Some British soldiers from the Convention Army, Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's troops who had surrendered at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, reached the town on Sudbury, Massachusetts, a bit sooner than they were expected to. Massachusetts Militia Lieutenant Israel Bartlett noted in his diary: “[Nov.] 4 Tuesday - Marched from Northborough to Marlborough, 8 miles and halted - we are mustered and obliged to march, occasioned by the Artillery’s advancing beyond the lines set - we marched 5 miles and halted at Sudbury.” Private David How was also among those who arrived on the 4th. “This Day we march’d Through Marlborough . At Night we Staid at Sutton [sic]. I have ben on Guard this Night.” How's entry reminds us that the march was a military operation that tasked tired soldiers to be on duty at all hours; and that historical research using primary sources requires thoughtful analysis, as it was clearly the town of Sudbury where he stopped on November 4, 1777, not Sutton, twenty-five miles to the south-west back in Worcester County. [1]
Sudbury, first settled by Europeans in 1638, had changed in several ways by 1777. By 1776 the town's population had grown to 2,160, and likely included a number of enslaved individuals, as fourteen had been reported living there in 1754. [2] In 1780 the town was divided into Sudbury and East Sudbury, which became the town of Wayland in 1835.
A century before the Convention Army passed through, the town was the site of fighting during King Philip's War, as Native warriors attacked frontier towns and village across Massachusetts in an attempt to regain control over their ancestral homeland. The residents of Sudbury, like those of Marlborough to its west, had fortified a number of houses around town as a defensive measure.
On March 10, 1676, small bands of Native warriors attacked the village. A more significant attack followed a month later, when a large Native force attacked the town killing a number of residents and burning most of their homes, and around thirty or perhaps as many as fifty colonial soldiers who had come to assist in the town's defense were killed in an ambush on April 21, 1676, in what is referred to as "The Sudbury Fight". [3]
Two of the many historical buildings that remain in Sudbury are open to the public. One, perhaps the best known, is the
Wayside Inn. According to the Inn's website, it has been hosting travelers since 1716. In addition to offering traditional New England meals and lodging, the Wayside Inn hosts a number of special events throughout the year, including a one day Revolutionary War battle re-enactment in the fall. The other, the Loring Parsonage, circa 1730, is now home to Sudbury Historical Society's
History Center and Museum, in the center of town. The museum's outstanding exhibits and displays included at the time of my visit the flintlock fowler pictured above, said to have been carried by Sudbury resident Ezekiel Rice during the fighting on
April 19, 1775. Both are well worth a visit when in Sudbury.
Sudbury was the first town on the Convention Army's 1777 route of march whose militia fought on the first day of the Revolutionary War at Concord and Lexington. One of those who did was Deacon Josiah Haynes, who was killed in the pursuit of the British column, and buried in Sudbury's
Revolutionary War Cemetery, just steps away from the History Center, with a stone which reads
"In Memory of Deacon Josiah Haynes who died in Freedoms Cause ye 19th of April 1775 in the 79th year of his age."
A day after Burgoyne's British troops left Sudbury, his German troops passed through. One of their officers would note:
"Nov. 6 It rained very hard the whole day long. We marched through Sudbury, a very respectable market place, in which there was a train of artillery. A detachment, stationed here as guards, had to make do in barracks. We went all the way to Weston, had marched 13 Engl. miles and got quarters." [4]
November 6th would be the German column's last night on the road, before reaching their barracks on Winter Hill, but not the last time they would see Sudbury. A year later, when the Convention Army left Massachusetts for Virginia, another would note on November 10, 1778: "The troops [of the Convention Army] marched through the towns of Cambridge, Watertown, Waltham, Weston to Sudberg [sic - Sudbury], a village or township, the inhabitants of which had been persuaded to take in the troops, placing the men in the barns, while the officers received quarter in the houses. The officers did not even get a bed free, but had to pay for everything and as much as the host was inclined to ask." [5]
[1] Bartlett, 402. How, 50. While the editor's footnotes to How's diary clarify How stopped in Northborough rather than "Northberry" on November 3rd, and went by way of Weston not "Westton" to Waltham rather than "Walth Ham" (both in Middlesex County) on the the 5th, it is not clear whether it was How who incorrectly noted he stopped in "Sutton" on the 4th, or the editor who failed to transcribe it correctly.
[2] New England Historical Genealogical Society, Vital Records of Sudbury, Massachusetts (Boston, MA: Standhope Press, 1903), 5. "1754 Massachusetts Slave Census, accessed online January 7, 2024 at: https://primaryresearch.org/slave-census-all/.
[3] Alfred Sereno Hudson,
The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts (Boston, MA: R.H. Blodgett, 1889), 220-244. A brief summary of the impact of King Philip's War on Sudbury is also posted on the Historical Society's website.
[4] Specht Journal, 109.
[5] Du Roi, Journal of Du Roi the Elder, 130.
For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:
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