Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

---

St. Sacrament Lake,

A former name of Lake George; a beautiful sheet of water lying west of the upper end of Lake Champlain; originally named by Father Jogues, a Jesuit missionary who visited it about the middle of the seventeenth century. This lake was the theatre of important military events in the French and Indian War (q. v.) and the Revolutionary War. At the head of the lake Gen. Sir William Johnson was encamped early in September, 1755, with a body of provincial troops and a party of Indians under the Mohawk chief Hendrick. There he was attacked (Sept. 8) by the French under Dieskau, and would have been defeated but for the energy and skill of Gen. Phineas Lyman. The assailants were repulsed, and their leader (Dieskau) was badly wounded, made prisoner, sent to New York, and paroled. He died of his wounds not long afterwards. Johnson was knighted, and gave the name of Lake George to the sheet of water, in honor of his sovereign, by which name it is still known. At its head Fort William Henry was built, and suffered siege and capture by the French and Indians in 1757. The next year it was the scene of a vast armament upon its bosom going to the attack of Ticonderoga (q. v.).