Worcester, Massachusetts - "A Small Neat Town"

By 1777 the central Massachusetts town of  Worcester, forty miles west of Boston, had a reputation as friendly to the patriot cause.  Residents had shut down the courts in September 1774, in what author Ray Raphael argues was the true start of the American Revolution.  Patriot printer Isaiah Thomas, who fled British controlled Boston in April of 1775 due to the political views expressed in his newspaper the Massachusetts Spy, subtitled "Or, American ORACLE Of Liberty", published an account of the fighting on April 19th at Lexington and Concord in his first Worcester issue on May 3rd, 1775.  Worcester residents had served as militiamen and Continental soldiers in the Northern Army that had stopped British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne and his army - and allegedly one of his messengers.  Like many Massachusetts towns though, it was also home, or once home, to Loyalists as well.  

On October 22, 1777, Brigadier-General John Glover of the Continental Army notified Jeremiah Powell of the Massachusetts Council that he was sending the Convention Army on its way towards Boston, and that "I Shall Come on tomorrow with Gen'l Burgoyne, and expect to be in Worster [Worcester] in ten days, where I shall be happy to meet your Honour's Orders.  I have endeavored to collect Provisions to serve them to Worster; will you Please to order Some to meet me at that place." [1]

Glover was off by several days with his travel expectations.  The first elements of the Convention Army reached Worcester on November 2nd.  The last organized elements did not leave until the morning of the 5th.  Glover, along with New Hampshire Militia Brigadier-General William Whipple, would pass through with Burgoyne on the 4th.  His request for supplies would be honored, Militiaman David How escorting the British column noting "This morning [November 3rd] we all Draw'd Provisions to Last to Boston And Set Off." [2]

British troops arrived in town first, How noting that on November 2nd "... at Night we Staid in Worster" and British Ensign Thomas Anburey, "In our way hither [to Cambridge] we passed through a small neat town, called Worcester..." [3]  Brunswick Grenadier Johann Bense was likewise brief, noting for the 4th "quartered in Worcester", though that must have been a relief as the four days prior since crossing the Connecticut River, and much of the time before that, he and his comrades had been staying "in the woods." [4]  One German officer noted "The inhabitants here were very helpful and gave our men shelter in their barns. ... Worcester is a well built town, has beautiful houses and many rich inhabitants." [5]  Another, who described Worcester as "... a thriving little city", noted that "After much discussion they received us into their houses and barns."  

Nice as the town may have appeared, it was observed that those living in the town who were still loyal to Britain were "living in a state of suppression" subject to the oversight of various committees that carried out the will of Congress.  Prices for everything were high.  However, since everyone they met, regardless of their political views, preferred gold or silver coins of any nationality to the paper currency of the United States, Burgoyne's men were able to exchange their hard money for paper at a good rate. [6]

Worcester was also where, for the first time since his surrender on the morning of October 17th, Burgoyne and his deputy commander, Major-General William Phillips rode briefly with elements of their army, when they encountered Major-General Friedrich Riedesel who was with his German troops.  Riedesel, frustrated by the inability of the commander of his American escort to obtain quarters for his troops along the way, took time to complain in person to Glover.  Apparently it worked, though only two nights remained of their march, and they had entered a more settled region.  Grenadier Bense noted for the following days "[November] 5 quartered in Howe [Marlborough]" and on the 6th "... in the evening, into a leaking stable".  Burgoyne, Phillips and Glover for their part "... continued their journey to Boston after lunch." [7]

The Convention Army's march followed what is today Main Street, east from the Leicester line through downtown Worcester and Lincoln Square, then to the northeast on Lincoln Street around Lake Quinsigamond, and onto Main Street in Shrewsbury.  Lincoln Square and Lincoln Street were not named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, but rather the Lincolns of Worcester, Levi Lincoln Sr., a man who could claim Revolutionary War veteran among his many accomplishments, pretty much forgotten today; and Levi Lincoln Jr., governor of Massachusetts from 1825 to 1834.  Levi Lincoln Sr. had been born in Hingham, and at the start of the Revolution served for nine days in April of 1775 as a militia private in Captain James Lincoln's company, Colonel Benjamin Lincoln's regiment (who as a Major-General in the Continental Army would command militia forces during the Saratoga campaign). [8]  Following his brief service, he opened a law practice in Worcester, was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, worked on a 1781 case finding slavery unconstitutional under the new Massachusetts State Constitution, was elected to the United States Senate, served as Attorney General of the United States under Thomas Jefferson from 1801 to 1805, returned to Massachusetts politics and was elected Lieutenant-Governor, and was a founding member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Only a few period buildings along the march remain today, and only one that I know of remains at its original location.   A Revolutionary War Walking Tour created as a collaborative project between the Worcester Historical Society, Digital Worcester and WPI provides a glimpse of Worcester in 1774, and additional background on the buildings and locations highlighted below. 

The first location of note is the Worcester Common, where "... von Barner's battalion was put in a large meetinghouse" described as only being constructed of wood but "... beautiful in its own way."  [9]  Today the meetinghouse is long gone.  In its place is Worcester's City Hall, built in 1898, where a plaque on the front steps commemorates the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in Massachusetts.  Behind the building, at the back of the Common, there is a re-created section of the burial ground dating to the 1730's, and a later memorial marking the grave of Colonel Timothy Bigelow, commander of the 15th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Line, which fought with Glover's brigade at Saratoga.  

Further north on Main Street, at present-day Lincoln Square, is the site of the courthouse (now a private residence at 6 Massachusetts Avenue) shut down in protest in 1774.  Nearby was the printing office of Isaiah Thomas, Colonel Bigelow's blacksmith shop and Worcester's first schoolhouse, where signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomate to France and the Netherlands during the Revolution, and future President John Adams was schoolmaster from 1755 to 1758.  

Stephen Salisbury's store was located at what was then a fork in the road that was here.  It has been relocated two blocks west, and is now operated by the Worcester Historical Museum and open for tours.  In November of 1777 the Convention Army took a right at the fork to continue on to Cambridge.  In 1778 the Convention Army would march past Salisbury's store again, on a march through Connecticut to Charlottesville, Virginia.   The Germans would travel back on the same road they had taken to Cambridge.  British troops would pass from the north, having left from Rutland, Massachusetts, where they had been moved to in the summer of 1778.

One period building still stands along the route of march in Worcester, now home to the Colonel Timothy Bigelow Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  In 1777 it was owned by Tory Timothy Paine, who had left Worcester due to his Loyalist views and acceptance of a position in British Governor Thomas Gage's royal administration. [10]  Out front, as pictured above, is a second relic from the time the Convention Army passed, what is said to be Post Road Milestone 47 (and based on its distance from the series of remaining milestones to the west in Leicester, Spencer and the Brookfields would be correct, though its "7" looks more like the remnants of a "2" to me).

Additional artifacts of the Revolutionary period are housed in a number of the city's museums.  The Worcester Historical Museum (which operates the Salisbury Mansion) presents real and virtual exhibitions on the city's history, including a trunk belonging to John Hancock said to have been carried across Lexington Green on the morning of April 19th, 1775, that is usually displayed the week of Patriot's Day in April each year.  The Worcester Art Museum collection includes early American furniture, silver, and paintings.  The American Antiquarian Society holds the largest and most available collection of material printed in the United States through 1876, frequently hosts lectures on history, and is open for tours weekly, during which visitors can see the printing press used by Isaiah Thomas to publish his Spy.

Ensign Anburey had one more thing to say about Worcester, or more specifically who he met there, and their dark connection to Burgoyne's army.  "Accidentally" he related, he had "met with one of the committee-men, who was upon the examination of a poor fellow, sent from our army to General Clinton, and who very imprudently swallowed the silver egg that contained the message to the General, in the presence of those who took him prisoner; after tormenting the poor fellow with emetics and purgatives till he discharged it, they immediately hung him up." [11]  

The "poor fellow" was Lieutenant Daniel Taylor of the British 9th Regiment of Foot, captured in civilian clothes, considered to be a spy, and hung in Hurley, New York.  News of his capture had been printed in Worcester just days before Anburey's arrival.  A brief paragraph in the Spy noted: "Last Thursday one Taylor a spy, was hanged at Hurley, who was detected with a letter to Burgoyne, which he has swallowed in a silver ball, but by the assistance of a tartar emetic he discharged the same." [12]  Odd coincidence that Anburey would claim to have encountered one of Taylor's captors in Worcester.  Regardless, Anburey's encounter with someone familiar with the event seems likely to have had a chilling effect on him and his colleagues, they too now captured by Americans.

[1] Glover's Marblehead Regiment, p. 12.

[2] How, p. 50.

[3] How, p. 50; Anburey, p. 48

[4] Bense, pp. 77 & 80.

[5] Specht, p. 108

[6] Letters From America, pp. 125-128

[7] Riedesel, p. 216; Bense, p. 80; Specht, p. 109.

[8] MSSRW, Vol. 9, p. 812

[9] LFA p. 125; Specht, p. 108

[10] TIMOTHY PAINE HOUSE AT "THE OAKS",” WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORCESTER’S REVOLUTIONARIES, accessed January 31, 2023, http://revolutionaryworcester.org/items/show/93

[11] Anburey, p. 48

[12] Massachusetts Spy, October 30, 1777.  (I recall seeing a hollow "silver bullet" at Fort Ticonderoga years ago, though the current catalogue description is more circumspect as to its connection to this incident.)

Next Week: Stillwater - "We Crossed The Hudson In A Few Boats"

For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:

1777 March Blog Home          Overnight Stopping Points          Towns and Villages Along the Way

 Annotated Bibliography