Blink and you’ll miss them. Littered along the Capital Region roadways are small monuments to a Revolutionary War expedition.

“In 1775 the British held Boston. George Washington and the very new Continental Army had the city surrounded, but they needed to dislodge the British before they launched a counter attack,” said New York State Archivist Tom Ruller. 

This is where General Washington took a bold risk.

“He recruits this young bookseller, Henry Knox, 25-years-old," Ruller told Albany Archives historian Matt Malette. "Washington sends Knox on a mission. He sends him to Fort Ticonderoga to bring the cannons up at Fort Ti. Back to Boston to surround the city and force the British to evacuate.”

Between 1926 and 1927, monuments were erected to mark the Noble Train of Artillery that Knox and his men took from Essex County town through Albany all the way to Boston and there’s more than just a handful of them.

“New York State and the State of Massachusetts erected a total of 30 monuments in New York and an additional 26 in Massachusetts.”

Feet of snow and ice slowed Knox’s journey. 

“It’s amazing what Knox accomplished in a short amount of time. In the little space of maybe about a month and a half, maybe a little less than that, he hauled tons of cannon and mortar.”

Where Knox estimated the journey would take just over two weeks to complete, he only got to southern Saratoga County because of snow and cold. When he got to Waterford, he could have crossed over the Hudson River, but opted not to. 

“On the banks of the Hudson, you’d think this is where Knox crossed the Hudson River, but he didn’t. They went a little bit further to the west and finally made it across the Mohawk and went down towards Albany.”

It's at Marker Number 23 in Rensselaer where it shows where Knox made the crossing. 

"Knox traversed the Hudson here from the south part of Albany. Rather than up in Waterford initially where we thought he might have. But on the trip over from Albany to the eastern shore they lost one of the cannons. Knox writes in his journal they retrieved the cannon thanks to the good citizens of Albany.”

Henry Knox arrived in Boston at the end of January, 1776, and the Continental Army was successful in withdrawing the British forces from Boston. That young bookseller would go on the become the nation’s first Secretary of War.

“Probably 10,000 people a day come past this monument and don’t know that it’s here. It shows you that history is all over the place. You just have to know where to look,” said Ruller.