Registration requested: Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance

Our dedicated historian-member Mark Silo kicks off the Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance’s 2026 programming with his presentation, “Sir William, Where Exactly Were Your Lines?”, on Saturday, January 17, 11 AM at the Holiday Inn Resort Lake George. The event is being sponsored by the Alliance and is free to the public.

Mark shares the results of his 3+ year analysis of the Battle of Lake George (1755), its landscape and associated mapping from his Civil Engineering perspective, along with primary and secondary sources published over the past 270 years. Not only was this battle the initial conflict witnessed by what is today’s Lake George Battlefield Park—it was the first significant victory for the British in the French & Indian War and gave American-born provincial soldiers valuable experience that served them well in the Revolutionary War 20 years later.

Additional Information:

It is widely agreed that Mark Silo has defined the precise whereabouts of Johnson’s lines during the transformational Battle of Lake George on September 8, 1755. Using historical documentation combined with modern maps, photos, and measurements, the presentation provides an overview of the battle and describes Mark’s process in discovering the exact location of the “improvised barricade” used by Col. William Johnson’s troops in the modern Lake George Battlefield Park. The program supplements details conveyed to those who have attended Mark’s tours since 2023, and will acquaint all attendees with the stakes and outcomes from this seminal event of the French and Indian War.

Mark Silo is a native of Yonkers who relocated to the Albany area after receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and his master’s degree from Cornell University, both in civil engineering. He spent his professional career in transportation engineering, most recently as an Assistant Commissioner at the N.Y.S. Department of Transportation in Albany. He has served his local community as a member of the Town of Colonie Planning Board and Conservation Council, and as a board member of Friends of the New York State Military Museum, Capital District Civil War Round Table, Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, volunteer builder at Habitat for Humanity, and his Church Council. Silo is an avid student of American history and is the author of The 115th New York in the Civil War (McFarland Publishing, 2007), the unit history of a local civil war regiment. He and his wife, Kathy, split time among their home in Loudonville, their log cabin on the Schroon River in the Adirondacks, and various bucket-list locales. They have two grown children and two grandsons.