The new exhibition, ‘A Well Regulated Militia: Citizen, Soldier, and State’ at Fort Ticonderoga Museum, New York State, focuses on the history of the American militia in the colonial period, Fort Ticonderoga is using examples from its collections to illustrate the trans-Atlantic connections to the English militia. One exhibit is one of the two Bucks cannon purchased by the museum in 1926 at the sale of Stowe, these being originally presented to the Royal Bucks King’s Own Militia by county subscription in 1794. Usually, both are displayed on the ramparts of the reconstructed fort but one has been brought inside for the exhibition. It is shown alongside a copy of the watercolour of the artillery attached to the Bucks militia – in this case a government-supplied cannon – executed by Sir William Young in 1793. The original of Young’s watercolour is in the British Library whilst the story of the Bucks cannon at Ticonderoga was told in ‘A Tale of Two Guns’ in Bugle and Sabre 2 (2008).
For details of the Ticonderoga exhibition, see