A Framingham Connection? - "Generals Nixon And Glover Decided To Accompany Brickett"
Is there a direct connection between the march of the Convention Army after the surrender at Saratoga October 17, 1777, and Framingham, Massachusetts? Several secondary sources would lead one to believe that there is. Only one primary source which I am aware of suggests there may be one, and its not the connection that others claim exists.
Multiple authors have drawn a connection between the 1777 march of the Convention Army and Framingham by way of Brigadier-General John Nixon, who was born in Framingham. They claim Nixon (whose Revolutionary War service is commemorated by the tablet pictured here, in Framingham's Edgell Grove Cemetery), escorted British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne from Albany to Cambridge after the surrender. Most prominent among these is a 1926 biography of Nixon by John M. Merriam, which indicates that he did, but provides no documentation to support it. [1]
A recent online biography of Nixon references a number of sources within its text, but offers no actual citations, and also makes the claim that: “With the surrender of Burgoyne’s army, there was the problem of what to do with the British and Hessian rank and file soldiers. General Brickett’s brigade was detailed to escort them from Saratoga to Cambridge. Generals Nixon and Glover decided to accompany Brickett. They arrived at Cambridge by Nov. 25, 1777, as evidenced in a letter written on that date by British Lt. Anburey who was held captive.” [2]
There are several issues with this account. The Convention Army included officers as well as enlisted personnel, and most of Burgoyne's German soldiers were Brunswickers, not Hessians. In addition to Brigadier-General John Glover being detailed by Gates to escort Burgoyne, rather than "deciding" to accompany Brigadier-General James Brickett, I see nothing in Anburey's November 25th letter that indicates Nixon arrived in Cambridge that day. Anburey didn't arrive on the 25th either, as his first letter from Cambridge is dated November 10th, three days after Burgoyne arrived. [3] It appears the author took his account from Merriam, who wrote much the same in 1926, but with fewer errors, stating then: “The surrender of Burgoyne's soldiers brought the problem of what to do with them [the prisoners of the Convention Army], and General Brickett's brigade was detailed to take them from Saratoga to Cambridge. General Nixon and General Glover accompanied Brickett.” Unfortunately Merriam provided no reference to support this version of events either. [4]
As it turns out, Merriam was not the first to claim that Nixon accompanied Burgoyne to Cambridge. It’s likely that he based his account on Josiah Temple’s History of Framingham, which he references later in his article. Temple, writing a century after the end of the Revolutionary War, claimed that: "After the capitulation of Burgoyne, Oct. 17, Gen. Nixon's brigade had head-quarters at Albany. The General himself, with five men of his brother's regiment [Colonel Thomas Nixon’s 6th Massachusetts Regiment], was detailed to accompany Gen. Brickett and Gen. Glover, in escorting the prisoners from Saratoga to Cambridge. Gen. Nixon's furlough was extended to next June; and he improved the time in marrying..." [5] However, an earlier history of Framingham makes no mention of Nixon escorting prisoners with Glover to Cambridge, or Nixon being furloughed in 1777 (or any Convention Army troops passing through Framingham in 1777); nor does a speech given in 1853 on Framingham in the Revolution, generously shared with me by the Framingham Historical Society. [6]
Nixon was present at Saratoga. His brigade was part of the Northern Army when Major-General Horatio Gates assumed command in August. [7] Just days after the Battle of Bemis Heights, as the American army pursued Burgoyne’s retreating forces, a cannonball reportedly passed so close to Nixon's head that it affected his sight and hearing for the rest of his life. It was this, and the need to attend to family matters, that some claim led to his obtaining a furlough from November of 1777 through June of 1778, and accompanying Burgoyne to Cambridge.
Nixon did return to Massachusetts at some point after the surrender at Saratoga, but it's not clear when. Merriam writes that: “This return to Massachusetts permitted Nixon to give attention to his home, which must have been in sorrow and distress during his absence. His wife, Thankful, had died and there were little children, the youngest only three years old. And there was another family in distress, the widow and children of Nixon's faithful subordinate, Micajah Gleason. His widow, Hannah, was still conducting his tavern near Saxonville, and with such thrift that she was making money. John and Hannah concluded that their burdens could be carried together to mutual advantage and they were married February 13, 1778.”
Merriam goes on to say that "In January 1778, while Nixon was with Burgoyne's soldiers..." a proposed winter invasion of Canada which would have included Nixon's brigade was rejected by General George Washington. [8] It's not clear what Nixon would have been doing with Burgoyne's soldiers. Perhaps there was some confusion on Merriam's part, as Nixon's brother, Colonel Thomas Nixon, was appointed on January 10, 1778, to sit on a Court of Inquiry to be convened in Cambridge to look into a complaint made by Burgoyne against Colonel David Henley's treatment of the Convention Army. [9]A Westborough town history also states that British troops stopped in that town in 1777. [11] A Weston town history indicates that some of the prisoners from the Convention Army entered that town from the west, on the "Framingham" road. [12] If they did, they may have taken roads which ran from Westborough through Southborough, and then Framingham and Natick. What’s missing is a primary source that puts them in any one of the towns along the way of what I’m calling the “Westborough Off-Shoot” from the common route of march to the north.
Did a part of the Convention Army march through Framingham? I'm not sure, but they may have. Did Brigadier-General John Nixon accompany Burgoyne to Cambridge? Perhaps he did, but none of the primary sources that I've referenced to date mention Nixon traveling with Burgoyne, including the journal of Brigadier-General William Whipple, which offers us the best account of Burgoyne’s trip from Albany to Cambridge. Regardless of whether Nixon went home to Massachusetts in 1777, or how long he stayed, on October 28, 1778, a year after Saratoga, he wrote to Washington and requested a furlough to deal with family matters, which was granted. [13]
[11] Harriette Merrifield Forbes, The Hundredth Town, Glimpses of Life in Westborough, 1717-1817, (Boston, MA: Rockwell and Churchill, 1889), 161.
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