Each Monday we share an Essex photo or artifact on the Essex on Lake Champlain Facebook page and invite our viewers to play some Vintage Essex Trivia. Thank you, Mary Wade for sharing this photo with us!

Do you recognize this steam ship? Look for the name on the side. It’s the Ticonderoga ferry! This ferry was once a common sight in Essex as it dropped off passengers from Vermont and ferried passengers across the lake from Essex as the current LCT ferries do today. I wonder how much longer a trip was back then on steam power? Does anyone know/remember?

This photo was taken in the first half of the 1900s—as the Ticonderoga stopped operation on the lake in the 1950s. Take a look at the clothing of the disembarking passengers and maybe that could help someone determine a date (if they can determine the period of the clothing)?

Take a look at the comments we’ve received below to learn more about the history of the Ticonderoga and where it is today:

Kelly Youngs-schmitt: My husband’s great Grandfather Captain James Wallace Mock was the captain of the Ticonderoga. We still have some furniture from the ship and some family photos.

Betsy Oliver Eads: Isn’t it in Shelburne ?

Jennifer Allard: Betsy, I believe at the Shelburne Museum.

Dianne Lansing: In the mid ’50s some friends and I got on in Essex and went to Burlington, shopped, and came back. Lots of fun. 

Lorraine Townsend Faherty: I am old enough to remember going on this as a very young girl…pre-shelburne.

Nancy Barnaby Farrell: My Dad used to tell the tale of how a ride on the Ti was a right of passage in our Essex family. Unfortunately the year it was to be his turn she was retired from service. He did get to visit her at Shelburne Museum.

Natalie Wiles: My mother said she had been on the Ticonderoga in the 40’s I think. We always used to go to Shelburne to see it when we were kids.

Julie Youngs: Its been fully restored and can be seen at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. It was built in 1906 and made its last trip in 1955 to the museum grounds.

Share Your Essex Artifacts

If you want to share your old photos of Essex (or brochures; postcards; menus; tickets; any artifact) on the blog please email us at editor [at] essexonlakechamplain [dot] com.

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• LCT Shares 1966 Ferry Brochure (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
• Vintage Postcard: Rosslyn/Essex Waterfront (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)