New Ashford, Massachusetts - “March'd To New Ashford Put Up Staid At Night”
After the surrender at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777, the British column of the Convention Army marched through the southeast corner of Vermont, then into Williamstown, Massachusetts. There, the two thousand prisoners and their guards halted to draw provisions, and then marched south on October 23rd, towards Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Residents in Berkshire County, the westernmost part of Massachusetts, would see them pass by for several days.
It apparently took a few hours to get moving some mornings. Lieutenant Israel Bartlett, part of the Massachusetts militia forces guarding the British column, shares that on October 23rd, he: "Marched at 10 O’Clock towards Lanesborough [from Williamstown]..." [1] Another of the guard, Private David How, shares what might be the reason for their mid-morning start, noting: “[October] 23 This morning Draw’d provisions [in Williamstown] Then march’d to New ashford put up Staid at Night”. [2]
From Bartlett's diary we also learn the column was organized into "... two divisions", with at least some of the guards marching behind the prisoners, as he notes he and those with him were "... in the rear of the first division.” Bartlett and the first division appear to have marched through New Ashford, and stopped for the night on the 23rd in Lanesborough, as on the 24th notes he traveled seven miles to reach Pittsfield. [3] A British source supports that conclusion, Lieutenant Francis (Lord) Napier of the 31st Regiment of Foot indicating he made a march on October 23rd from Williamstown which took him beyond New Ashford, to "Lanesborough 15 M[iles]". [4]
How, presumably with the second division, departed New Ashford on October 24th, noting: “This morning we Set out march’d Through Lainsborough Staid at Night at Pitsfield”. [5] The Journal of 47th notes stopping in Williamstown on the 21st, then “Oct 24 [stopped at] Lanesboro miles [marched] 5”. A march of five miles on the 24th indicates that section of the column also spent the night of October 23rd in New Ashford, and then lagged behind those who marched on to Lanesborough. [6]
New Ashford, where some passed through and others stayed, was only a settlement in 1777. It appears to be the most recently settled community which the Convention Army passed through. The first European settlers had arrived in 1762. In 1776 the town had a population of 216 (not all that many fewer than the 250 counted in the 2020 census). The area was recognized as a "district" in 1781, meaning it did not have its own representative to the General Court (the Massachusetts legislature). The town's first church, often one of the first structures to be built in a New England village, was not erected until 1828, shortly before New Ashford's incorporation as a town in 1835. [7]
How doesn't mention where he was "put up" and stayed in New Ashford, but presumably it was in the home of one of the families settled there. Few, if any, manmade structures from time of the march remain. The Massachusetts Secretary of State's MACRIS database only lists the town cemetery as dating from 1777 or earlier. One of the markers there commemorates a death just days before the Convention Army passed, that of Patience Lewis Mallery, whose gravestone reads: "In Memory of Patience Lewis wife of Uriah Mallery who departed this life Oct ye 21st 1777 in the 25th year of her age. The pains of child birth was her end."Almost a century and a half after the British passed through, New Ashford would be associated with a voting first. At the time, New Ashford was the first town in the country to vote. As a result, on November 2, 1920, Phoebe Jordan was said to have become the first woman in the United States to legally vote in a presidential election. Or, like many claims with regard to historical firsts, maybe she wasn't. Among the contenders which appear from an internet search for an answer are potentially an unmarried woman property owner in New Jersey up until 1807, and Susan B. Anthony - though not legally - in 1872, one of many included on a list of many contenders. Regardless, the route of march of the Convention Army has several connections to women voting, including Brookfield (now West Brookfield), Massachusetts, as the birthplace of Lucy Stone in 1818, and Worcester, Massachusetts, as the site of the first national women's rights convention in 1850.
The British column's march into New Ashford offers up some geological distinctions as well. As they left Williamstown, they passed by Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, as seen in the distance in the photo above taken looking south on Route 7. In addition, they traveled up through the Green River valley, which flows into the Hoosic River, a tributary of the Hudson River. As they left New Ashford, they also left the Hudson River watershed, part of the great north-south passageway between New York City and Canada, which Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne and his army sought but failed to take control of.
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