The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

People across Massachusetts were well aware of the 1777 march of the Convention Army from Saratoga to Cambridge.  Brunswick dragoon company surgeon Julius Friedrich Wasmus, who had been captured at the the Battle of Bennington in August, and was being held in Brimfield, Massachusetts, was among those who heard they were coming.  Two days after the surrender at Saratoga he wrote in his journal:  “[October] 19th  Tonight, we received the sad news that our army has been captured at Saratoga.  Therefore, they made a feu de joie with cannon in Springfield.”   Ten days later he would note:  “[October] 29th  News comes from everywhere that our army is expected in Springfield” [1]  Springfield, Massachusetts, was one of the oldest and largest towns that the Convention Army would pass through.  Europeans first settled in Springfield in 1636, when it was still part of Connecticut.  A plaque to the right of the door of the  Student Pri...

The lead element of the re-united Convention Army marched through Leicester, Massachusetts, on November 2, 1777.  Massachusetts Militia Lieutenant Israel Bartlett, a guard with the British column, noted in his journal for that day:  "... marched thro' Leicester and halted at Worcester, 14 miles from our last quarters."  [1]  More British prisoners passed through on November 3rd.  The journal of an officer of the 47th Regiment of Foot notes they made a seventeen mile march from Brookfield to Worcester that day which would have taken them through Leicester, but makes no mention of that. [2] The Germans, who marched behind the British and stayed in town the night of November 3rd, were more descriptive:  "Our march went via Spencer to Leicester today [November 3] and came 14 Engl. miles.  The houses were close to each other and in part very beautiful; most of them were two stories high!"  [3]  As had been the case since Palmer, the road they took...

By 1777 the central Massachusetts town of  Worcester, forty miles west of Boston, had a reputation as friendly to the patriot cause.  Residents had  shut down the courts  in September 1774, in what author Ray Raphael argues was the true start of the American Revolution.  Patriot printer Isaiah Thomas, who fled British controlled Boston in April of 1775 due to the political views expressed in his newspaper the  Massachusetts Spy , subtitled  "Or, American ORACLE Of Liberty" , published an account of the fighting on April 19th at Lexington and Concord in his  first Worcester issue  on May 3rd, 1775.  Worcester residents had served as militiamen and Continental soldiers in the Northern Army that had stopped British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne and his army - and allegedly one of his messengers.  Like many Massachusetts towns though, it was also home, or   once home, to Loyalists  a s well.   On October 22, 1777,...

A goal of this blog is to find, see and share some of what the Convention Army saw on their 1777 march from Saratoga to Cambridge.  Milestones, markers set at one mile intervals along part of their route, are one such example, and a clue to which roads they took - especially where original sections of those roads have been replaced.  They also revealed to me that for years I had overlooked links to the past just miles from my home. The story of post road milestones in New England is traditionally linked to Benjamin Franklin, in his role as Deputy Postmaster General.  According to many accounts, in 1767 he personally placed red sandstone markers at one mile intervals along what is known as the Upper Post Road from Boston through Springfield, to New York City.  Typical is this one pictured, located in Brookfield, Massachusetts, 65 miles west of Boston. The problem with this legend is that in what I've read to date, no primary source is cited to link Franklin or the 176...