One of the main goals of this promising project is to bring sustained awareness of, and interest in, New York’s Adirondack Mountains and Champlain, Hudson, and Mohawk Valley regions.

It is hoped that New York’s “Turning Point Trail” can rightfully be elevated to the recognition enjoyed by Boston’s “Freedom Trail”. If this aspiration is achieved, tourists will visit again and again to learn about the pivotal role that New York’s “Turning Point Trail” played in saving the American War for Independence in 1777. For too long, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have bested New York in commemorating this exciting history despite the fact that America’s fight for independence was saved in Upstate New York and that more battles of this long war were fought on New York soil than in any other state. While the Revolution was heroically started in Massachusetts in 1775 and General Washington and America’s courageous French allies all but ended the conflict with the resounding victory at Yorktown in 1781, it was indeed the Battles of Bennington and Saratoga in the Upper Hudson Valley and the sacrifice that occurred in the Mohawk Valley in the summer of 1777 that enabled Benjamin Franklin to prevail upon the French crown so that a comprehensive alliance between France and the United States could be established. The providential miracle of the complete victories at Bennington and Saratoga gave birth to the Franco-American alliance and the first national American thanksgiving on December 18, 1777.