the camels back.

Parliament must make a stand.

They pass something called the Course of Acts and functionally put Massachusetts under Marshall Law.

They dispatch a military, they dispatch a naval force to govern Massachusetts.

- This disagreement between the colonists and the British really was starting to boil over into violence.

- [Lauren] First we have Lexington in Concord and then the Battle of Bunker Hill.

While it is a victory for the British, they have high casualty rates and they're still contained within the city of Boston.

- That's the breaking point way.

That's, that's the place where there's an awareness that if Boston's not safe, none of us are safe.

None of us are safe.

None of us are safe.

Any one of us could be besieged by the British military.

This could happen to you.

- [Jonathan] The British are bottlenecked on two of the Peninsulas.

They're bottlenecked on Charlestown and they're bottlenecked in Boston and they're surrounded by 13 miles of militia men who are keeping them enclosed.

- Continental Congress wants to liberate Massachusetts from British occupation and they dispatch George Washington and an emerging military force to make this liberation possible.

- [Lauren] So it's a siege, but it's really a stalemate and Washington recognizes that what he really needs to push the British out is artillery.

Back in May of 1775, Fort Ticonderoga had been captured by the joint command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.

- Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold didn't get along.

Arnold wanted to take all of the glory, but they arrived at a compromise and they both attacked Fort Ticonderoga arm in arm.

- With that capture comes a whole cache of artillery, something that the continental army was desperate for.

The artillery that was at Fort Ticonderoga didn't just originate there.

It also came from Crown Point just north and also St.

John's.

So there were a lot of different types of artillery, not just cannons, but coehorns and mortars, all different kinds of artillery pieces that are kind of lumped into to what we think of as cannon.

Henry Knox wanted to be helpful to the Patriot cause.

He did join the local artillery militia.

So he was a volunteer and they did some drilling, but that was really the extent of his military knowledge and practical experience.

- Knox saw a time that he could contribute like so many other of the founding fathers, they came from other professions.

They were not trained military, so it was on the job training, you might say.

- Washington is looking around at men that he can trust to get things done.

And he writes to General John Thomas and John Thomas is an old campaigner.

He is one of the oldest generals on the battlefield at the time.

He says about Knox, you know, if this man had been in the army, he would be one of the brilliant leaders of our time.

But everything he's learned is book knowledge and he hasn't had time to apply it.

He studied field fortifications on how to build them.

Where's the best site for them?

How do you build them so that they provide a maximum of protection, but a minimum of effort.

And he built a fort that was large enough to hold a couple of hundred men and a couple of field pieces.

It's one of the first things that brings Knox to Washington's attention.

- Henry Knox, who's volunteering with the army at this point, meets General George Washington.

- He's able to get the men to work hard, professional, neat, tidy, and very defensive.

And Washington appreciated that.

And he knew that a leader like that is somebody who could be relied on.

- After George Washington meets Knox, he really is enamored with him.

He sees him as someone who can get things done.

He's only 25 years old.

He really hasn't proven himself.

He doesn't have any experience in the field.

So what can Knox do to earn Washington's favor?

- Like many men, Henry saw this opportunity, this military opportunity to help improve his station in life.

And so he wanted to be a colonel and Washington said, well, I'll work on that, but while I'm working on that, I want you to go to New York and bring me back 60 tons of cannon.

(bright music) - Henry Knox comes up with this crazy plan that he can move the artillery from Fort Ticonderoga, which is in northern New York, 300 miles in the winter, all the way out to Boston, where the Americans can seize the high ground at Dorchester Heights and convince the British to leave the city of Boston.

And Washington takes a chance on this guy.

- One of the things to think about, George, is that he could kind of seek people out, that he could find these skill levels that they seemed to have.

And I think that's probably what he saw in Henry.

- [Bruce] Washington was in his forties.

Henry Knox was in his twenties, and George Washington, I think, thought of him as a son.

- Washington's a pretty good judge of character.

He does a great job of surrounding himself with people who think that they can do incredible things with little experience.

And so he trusts Knox.

But if Knox doesn't get it done, he does not get that position in artillery.

He doesn't get the success.

He doesn't prove himself.

Knox, when he is 25 years old, decides I can do this.

And because of this mission, we can convince the British they have to leave the city of Boston.

(bright music) In November of 1775, Knox leaves Boston on his way to, Fort Ticonderoga to make this expedition happen.

He doesn't bring the army with him, but he does bring his brother William.

He goes through New York City where he is ordering some shot.

There are dangers galore in this mission.

He doesn't know who he's working with.

He doesn't know how much money it's gonna take to get the cannon all the way through.

- There was conflict happening.

He was really cutting his way through wilderness in a lot of places and starting to create his own road.

And you really didn't know what was behind the next tree.

The roads were nothing like we have today.

Even in settled areas was still hard, especially in the wintertime, which is why they used sleds.

- [Lauren] How is going to cross these rivers?

How is he going to get not only up the mountain, but down the Berkshires with tons of metal being pulled on wooden sleds.

- He had never been here before, so he had to go out and find farmers and work with the local people to create sleds and to gather the teamsters to make this feat possible.

And he was lucky, he was able to work with good community-based people who had networks.

So in this situation, he worked with Philip Skyler.

He was already a general, but he knew logistics.

I think when Skyler and Knox meet, there is a concern with Skyler.

Nobody's really sure if this 25-year-old bookseller is up to this.

They've seen good things about him building fortifications, but they don't know about this type of a logistics effort.

Henry Knox ends up creating a contract with a man from Stillwater by the name of George Palmer.

Skyler is not happy with that contract.

He thinks the costs are way too high.

Palmer is promising these sleds and these oxen and Skyler who had spent a lot of time here as soon as Skyler sees that contract, he cancels it.

- From what I read in the diary and from Skyler's communication with Palmer, it seems that Skyler is almost trying to teach Knox how to go about getting these necessaries for bringing the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga.

- Henry Knox didn't have the same kind of great gear that we have.

He would've been freezing, it would've been really cold.

There would've been frostbite.

Wool is a great material to have, but it only goes so far.

Several times in his diary he mentions that he almost perished from the cold.

There was snow, there was ice, they were getting wet.

This was weeks and weeks out in the cold.

They really had to face the brunt of an upstate New York winter 250 years ago.

- They were determined to get the job done, you know, at all costs.

We can't even imagine how cold it was in 1775 and 76.

It was during the little ice age.

It was much colder than we're experiencing now.

To do that in that kind of weather with the clothing that they had or didn't have.

You know, at one point Knox rights in his diary that he has to abandon the horses and walk on foot because the snow is so deep.

And then to come here and have to sit here for weeks waiting for the ice to freeze.

So what does Philip Skyler do?

He gets the townspeople to go out and drill holes in the ice in order to make it harder.

- [Jonathan] They were getting tons of artillery.

They needed snow to put it on the sleds and move that through the upper Hudson River Valley.

- Lake George was not frozen in December of 1775.

So Knox was able to take the cannon by boat and bring them down various types of water craft, bring them from Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point down to the southern shore of Lake George.

It's December, January, February.

He knew he was gonna run into snow and he decided to put these cannon tubes on sleds.

When he got to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts, he's also gonna have to use sleds to get them over the mountains.

So it was a good decision.

- [Jonathan] Henry Knox, he was a doer.

He didn't command his men to do things and sit back and watch it happen.

He got in, literally got into the trenches and made things happen.

Henry was an imposing figure, six foot three more than 250 pounds, and he exuded command.

- Henry Knox and his brother and the teamsters are all there trying to get across these frozen rivers.

But one of the large, very heavy canons breaks through.

Luckily, they knew that this was a possibility.

The teamsters actually had devised a plan with a long rope so that if one of the canons went through, there was a teamster there with a hatchet.

He could cut the rope quickly so the horses didn't get dragged down also, but the rope then could be used to pull the cannon out.

And that's exactly what happened in Albany.

Actually, the next day the citizens of Albany came out to help him.

He didn't have the military, he didn't have a huge crew with him, so he relies on the citizens of Albany so much so that he notes in his diary that the rescue of the canon was owing to the good citizens of Albany.

And he was so impressed with that, that he ended up naming the canon, the Albany in their honor.

- It was, I think, an exciting time that at least revolutionaries got behind, loyalists who were living among the people here certainly weren't as enthusiastic about it.

- Knox definitely had a skill, and you can tell that because the rate of desertion in the artillery is low.

He asks his men to do incredibly hard things.

We talk about Knox coming to New York and bringing the 60 tens of cannons through the dead of winter, and he's able, the teamsters revolt a little once they cross into Massachusetts, you know, it's that watershed moment of you have an obstacle, a human obstacle.

Can you overcome that?

- There really a bunch of farmers who know how to get the job done, and I think that's why this is such an important story in American history.

It's not the elite force, it's really the men and women because the women had to survive on their own and keep the families going that were from this part that knew how to handle a team of horses or four teams of horses.

They knew how to keep their sleds moving forward.

They knew how to ship things within this corridor, and they did, and they basically delivered that for America.

- Knox has come all of this way, 300 miles.

He gets to the military camp outside of Cambridge where the cannon are delivered.

The British end up leaving Boston.

They know their beat.

They know that the trajectory of the cannons can reach into the harbor, but the British can't reach where they are at Dorchester Heights.

It's hopeless and they leave Boston.

The siege is broken.

It's an American victory and it's all because Henry Knox was able to deliver these cannon.

Knox's success is a huge boon for the American Army.

It instills confidence that we actually can stand up against the British, we can win, the British leave a major American city and Washington is on his way to being the general that people believe in with people like Knox at his right hand side, and it changes the course of the American Revolution.

- Washington will put Henry Knox in charge of the Continental Army's artillery and he will serve throughout the American Revolution from the time that he brings the cannon over to Boston, right through New Yorktown in 1781, Knox will be the man who is commanding the artillery for Washington and he does a tremendous job and then of course he will serve as Washington Secretary of War and then he retires up to Maine.

Unfortunately, he has an accident and he dies at a fairly early age.

(uplifting music) - Henry Knox isn't what you would typically think as a war hero.

He's very book smart.

You wouldn't think that that would lead to a war hero, but it has.

He's a renowned, we have a major fort named after him.

We have all sorts of things that we remember Henry Knox for 250 years later.

There's no question he made a difference and he continues to make a difference.

(bright music) - I'm Tom Pettigrew, I'm here portraying Henry Knox for Saratoga 250.

It's an amazing feat that he was able to accomplish.

They really, really gave it their all to get from Ticonderoga back to to Boston with those cannon.

- We knew that the story of Henry Knox really needed to be told 250 years later so that we could remind ourselves what it actually took to be successful in a mission like this.

For Saratoga 250, it's really important to include our community partners trying to coordinate somewhat of a reenactment of the Knox Trail.

We are partnering with the WSWHE BOCES students to recreate the sleds that Henry Knox used 250 years ago.

- Picture Henry Knox and his crew going all the way up to Ticonderoga only tools they have are whatever they carried with them.

- Thank you so much.

These sleds are about to go on a pretty epic journey.

They're gonna be on display at several places.

You guys are a part of history by doing this.

(group applauding) We're also working with Stewarts.

They are going to rename one of their ice creams after Knox during the commemorative period.

It's just a fun way to be able to connect some of our local favorite treats and the Knox Trail.

Some of the other community partners that we're working with are the local library systems.

Many of the libraries along the way have Knox Trail markers located pretty close to them.

In working with the Washington County Draft Animal Association, their horses will be pulling the sleds that the students made.

We commemorated the 250th anniversary of Knox's Noble Train of Artillery moving through Saratoga County, but also Warren, Washington and Albany counties.

We started in Lake George, landed Henry Knox on the lake.

- We must get the men, the sleds and the draft animals we need to press on to Boston.

The eyes of all of America are upon us.

- Then the parade through Fort Edward across the Hudson River and handed off the ceremonial lin stock to Saratoga County.

We had Knox Fest at Fort Hardy Park where there were lots of living historians.

We had bonfires and cannon fire.

We're so happy that people came out and were a part of history.

Knox by candlelight paired 18th century music that was popular at the time of Knox, with readings done by living historians from primary sources like Knox's diary and letters that he had written along the expedition, giving in their own words what the expedition meant to their lives.

- John Becker Jr.

recounts his experience near Bloody Pond December, 1775.

- We honored the Henry Knox marker in Soldiers and Sailors Park in Waterford before we moved onto People's Island.

As it was snowing, the draft horses pulled the sleds built by our BOCE students across the island and over into Cohoes in Albany County where we handed off the Lin stock to Albany County at Van Schaick Mansion.

We were moving people and horses and sleds from place to place and local residents or people that traveled to Saratoga just to see this, they came out in droves.

They stayed in the cold and they helped out along the way.

At one point, one of the tow poles snapped that the horses were using to tow the sleds with.

There was a local resident who took it upon himself to take that pole and use bolts on his own and screw it back together so that we could actually use that pole for the next leg of the journey and it'll continue on his way all the way to Boston.

- 250 years ago, a young bookseller from Boston led a harrowing expedition along this very route that changed the fight for American independence and ultimately the course of history.

- We have so many community partners who have made this happen, and we're so glad that so many people in this area came out to experience it.

It's way more than we had planned for, and it's such an inspiring thing to see.

It was pretty incredible.

It really helps launch into the 250th year of this nation.

We can commemorate this.

We can honor the past.

We can start to understand the difficulties they went through and the passion they had for their beliefs.

- I think this is an American story.

Anyone, no matter what your ideology or your thoughts are, can look at Henry Knox and see someone thrust into the pages of history, who volunteered to do it and who didn't know how it would play out or whether he would even survive, but did it anyway.

- Everybody should root for Henry Knox.

You know, the thing I love about Henry and the thing actually I love about the Revolutionary War history is it really holds up the best qualities of the people of America.

It's about overcoming obstacles.

It's about goal setting and achieving those goals and not giving up, and it's about adversity and embracing adversity as part of your life because it makes success all the sweeter.

(uplifting music) - You will be able to eventually go to the New York State Museum and see their 250th exhibit in 2026 and say that you created one of the main objects in their exhibit.

(crowd applauding) - But then when he said, oh, it's going to museums and then it's gonna go bigger than that, I'm like, that's actually amazing.

You don't get to do that every day.

- [Narrator] 250 years ago, Henry Knox's leadership and people's determination delivered Noble Train of Artillery.

60 tons of the impossible through the Champlain to Hudson Corridor liberated Boston, launching a revolution.

Today, the Champlain Hudson Power Express follows this corridor helping power New York's future.

We salute the enduring legacy of courage and conviction of the people keeping this historic artery pulsing and serving another generation.