captain of the schooner-of-war Maria. The Americans withdrew on September 21. On November 8, following Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, British and German forces took what they could load aboard their vessels; threw other supplies in the lake; burned barracks, houses, and bridges; disabled about 40 cannon; and retreated to Canada. After the war It is likely that George Washington visited Mount Independence during the summer 1783 after the fighting had stopped but before the Treaty of Paris was signed. In 1785 Matthew Lyon, future U.S. congressman, salvaged cannon and other scrap iron on the site for his iron forge in Fair Haven, Vermont. Mount Independence became a stop for early tourists. It is likely that future U.S. presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visited in their 1791 tour of lakes George and Champlain. Historian and travel writer Benson J. Lossing visited for his 1853 The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. He described the Mount as covered with second growth trees except where the parade grounds were. During the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, Mount Independence was farmland, used for grazing sheep and cattle and for maple sugaring. Maple sugaring continues today. In 1911 Stephen Pell of Fort Ticonderoga purchased at the northern end of Mount Independence. Beginning in 1961, the State of Vermont began to purchase parcels of land at the southern end of Mount Independence. Today the Fort Ticonderoga Association and the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation have joint stewardship of the Mount. In the late 1960s, the Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) proposed building a nuclear plant, to be known as Hugh Crossing, in Orwell. The plan called for damming East Creek to make a 1700 acre cooling pond about a from where the creek meets Lake Champlain. Both historical and environmental concerns led to the project's defeat. In 1996, the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation opened a Visitor Center and museum at the southern end of the Mount. See also List of National Historic Landmarks in Vermont National Register of Historic Places listings in Addison County, Vermont References American Revolutionary War forts Forts in Vermont Vermont in the American Revolution Military in Vermont Vermont State Historic Sites National Historic Landmarks in Vermont Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont Natural features on the National Register of Historic Places