By ANDREA VanVALKENBURG
CHILSON — Two seasonal residents of Ticonderoga were killed Saturday while taking a motorcycle ride over the warm Memorial Day weekend.
According to Ticonderoga Town Police, William J. Dumbleton, 62, and wife, Jeanne C. Dumbleton, 60, were heading west on Route 74 around 10:10 a.m. when their motorcycle slammed into a 2007 GMC pickup that was turning into a private driveway.
Both passengers were thrown from the bike during the accident and were pronounced dead at the site near Eagle Lake Saturday morning.
According to police, truck driver Lawrence Lavigne of Waterford was headed eastbound and turned into a family member’s driveway in front of the fast-approaching motorcycle, which almost instantly slammed into the side of the long pickup.
The 82-year-old driver, who was not injured, was ticketed for failing to yield the right of way when he made the left-hand turn in front of the motorcycle.
The Dumbletons, who live in Essex Junction, Vt., have a summer camp on Lake George in Ticonderoga.
According to Ticonderoga Fire Chief Carl Perry, the crash occurred “right on the shores of Eagle Lake,” just a few miles away from the dangerous Chilson Hill, which has been the site of several serious and fatal accidents over the last few years.
DANGEROUS AREA
Last fall, an elderly Virginia driver and his grandson were killed when their station wagon crossed the center line of the three-lane roadway and struck a tractor trailer head-on. A third passenger was critically injured in the crash.
In late 2003, a Ticonderoga man was killed after he lost control of his car at the bottom of the Chilson Hill incline and slammed into the nearby rock-lined embankment. A few months earlier, a Hague teen had been killed when he was run over by a car on the steep state roadway.
In 2000, five local residents were rushed to area hospitals after a Port Henry man attempted to pass a school bus as he went down the hill’s incline and crashed into an oncoming van.
The well-traveled Route 74 remained closed to traffic for five hours Saturday as local officials and members of the State Police Accident Reconstruction Team continued investigating the double-fatal crash.
The incident remains under investigation.
E-mail Andrea VanValkenburg at: avanvalkenburg@pressrepublican.com
