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Photo # KN-4784:  Continental gondola Boston.  Painting by Rod Claudius, 1962

Online Library of Selected Images:
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Continental Gondola Boston (1776)

The Continental gondola (or gundalow) Boston was one of eight or nine small, single-masted rowing gunboats built at Skenesborough (now Whitehall), New York, in mid-1776. Intended to help defend Lake Champlain from British forces driving down from Canada, she was probably identical to, or at least very similar to, the Philadelphia, which was salvaged nearly intact during the 1930s and is now on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. On 11-13 October 1776 Boston participated in the Battle of Valcour Island and the subsequent retreat down the lake. When threatened with capture on the 13th, she was burned in Buttonmould Bay, and her crew escaped on foot to Crown Point. Though the American force was defeated, its existence greatly delayed the British advance, helping set the stage for the important victory at Saratoga a year later.

This page features our only views of the Continental Gondola Boston.


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: KN-4784 (Color)

Continental Gondola Boston (1776)

Painting by Rod Claudius, Rome, Italy, 1962.
This artwork was made for display on board USS Boston (CAG-1).
Photographed by PHCS G.R. Phelps, Boston Naval Shipyard, 10 April 1963.
This is a quite inaccurate depiction of the Lake Champain gondola Boston.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

Online Image: 57KB; 740 x 505 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: KN-4786 (Color)

Continental Gondola Boston (1776)

Painting by Rod Claudius, Rome, Italy, 1962.
This artwork was made for display on board USS Boston (CAG-1).
Photographed by PHCS G.R. Phelps, Boston Naval Shipyard, 10 April 1963.
This depiction of the Lake Champain gondola Boston is quite inaccurate.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph.

Online Image: 69KB; 740 x 510 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 92864

"A Sketch of the New England Armed Vessels, in Valcure Bay on Lake Champlain as seen in the morning of 11 October 1776 ..."


Contemporary artwork by C. Randle, depicting the Continental squadron, under Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, just before the Battle of Valcour Island.
The vessels shown include schooner Royal Savage (center) and (from left to right around Royal Savage): schooner Revenge, galley Washington, gondola Philadelphia, galley Congress, gondola Jersey, galley Lee, gondola Boston (in the middle, largely hidden behind Royal Savage's sails), gondola Spitfire, gondola New Haven, gondola Providence, gondola Connecticut, gondola New York, sloop Enterprise and galley Trumbull.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 93KB; 740 x 435 pixels

 

Other Views:

(1) The Public Archives of Canada, at Ottawa, Ontario, holds a watercolor by the British officer C. Randle entitled "A View of the New England Arm'd Vessels in Valcure Bay on Lake Champlain ...". This painting is quite similar to that presented above (which may be a copy of it), but has the inscription below the image rather than above it.
(2) The Fort Ticonderoga Museum, at Ticonderoga, New York, holds a watercolor entitled "God Bless our Armes" which features individual sketches of sixteen vessels of the Continental squadron on Lake Champlain. One of these is Boston.
For more information on the availability of reproductions of these artworks, contact the institutions that hold them. Contact information should be readily found on the Internet through the use of any of the more popular search engines.


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 18 February 2003