MURALS

This panel illustrates the moment when Commodore Thomas Macdonough and his men become aware of the British ship rounding Cumberland Head.  The sailors point out the enemy's approach to their captain who has been conducting the Sunday worship service on deck.      Early in the battle a British cannon ball blew open one of the cages in which the sailors kept game cocks for sport.  One of the birds flew from cannon to cannon during the battle.  Its presence was seen as a good omen by the men aboard Macdonough's ship SARATOGA.

The interior of a foundry in later 19th century Plattsburgh where the        processing of iron was an important industry.

Native American Legend & Battle of Plattsburgh

                        This panel depicts the Genesis legend of the Iroquois Indians.  In this story, a young boy finds a two-headed snake in the Lake

                        and brings it back to the Tribe.  He nurtures it and it grows larger and larger until it becomes a dragon which then devours the

                        members of the tribe until only one Brave and his sister are left.  In a dream, the Brave is instructed to wrap his sister's hair

                        around an arrow and shoot the arrow at the dragon to kill it, which he does.  the dragon then dies, vomiting up the people

                        who become the Iroquois.

                        The next section of the painting depicts the Battle of Plattsburgh, Sept. 11, 1814, and it shows both the land battle and the sea

                        battle.  The event in the land battle is where a group of Militia who were thirteen and fourteen year old boys, Aiken's volunteers,

                        kept the British Forces from crossing a bridge across the Saranac River.  In the bay area, adjacent to the land battle, you see the

                        American ships anchored in the bay as the British ships come around Cumberland Head. 

                        Painting shows late 19th century industrial development and includes a mining operation, a log jam on the river, a lumber mill,

                        railroading, steamships and in the distance, the late 19th century town of Plattsburgh with its brick mills and, beyond that,

                        Cumberland Head.  The portion of the painting to the right is a contemporary family enjoying the Lake and in the sky you will see

                        a KS-135 refueling and FB-111 to represent the presence of the Air Force.

        Murals painted by Artist Peter Charlap