Battle of Plattsburgh through student lens

By Grant Terwilliger

In the days leading up to the Battle of Plattsburgh commemoration, there was a lot of energy around town and there were more people walking the streets than usual. 

I became intrigued and looked at the long itinerary for the five day-event on the 1814 Commemoration Inc. website. It sounded exciting with the vendors, food trucks, live music, reenactments and parades. 

The history of the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814 interested me, as I knew that Americans stopped the British from invading the country, but I didn’t know a lot about the battle and wanted to learn more about it, as well as spend time relaxing in a fun atmosphere. 

I set off for downtown on Saturday, Sept. 14. I imagined the festival would be just as grand as the festivals in my home town of Corning, New York, where they host an annual glass festival and harvest festival amid other celebrations. The mile walk from campus to the heart of the city allowed me a chance to collect my thoughts, forget about everything else and look forward to the lively environment.

A wave of disappointment washed over me as I arrived outside the Strand Center for the Arts. There were only a few art vendors and they were packing up for the day and it was only around 3 p.m. There wasn’t an end time for the artisan market, so it was hard to tell when they were leaving. For me, art is a big part of festivals, so it was a little sad, but I realized that it was more of a historic festival than an art festival.

Trinity Park served as the center of the festivities. There were many food trucks selling items such as grilled cheese, ice cream and pizza, but a few of them were already closed for the day. 

There was a tent for beer and a tent for live music and entertainment, but there was no one performing. There were activities and tents by City Hall and the Macdonough Monument, but there was more traffic and people standing around than anything else. I resolved to give the festival another chance the next day and opted to go to other places downtown.

 After going back the next day, I found the festival to be exactly the same. Looking back at the schedule, I was there for the ongoing events, but ended up missing the major ones that made the festival worthwhile. 

The historical events at the Kent Delord House sounded informative and fascinating, although I was too tired to walk away from downtown and sat next to the river to rest. 

Missing the big events saddened me and caused me to feel a little separated from Plattsburgh. There wasn’t a lot of advertisement around campus and it was only by going into town and seeing the fliers that I became aware of the event. 

A few days later, I saw pictures of the commemoration and it depicted the celebration as a grand time and an energetic event but my experience with the festival was different from what I observed in the photographs. 

As a student at SUNY Plattsburgh, there were only select times that worked in my schedule to go downtown and it seemed as though I had missed a lot of the bigger events and neglected to fully experience everything the town had to offer.