This is ancient Skenesborough, and was a point of considerable importance during the wars on our northern frontier, from 1745 till the close of the Revolution. Here armies halted, and provisions, ammunition, and stores were collected and distributed. A picketed fort was erected here during the French and Indian war, upon the brow of the hill east of Church-street. Soon after the peace of Paris, in 1763, Philip K. Skene, an English major under half pay, purchased several soldiers' grants located here, and, to make his title secure, procured a royal patent. He effected a small settlement at this point, and named it Skenesborough, which title it bore until after the Revolution. He had procured a second patent, and became possessor of the whole of the land comprised within the present township of Whitehall, except four thousand acres on its eastern border. He was a magistrate of the crown, the owner of black slaves, and was sometimes honored with the title of governor, on account of having held the office of Lieutenant-governor of Crown Point and Ticonderoga. In addition to a stone residence, he erected another stone edifice, one hundred and thirty feet long, for a military garrison and depot, upon the spot used as a garden by the family of the late Judge Wheeler. Near the east end was an arched gateway, the key-stone of which is now in the north basement wall of the Baptist Church, and bears the initials "P. K. S.," and date "1770." Skenesborough was a point included in the programme of operations against Ticonderoga in the expedition under Colonel Allen in 1775. The council held at Castleton, where Allen was appointed commander-in-chief, resolved to send thirty men, under Captain Herrick, to surprise Skenesborough, capture the son of the proprietor (the latter was then in Europe), his negroes and tenantry, seize all the boats and other vessels that might be found there, and hasten down the lake with them to Shoreham. The surprise was so complete, that the plan was all accomplished without bloodshed. Major Skene the younger was captured while out shooting; the twelve negroes and fifty tenants were secured, and the governor's strong stone buildings were taken possession of by the captors. In the cellar of his house was found the body of the wife of the elder Skene, where it had been preserved many years to secure to the husband an annuity devised to her "while she remained above ground!" The Amer-