Sorry Northampton (and Smith College) - "[Not] The Site Of Clandestine Visits"

There is no question that the British element of the Convention Army stopped in Northampton, Massachusetts, in October of 1777.  Lieutenant Israel Bartlett, one of their assigned guards from the Massachusetts Militia, recorded in his diary: "[October] 27 Monday.  We marched to Northampton today, 18 miles, through the rain & mud, very fatiguing.  Arrived at 2 O'Clock..." [1]  Militia Private David How noted the same: "This Day Its ben Very wet and rainy And we march'd to North Hampton And Staid at Night thare." [2]  

The column rested a day in Northampton before crossing the Connecticut River.  Bartlett and How writing respectively: "[October] 28 Tuesday.  We rested at Hampton [Northampton] all day on account of a very severe storm of rain and snow." and "[October] 28 This Day It has Ben Very Stormy both Hail & Snow and we Staid Hear all Day and Night." [3]

British prisoners noted likewise.  Lieutenant (Lord) Francis Napier of the 31st Regiment of Foot wrote in his Journal: "October ... 27th. [Marched from Chesterfield, Massachusetts to] Northampton 12 m[iles]" and "... 28 Halt". [4]  The anonymous keeper of a journal associated with the 47th Regiment of Foot, with the remainder of the British column, two days behind, would record: "Oct 30 [stopped at] North hampton miles [marched] 11” [5]

Northampton is a fun place to visit.  My own earlier visits were to what I'd call "downtown", that area along Main Street (Route 9) between Elm Street to the west and Route 5 to the east.  That section of town offers easy walking to a wide variety of stores, shops, restaurants and bars.  Just east of Route 5, at 56 Bridge Street, is the museum and education center of Historic Northampton - still on my "to-do" list of places to explore.  On my most recent visit we explored the campus of Smith College.  The college's Museum of Art is open to the public and free to all, as are the Lyman Plant House and the outside gardens.  

One college building was there when the Convention Army passed.  (It's not the Helen Hills Hills Chapel seen above, despite its appearance.  That was built in 1955, not in the late 18th or early 19th century.)  What is now Sessions House, a dormitory for Smith College, was the home built in 1710 by Captain Jonathan Hunt.  According to the college's website "... the most popular house legend is that the staircase was the site of clandestine visits between Captain Hunt's granddaughter Lucy and Johnny Burgoyne, a British Redcoat held captive in the house during the Revolutionary War."  

Earlier stories expand on the legend.  One published in the Hampshire Gazette in 1928 explained that while being "held prisoner" in the house, Burgoyne fell in love with Lucy, and the couple would meet in a secret passage that led to the Connecticut River, built to allow the family to escape an attack on the one-time frontier town.  A later story, published in 1949, added that while held there Burgoyne had slept in one of the front rooms of the house, met with Lucy "frequently", and that still "the young general's ghost haunts the staircase, moaning disconsolately for Lucy, who spurned his love".

Is there evidence to suggest that "Johnny" Burgoyne stayed in the Hunt's home (or his ghost still haunts it)?  I've seen none to date, and don't expect to.  Burgoyne doesn't appear to have ever traveled through Northampton, never mind had a rendezvous with a local lass - or to have gone through Hadley, on the east bank of the Connecticut River, but that's another story, for next week.  While Northampton was a major crossing point on the river, and served as such for the British column, Burgoyne crossed twenty miles to the south, from West Springfield into Springfield.

Is there evidence to suggest Burgoyne's ghost haunts any New England home?  An observation by Abagail Adams suggests that if his spirit doesn't, the memory of him may have for a while.  Regarding his stay in Boston, she wrote from her home in Braintree to her husband John on July 25, 1775: “General Burgoyne lives in mr. Samll. Quincys House. a Lady who lived opposite Says she Saw raw meat cut & hacked upon her Mahogona Tables, & her Superb Damask curtain & cushings exposed to the rain as if they were of no value…  As to Burgoyne I am not Master of Language sufficient to give you a true Idea of the Horrible wickedness of the Man. His designs are dark, His Dissimulation of the deepest die, for not content with deceiving Mankind he practices deceit on God himself, by Assuming the Appearance (like Hutchinson) of great attention to Religious Worship when every action of his life is totally abhorant to all Ideas of true Religion, Virtue or common Honesty.  An Abandoned Infamous Gambler of Broken fortune and the Worst Most detestable of the Bedford Gang who are wholly bent on Blood, tyrany and Spoil...” [6]

[1] Bartlett, p. 401.

[2] How, p. 49.

[3] Bartlett, p. 402; How, p. 49.

[4] Napier, p. 329

[5] 47th Regiment Journal, p. 157.

[6] "Letter From Abigail Adams to John Adams 25 July 1775", accessed October 26, 2023, at https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17750725aa&bc=%2Fdigitaladams%2Farchive%2Fbrowse%2Fdate%2Fall_1775.php.

Next Week: Sorry Hadley - "He [Never] Left His Sword Behind"

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