Cannons in Fort Came From British Shipwreck-- Part 2: Fort William Henry

The original Fort William Henry was built in 1755 during the French and Indian War and destroyed two years later after the French captured it.

A full-size replica fort was built on the same footprint as the original on the Adirondack village of Lake George.  It opened in the summer of 1954.  The new fort's owners wanted to obtain some Colonial-era cannons to display.  Among them were nine cannons discovered a few years earlier off Looe Key in the Florida Keys.

Local newspapers reported the cannons were bought from Art McKee, a Florida treasure hunter who salvaged them after the Smithsonian Institution recovered other artifacts from Looe Key, named after the British ship thought to have sunk there along with a captured Spanish ship it was escorting..

--Brock-Perry