The following is a rewritten account of a Story by Staff writer Kenneth C. Crowe II of the Times Union paper on May 23, 2023.
In 2023, the remains of 44 Revolutionary War American soldiers that were found in 2019 during construction on Courtland Street in the village of Lake George in New York, are ready to be reburied and officials want the federal government to oversee it.
They want the U.S. Army to get involved in burying the soldiers' bones at the state’s Lake George Battlefield Park to keep them in the community where they perished in 1776. Officials want the burials to happen in time for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in 2026.
The New York State Museum says the graves are believed to be associated with a military hospital established at Fort George in 1776 to treat the sick and wounded who were sent down from Crown Point and Ticonderoga. The soldiers may have died due to a smallpox outbreak.
The remains would have been enveloped in some mystery, if it were not for a regimental button that was entombed with them — a button with the insignia from the First Pennsylvania Battalion.
An artist rendering of the button found with remains in Lake George in 2019.
