The museum’s collections are the culmination of over 95 years of very focused collecting. The dream of the museum’s founders, Sarah and Stephen H.P. Pell, was to assemble a collection of eighteenth century military objects and manuals used by soldiers in the Seven Years’ War and American Revolution, as well as all the documentation necessary to accurately reconstruct Fort Ticonderoga to its former glory.

During the open season, portions of the collections are exhibited within the restored 1756 barracks buildings on the place-d’armes (parade ground) inside the Fort’s outer walls. The museum’s exhibits highlight the stores  of the famous, as well as the everyday people who shaped history at Ticonderoga. 

The collection has items from the famous men who shaped history. Ethan Allen’s blunderbuss, which he lent to Benedict Arnold before the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775 is on display. Two cannon that Henry Knox hauled to Boston during the winter of 1775-76 from Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point guard the parade ground. Robert Rogers’s powder horn is on view, as is a pastel portrait of General Montcalm. 

However, it is the objects belonging to the average soldier, or even wife of a soldier, that tell the poignant story of personal sacrifices made during wartime. The tiny charm from Lady Harriet Acland's necklace tells the story of this courageous British woman who crossed American enemy lines to nurse her wounded husband. The humble knapsack of Private Benjamin Warner with a handwritten note that was left inside to remind his ancestors why he fought in the American Revolution is deeply moving in its eloquence on the subject of freedom.