Vermont - "A Numerous Banditti"

On October 21 and 22, 1777, the now extended British column of the Convention Army left the state of New York.  In doing so, they briefly left the United States as well.  The anonymous journal of an officer of the British 47th Regiment of Foot records overnight stops in Saint Croix, New York, on the 20th and Williamstown, Massachusetts, on the 21st.  Lord Napier's journal lists the same stops on the same days, but not the route he and his colleagues followed to Williamstown.  Massachusetts Militia Private David How noted however, that after stopping five miles from Saint Croix on the night of the 21st: "[October] 22 This morning Set off march'd Through Whosuck And pownal and at night We Over Took the Body of Regulars at Williams Town And Stopt there". [1]  How had passed this way before, while traveling in the opposite direction to join the Northern Army.  On that trip he had passed through Williamstown, and then Pownal, Vermont, on October 9th, and continued on to Bennington, where he and his comrades stopped for the night. [2]  

In 1777 Vermont was not yet part of the United States.  In the decades before, its neighbors had argued it was part of New York, New Hampshire or even Massachusetts. [3]  On July 2, 1777, delegates from across the territory declared their independence and approved a constitution creating the republic of Vermont.  Aligned with and supporting (for the most part) the United States in the Revolutionary War, Vermonters are said to have fought under the flag pictured at the Battle of Bennington - though it was not the official flag of Vermont, and likely they didn't.  Vermont would become one of the United States on March 4, 1791, when it became the fourteenth state.

The independent nature of Vermonters did not escape the notice of British Major-General John Burgoyne and his men.  On August 20, 1777, after defeat at the Battle of Bennington, he wrote: "The New Hampshire Grants [a designation for the area arising from land granted to settlers by the governor New Hampshire] in particular, a country unpeople and almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race on the continent and hangs like a gathering storm on my left". [4]  British Ensign Thomas Hughes of the 53rd Regiment of Foot, captured in the American raid on Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence on September 18, 1777, wrote of his forced march through Vermont that it was populated by "... a numerous banditti ... who acknowledge no government, but call themselves allies to the United States." [5]

Travelers seemed to have had a poor impression of Vermont in 1777.  British Sergeant Roger Lamb, then with the 9th Regiment of Foot, passed through with the Convention Army in late October, in weather he referred to as the "rigors of winter".  In his Memoirs Lamb recalled: "The way before and about us presented an uncheerful appearance; mountainous and barren, with little of pleasing scenery to amuse the traveler.  In our progress we crossed the ridge of mountains called Blue Hills, which begin in New Hampshire, and extend through a long tract of country in New England." [6]  Perhaps Lamb meant the Green Mountains, or even the Berkshires, which he would cross in a few days time, rather than the Blue Hills.  British Ensign Thomas Anburey was somewhat more accurate, noting their wagons spent two day crossing the "Green Mountains" prior to reaching Williamstown, but claimed them to be part of the Allegheny Mountains (which he would come nearer to the following year, when the Convention Army was relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia). 

Prisoners on the march could be expected to take a dim view of their surrounding.  They were not alone though.  Massachusetts Militia Colonel Ralph Cross, who on September 3, 1777, like How passed through Pownal on his way to join the Northern Army, had this to say: "Rode to Pownall & Lodg'd Exceedingly Bad in a Logg House Tavern Plenty of fleas and Buggs".  [7]

Despite Vermont being the "Green Mountain State", the route taken by the Convention Army minimized mountain travel by following the Hoosic River Valley to Williamstown.  In following their path, I was surprised to find a marker on Route 346 in Pownal, just east of the New York border, that shares some of the first Europeans to settle for a short time in Vermont were of Dutch heritage (preceded it should be noted, by the first people of Vermont, thousands of years earlier).  Geography explains this too.  Pownal is located in the southwest corner of Vermont.  The Hoosic River flows through the town from southern border with Massachusetts, northwest to Pownal's western border with the state of New York.  Dutch settlers coming from New York to Vermont followed  tributary rivers of the Hudson River such as the Hoosic River, similar to French settlers who followed the shores of Lake Champlain from Canada southward along what is now the western edge of the state, and English settlers who traveled north from Connecticut and Massachusetts along the Connecticut River into southern Vermont. 

The British column may have passed over what is now called Indian Massacre Road, along the north bank of the Hoosic River, before reaching Pownal.  If you take Route 95 south out of Hoosick, New York, it's the road to your left just before the Hoosic River.  The name intrigued me, and others as well, such as Eva Dailey who shared the story on the Southern Vermont College "Looking Glass" website.  Dailey writes that in 1754 (though a marker near the site says 1755), Mohican warriors killed one of Johannes Brimmer's sons and took two others to Canada as captives.  Be aware that the paved road becomes a dirt road before it joins Route 346 in North Pownal.  Challenging, one lane wide in places, and more than one pothole, it was not "almost impassible" as Anburey described the roads on his journey through the area.

[1] 47th Regiment of Foot, "Journal of An Officer", p. 157; Napier, "Journal", p. 329; How, Diary of David How, p. 49.

[2] How, p. 47.

[3] Goodwin, Neil, We Go As Captives, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, VT, 2010, p. 12.

[4] Burgoyne, Expedition From Canada, Appx., p. xlvi.

[5] Hughes, Journal, p. 17.

[6] Lamb, Memoir Of My Own Life, pp. 207 and 212.

[7] Cross, "Journal", p. 9.

Next Week: Events Along The Way - "We Were Received Particularly Well In This Small Town"

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