Fort Ticonderoga has successfully completed a $12 million fundraising campaign to acquire a collection of historic artifacts.
On May 3rd, the fort and museum at the southern end of Lake Champlain opened an exhibit that featured items from the Robert Nittolo Collection. The Revolutionary Anthology exhibit includes a
French officer’s coat that may be the only surviving uniform from the 1781 siege of Yorktown and a Hessian rifle. But those items are only a small sample of the full Nittolo Collection.
Fort Ticonderoga officials had to raise $12 million to acquire the entire collection. Fort Ticonderoga Curator Matt Keagle notes that as the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, objects from that era are increasingly sought after paying millions for this collection is warranted.
“Prices for a lot of these objects are getting higher and higher on the open market. And we felt that it was important to keep this collection together because it represents decades of work on the part of Robert Nittolo to build this collection over his lifetime, a collection that was in no small part spurred by a visit to Fort Ticonderoga as a child,” Keagle notes. “And that brought together, over the course of his life, one of the most significant private collections in all of North America.”
Keagle calls the acquisition a singular opportunity to preserve a private collection and enhance programs at the Fort.
“The Robert Nittolo Collection consists of just over 3,000 artifacts spanning every piece of material culture from the Colonial and Revolutionary period,” Keagle says.” So everything from manuscripts and rare books, all the way to textiles like uniforms and clothing to small arms, edged weapons, personal effects, really the entire range of material from this time period and specifically from the military
experience of the Colonial and Revolutionary period.”
The Nittolo collection is one of the largest and broadest of its kind in the country and Keagle says they worked for more than a decade to obtain the artifacts.
“It’s also the single largest acquisition that the museum has ever made in our over century-and-a-quarter long history. And I think stands alongside the preservation of the Fort as probably one of the most important efforts that we have made over our existence as a museum,” Keagle asserts. “And it allows us to better interpret the past. This is not just getting more stuff for the sake of having more stuff. This allows us to fulfill, even more, our educational mission as a museum.”
Artifacts from the Nittolo Collection will be integrated into core exhibits while other pieces will rotate in different exhibits. The materials will also be used in teacher training and other educational programs. The collection will also be catalogued and posted to Fort Ticonderoga’s online collections database.
