Shrewsbury, Massachusetts - "The Smoke Of His Own Chimney"
The lead elements of the British column of the Convention Army left Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 3rd, 1777. "We marched to Northborough..." noted Massachusetts Militia Lieutenant Israel Bartlett, without so much as a mention of the town of Shrewsbury, which lay between the two stops. "This morning we all Draw'd Provisions [in Worcester] to Last to Boston And Set off. marched Through Susbarry. At Night We Staid at Northberry" wrote Private David How, noting, but erring on the spelling of both Shrewsbury, and its neighbor Northborough to the east . Others halted in Shrewsbury overnight, and continued on the following day, Lord Napier noting the town as "Shrewsberry". [1]
German troops passed through a day later. "Wednesday [November 5th] Shrewsbury and Northboro to Marlborough 23 [miles]" wrote Joshua Pillsbury. Perhaps the fatigue of two weeks on the road had set in for the diarists of the march. Even the usually loquacious Germans had little to say regarding the town, other than "November 5th, we marched through Shrewsbury and Northborough to Marlborough, sixteen miles." [2]
Shrewsbury's residents, like those of many Massachusetts towns, had taken steps towards independence early on. Town residents voted in 1774 "... unanimously to adopt the association (relative to non-importation and non-consumption of British goods) recommended by he Continental Congress, and the recommendations of the Provincial Congress..." They then directed that taxes be paid to Henry Gardner, Treasurer and Receiver-General for the Providence, rather than Harrison Gray Treasurer and Receiver-General for King George III. In May of 1775, following the outbreak of hostilities, they appointed committees to examine several town residents "suspected of Toryism" and finding it so, to take from several their "arms, ammunition and warlike implements of all kinds" and direct them to remain on their own land all days other than Sunday. [3]
Shrewsbury is located in what is referred to by geologists as "the western edge of the lowlands plateau which forms the eastern portion of Worcester County." [4] In practical terms, this meant the Convention Army had left the mountains of the Berkshires and steep hills west of Worcester behind them. They entered Shrewsbury from Worcester north of Lake Quinsigamond, as there was no bridge over the lake until 1810, when the Boston to Worcester Turnpike was built to run more or less straight to Boston, creating a road that is now part of Route 9. [5] The Convention Army followed the Post Road, now Main Street, up hill into the center of town, and continued on past the home of Major-General Artemas Ward. Ward's farm was donated to Harvard University in 1925 by his descendants and his home is now a museum, open at times to the public. I recently toured there, and learned from my knowledgeable guide that the right half of the home was added in 1785, doubling its size and adding the second front door and chimney visible in the photograph below.
Was Ward the first Commander-in-Chief of Continental Army? Growing up locally, I'd always heard it was so. A biography of Ward by Charles Martyn, commissioned in 1921 by his great-grandson also named Artemas Ward, made that claim and was sub-titled "The First Commander-in-Chief of the American Revolution." Decades later that claim was challenged as "something of a misnomer". [6] The Ward House Museum's on-line biography of the general clarifies his role, noting that he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts forces May 19, 1775; made a Major-General of Continental forces, second only to George Washington, on June 17, 1775; and was in command of the forces besieging Boston until Washington arrived in Cambridge on July 2, 1775, a summation reflected on the Shrewsbury Historical Society's website.
Another account of his life holds that while Ward was a member of Congress, from 1791 to 1795, he questioned then President Washington's integrity over the authorship of a disparaging letter. If so, Ward's animosity towards Washington may have begun years earlier. Less than a year after the two first met, Washington wrote to Major-General Charles Lee on May 9, 1776: "General Ward, upon the Evacuation of Boston, and finding there was a probability of his removing from the smoke of his own Chimney, applied to me & wrote to Congress for leave to Resign..." Washington, one historian pointed out, was "not at all reticent in his correspondence". [7]
A number of sites dating to the time the Convention Army passed through town remain, "within the smoke" perhaps of Ward's several chimneys. The town's Congregational Church built 1766, dominates the Common, its steeple added 1808. Directly behind the church is the Mountain View Cemetery, dating from the 1730's, where Ward is buried. Several private homes from the period remain, including half-way between the center of town and Ward's house the home of Nathaniel Holden at 679 Main Street, built in 1769, and just past Ward's house what was reportedly Farrar's Tavern, at 32 Main Circle, then part of the Post Road. Two milestones remain in town, Milestone 43 on the common, moved there from its original location due to highway construction, and Milestone 37, directly across from Ward's home, on the grounds of Shrewsbury's Dean Park.
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