The 1777 March of the Saratoga Convention Army

The German column of the Convention Army marched seventeen miles on October 24, 1777, then stopped for the night near  "... a miserable village."   It would be their last night in New York (in 1777 at least), or perhaps their first night in Massachusetts.  Their march  "on hilly and stony roads"  had taken them well into the Taconic Mountains, and to  "... Nobletown, a village undeserving of its beautiful name."  [1]  Their stay was not pleasant, as:  "... we had to sleep in the open air for want of houses; we got so covered with frost during the night that we looked like great sugar dolls."  [2]   The Germans were not the first or the last Revolutionary War travelers to stop in the village.  Impressions were mixed.   Several months earlier Lieutenant Samuel Armstrong of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Line had passed through.  On July 21st he noted that he: "... march'd 8 miles to Kenyon's...

Last week I shared that tracking the 1777 journey of Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne from Saratoga to Cambridge was a challenge.  Several primary sources document he stayed in Albany at Major-General Philip Schuyler's home until October 27th, and arrived in Cambridge on November 7th.  Less clear was where he stopped in between, though multiple locations lay claim to the statement "Burgoyne slept here" - some relatively easy to challenge, others not so much so. Travelers during the Revolutionary War going from Albany to Boston (or Boston to Albany) generally followed one of two major routes that correspond to the routes taken by the British and German columns.  A traveler leaving Albany could head south towards Kinderhook, then east through Great Barrington to Springfield, and on to Boston (or Cambridge for our purposes) along the Western Post Road.  Alternatively, a traveler could head east from Albany to Pittsfield or Williamstown, then through the Berkshires to c...