At around three in the morning on May 10, 1775, a small handful of men stormed Fort Ticonderoga and roused the sleeping redcoats at gunpoint. Ethan Allen demanded that the sleepy British captain of the fort surrender “In the name of Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress,” voice ringing off the high stone walls.

Richard Strum was seven years old and witnessed history from a perch safe high on the fort walls, watching as cannons fired and mortar rounds exploded. It was, he said later in life, the moment at which his life found its trajectory.

There were no cannons or mortars fired on the morning of May 10, 1775, but there were on the morning of May 10, 1975 for the 200th anniversary of the battle. Rich is the education director for modern Fort Ticonderoga, and as a child he watched the reenactment from bleachers set up for the audience to witness a reenactment that had evolved from a 1930s Green Mountain Boys descendant group historical pageant.