Spencer, Massachusetts - "We Marched Through"

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On November 1, 1777, the the Convention Army was in or nearing Brookfield, Massachusetts, and a common route to Cambridge.  At its front were some of the British troops, escorted by soldiers from the Massachusetts Militia, including Lieutenant Israel Bartlett who claimed that after a short march they stopped for the night in Spencer: "Nov. 1 Saturday - We marched 1 1/2 miles to Spencer & halted all the rest of the day to draw provisions; the commissary being absent, could not draw."  The following day, he and those under his charge "... drew one day's provision and marched thro' Leicester and halted at Worcester, 14 miles from our last quarters."  [1]

Most of the Convention Army marched through Spencer without staying overnight.  Massachusetts Militia Private David How, who also guarded the British column, noted that on November 2nd: "This morning we set off [from Brookfield] march'd through Spenser & Lester and at Night we staid at Worster." [2]  The following day German troops passed through the town with their guards, Joshua Pillsbury noting only that after staying in Brookfield, "Monday Spencer and Leicester", the Specht Journal: "Nov. 3 Our march went through Spencer and Leicester today...". [3]

The European settlement of what has become Spencer, Massachusetts, had begun sixty years earlier, as part of the town of Leicester, to its east.  Nestled in the hills of Worcester County, some fifty miles from Boston as the crow flies, its streams, lakes and ponds drained westward into the Connecticut River watershed.  For the prisoners, another four or five days of marching lay ahead before they would reach the barracks they were to occupy in Charlestown.

In 1777 the town's meetinghouse stood near the top of the hill just east of the present-day center of town.  In 1862 the that church that burned, and was replaced the following year by classic New England structure, painted white, with a spire that marked its presence to all who passed by.  

Tragically, the 1863 church was destroyed by fire on June 2, 2023, when it was struck by lightning and burned completely, leaving only its foundation.  Behind where both churches stood, a burial ground dating back to 1740 is one of only a few reminders left in town from the time of the passage of the Convention Army.

On the east side of town there are two more relics of the period.  The first is found in the Sibley Farm conservation area.  Hiking trails, open to the public free of charge, run north from the parking area off Greenville Street in Spencer up to Route 9, and the route followed by the Convention Army in 1777.  The northernmost section of this land contains a short stretch of original post road, replaced by modern road years ago.  

A section of the Post Road remains undeveloped on the Sibley Farm conservation area in Spencer.

Just to the east, the original road deviated again from present day Route 9, running up past what is now the Spencer Country Inn.  Outside its front door is another reminder of the past, Milestone 57, part of the post road's milestone marker system. 

Did Bartlett actually stay in Spencer?  A march of 14 miles from the center of town on November 2nd would have put him well past the center of Worcester, where we know other elements of the Convention Army were quartered in the days following.  A stay fourteen miles west from Worcester would have put his starting point in present-day East Brookfield, just past Lake Lashaway.  On the other hand, a march of a mile and a half on November 1st would have taken him from "the furthest part of Brookfield" to almost the center of Spencer.  Perhaps another source exists to be found that definitively shows the Convention Army stopped in Spencer.

[1] Bartlett, p. 402.  
[2] How, p. 50.
[3] Pillsbury p. 788; Specht Journal, p. 108..


Next Week: Leicester, Massachusetts - "Great Care Is To Be Taken"

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

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