William Delaplace

The man who answered the demands of Patriot Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga in May of 1775, Captain William Delaplace served the British Army in the Twenty-Sixth Regiment and stood as commandant over Fort Ticonderoga. He was appointed to his position in June of 1766. Delaplace recalled the events of Allen’s attack as quite jarring and intimidating as he wrote to the “General Assembly of the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Connecticut.” He said that…

“the garrison of the Fortress of Ticonderoga… was surprised by a party of armed men, under the command of one Ethan Allen, consisting of about one hundred and fifty, who had taken such measures effectually to surprise the same, that very little resistance could be made, and to whom your memorialists [Delaplace and his fellow British soldiers] were obliged to surrender as prisoners.”

Delaplace held that there were forty-seven British soldiers taken and detained in Connecticut as prisoners of war. He asked that the General Assembly intervene and protect his men as he saw them as innocent in all charges held against them by Allen and the Patriot forces.

Little else is known of Captain Delaplace other than his involvement in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga.