Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route WRRR Newsletter No. 29

April 10, 2000 - Give One Away
Editor Hans DePold, Bolton Town Historian

Visit these other web sites for more information.
http://www.mindspring.com/~mcjoynt/ep_web.htm
http://www.hudsonriver.com/halfmoonpress/stories/0200wash.htm

Purpose

This newsletter is to provide a means for keeping historians, re-enactors, and other interested people aware of the activity to create a national historic trail, the WRRR. Rochambeau's French army defined the route when they marched from Newport to Yorktown and back to Boston. The goal is to encourage creation of a National Historic Trail with the registration of the entire route that passes through Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, and to raise to a higher level the quality of heritage preservation all along the route.

The Order of the Cincinnatus

We have arrived at the last stage in the preservation of the 5th Camp, the Rose Farm. The State of CT has come up with a 45% open space grant, but the town of Bolton has to provide the rest in a referendum expected May 17.
The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut provided a grant to help the Bolton Historical Society document this history of the Rose Farm and to raise the level of public awareness of this well preserved, incredibly rich remnant of the American Revolution. This newsletter provides the results of the continuing study. Every site will have a similar history.

David F. Musto, MD President, Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut writes, "There is now an opportunity to bring to life vital fields that have lain dormant since we achieved our liberty through the War for Independence. We owe it to ourselves as well as to those who fought and died on our behalf to memorialize the Rose Farm."

Shortly after the American Revolution, aide-de-camp of Lafayette, the Chevalier de Pontiband, wrote about the U.S. "One of the first acts of the young Republic was to found the Order of the Cincinnatus, and make it hereditary. It had a sky blue watered ribbon with a white border, below which was an eagle with outstretched wings in enameled gold. We, in France, did not know what was going on beyond the seas, when suddenly the Marquis de la Fayette was surprised to receive a packet of a dozen eagles to be distributed between him and his companions in arms. I was one of the twelve honoured by this mark of distinction. I have heard that Comte de Rochambeau received thirty-six eagles of Cincinnatus for himself and the principal officers of his forces."

Saving Camp 5, The Rose Farm

There are two kinds of fortune in life. There is the normal kind we stumble through and apologize for along the way. But there is also the kind that a young boy has rounding a corner in school, colliding with a girl, and then after the initial sting, profusely thanking her for the experience. It is this latter kind of fortune we now have in Bolton, CT. Bolton alas has collided with the Rose Farm.

Many of us have watched Richard Rose working in the fields of Bolton's Rose Farm. He has childhood memories of large black areas that he saw in the plowed soil that he now knows were the locations of the French army campfire pits where they roasted their dinners. For seventy-eight years his family groomed the hills with plow, disk, and harrow. Then they sowed the fields and clothed the center of Bolton with the silky sheen of timothy hay where the wind played and their cows grazed. Is it any wonder that the Rose family would like to preserve their idyllic farm?

The previous longest owner, Reverend George Colton, was the Congregationalist Church pastor who lived there from 1764 until 1817, and who entertained generals Washington and Rochambeau. Today it is the very same historic vista that the patriots saw as they prepared to camp for the night when the summer sun was reposing. Then the sun's long rays of crimson light embraced the patriots, together with the flowers and stone walls, then stretched broadly, and yawned across the field down to the trees. There patriots dreamed of liberty.

This farm has given its best years to us. It provided food and comfort to the Mohegan Indians. It yielded its forests to build some of our first barns and homes. Early members of our Bolton Congregational Church cleared the land and then built the massive stone walls along the parsonage paths. A host of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island patriots gazed at the farm as they passed along the Revolutionary Road" and the Middle Post Road. The Marquis de Lafayette inspected the proposed campsite. General George Washington dined at the farm. It bedded General Rochambeau and more than 5000 rough and boisterous camping French, Irish, Polish, German, and American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

It then toiled beneath sun and storms for more than two hundred more years. It enchanted many passing travelers and Bolton residents. It has given us some of our best sunsets and begs to be allowed to continue. The Rose farm has worked long enough and deserves to retire with dignity and not be ripped to pieces by bulldozers. They aren't making land anymore, and there is no land in Bolton, or for that matter in all of Connecticut, that compares with the unique heritage of the Rose Farm.

Our children deserve to have the historic Rose Farm preserved. If we are going to stop the faceless expansion of urban blight, the Rose Farm is where we must make our stand. It has much of what each of us identify as the heart of every New England village The alternative is to hack the farm up unto small lots and give our village center the taste of urban blight. Is Bolton willing to act, or will we have to be content to watch Bolton's sun setting over condominiums and housing projects? Letting the Rose Farm become a development would cut the very heart out of Bolton.

If we do something now, then like that young boy who collided with that girl, we will thank the Rose family for the good fortune they have bestowed on Bolton. If we make excuses and miss this opportunity to acquire the farm, then we will have to apologize to our children for the damage done to our heritage and environment. It is time for Bolton to save the Rose Farm. We literally cannot afford to pass up this opportunity. Connecticut has given an open space grant to offset the cost. It is time for Bolton to rally and preserve the Rose Farm as perpetual fields of stones, flowers, and dreams.

The Final Test of Our Camp 5 Partnership

"The Connecticut Society, Sons of the American Revolution, urges you to do whatever you can to preserve the Rose Farm and the American history it embodies. Just as that small farm in your neighborhood once provided shelter for those who fought to make you free, so must you---so must we all---fight to shelter their memory by hallowing that ground." Russ Wirtalla, President, CTSSAR

"The Connecticut State Society Daughters of the American Revolution join in the effort to preserve the Historic Rose Farm. The value of our precious historic sites increases with each year that passes. Let us preserve this hallowed ground where men who supported the ideas of Liberty and Freedom once camped." Marolyn A Paulis, President

The final test of whether we can save Camp 5 as open space will be in the May 17 referendum.

The farm is not just a place where patriots met, planned, prayed, worked, played, slept, ate, sang, or danced. The vista of the farm itself is a state of mind. When we approach the farm we see the fields and stone walls loom up exactly as they appear on the French maps of 1781, exactly as the founding fathers, mothers, and children of Bolton built them. Some day there might be a National Park viewing site with a laminated map of the area, listing the patriots who saw exactly what we are seeing, and telling why they were there, what happened at the site, and possibly displaying pictures of the artifacts found on the site. The artifacts would include Revolutionary War uniform buttons, cannon balls, musket balls, arrowheads. We can imagine Lafayette standing next to us inspecting the site, and we can see this historic vista teeming with Revolutionary War soldiers breaking camp, raising their colors, and marching to the beat of their drums. We turn around and Lafayette has gone but now Rochambeau and his entourage are riding up to the house. Today when we view the historic vista we can experience what the patriots experienced and get the sense of those times. By preserving this vista our children and future generations will be able to see, breathe, and touch the same things.

"The American Society of Le Souvenir Français, Inc. wholeheartedly supports the preservation of the revolutionary heritage along the entire Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route and particularly one of its salient features still remaining untouched in the beautiful state of Connecticut, Camp #5, known today as the Rose Farm. Its vista today would still look familiar and appreciated as it was over two hundred years ago by some four thousand of our French countrymen who passed through it during the crucial revolutionary years of 1781 and 1782, on the road to and from victory at the battle of Yorktown. Le Souvenir Français believes that the preservation of this camp site will not only serve us well but will benefit future generations of American and French visitors as well, hopefully for at least another two hundred years!" Col. Serge GABRIEL, President New England committee and vice-president, Souvenir Français.

Rose Farm's Historic Moments

In 1634, trader John Oldham and his three companions were the first English men to set foot in Bolton as they made their way on what would become known as the Old Connecticut path.

1636 Reverend Thomas Hooker led Puritan followers from Massachusetts through Bolton then on The Old Connecticut path to settle in Hartford, becoming the first settlement in Connecticut.

1644 The mighty Mohegan sachem, Uncas, traveled through Bolton to the Hartford colony with a great number of his bravest warriors and most trusted advisors. The Indians made the original encampments of Bolton.

In 1675 Mohegan Chief Joshua granted land to Major Talcott,. Bolton was in the more northerly and westerly of these two tracts.

October 9, 1720 the town of Bolton was incorporated. The church was the meetinghouse and the church parsonage (Rose Farm) was adjacent the town green. The historic vista began to be cleared .

In 1753 & 1763, the Crown's postmaster, Benjamin Franklin reported he inspected the New England post roads and had markers installed. At that time the post road went past the Rose Farm.

October 17, 1763, Reverend George Colton agreed to settle at the parsonage of the First Society in Bolton, on RevRoad. The Rose Farm was that original parsonage property. During the American Revolution, the town green and the parsonage were available for the encampments of American and French troops.

In 1769, Nathan Hale began study at Yale. The family passed through Bolton several times on route to New Haven.

"Rebel Governor" Jonathan Trumbull lived in Lebanon and traveled to the Capital in Hartford on the Lebanon-Hartford Road past the Rose farm.

September 5, 1774, Captain Joel White, 2 Brandy St, town meeting moderator. Town decides to send Captain Thomas Pitkin and Seth King to Hartford to discuss boycott of British goods. Town meeting house and Bolton Center is on RevRoad.

January 16, 1775, Voted that Captains Thomas Pitkin and Benjamin Tallcott are a committee of correspondence go to Hartford on RevRoad to consult on what be done for the public good of this colony.

1775, Captain Jonathan Birge, Bolton, left to participate in the Lexington alert. Given a command of 73 men, he participates in the Battle of New York, and is mortally wounded in the Battle of White Plains.

October 18, 1776, Friday, Continental army troops breakfasted in Bolton on way to the Quebec Campaign.

April 12, 1777, Continental army troops camped in Bolton, Saturday in rain and cold on way to the Delaware Defense.

January 29, 1778, Thursday, Continental army troops from Valley Forge rested in Bolton on way to study British positions in Rhode Island.

May 11, 1778, Monday, Continental army troops stopped and oated horses in Bolton on way to Valley Forge.

July 28, 1778, Tuesday, Continental army (about 1000 men) stopped in Bolton and cook up lunch on the green and Colton's fields on way to the Battle of Rhode Island. Brig. General James Mitchell Varnum lead his brigade plus Col. Henry Jackson's regiment.

November 21, 1779, Sunday evening, victorious Continental army troops returning from Rhode Island had dinner in Bolton and camped the night on way to Valley Forge.

May 4, 1780, the Hon. Major General the Marquis de Lafayette returned from France and passed from Boston through Bolton to Hartford to Morristown. With him was M. de Gimat..

July 22, 1780, the Hon. Major General the Marquis de Lafayette passed through Bolton going from Hartford to Lebanon to Newport, to greet the newly arrived General Rochambeau.

September 1780. Rochambeau and Chastellux made round trip through Bolton during the trip to the Hartford Conference.

November 16, 1780, Chastellux a major general under Rochambeau was an enlightened man, a member of the French academy, and a perceptive observer of affairs in the new republic. He wrote:

"After descending a gentile slope for about two miles, I found myself in a rather narrow, but agreeable and well-cultivated valley: it is watered by a rivulet which flows into the 'Sheunganick' and which is adorned with the name of 'Hope' River; you follow this valley to Bolton."

November 16, 1780, the Duc de Lauzun rides with some of his men through Bolton to Hartford and passes General Chastellux .

December 23, 1780, Saturday, Continental army troops stopped in Bolton on the way to Rhode Island to meet French.

January 11, 1781, General Knox, the American artillery commander rode through Bolton on the WRRR to Lebanon to tell the French that the Pennsylvania and New Jersey brigades had mutinied.

February 15, 1781, the Hon. Major General the Marquis de Lafayette passed through Bolton on his trip from Providence to Lebanon to Hartford, checking the precise route and the campsites before the march of Rochambeau.

March 4, 1781, General George Washington dined at the home of Reverend George Colton now the site of The Rose Farm in Bolton and noted that they had no children. (Neither did Washington.).

March 27, 1781, Tuesday, Continental army troops stopped in Bolton after seeing Washington review Rochambeau's French troops in Newport RI.

May 21-22, 1781 Rochambeau and Admiral Ternay made round trip through Bolton during the trip to the Wethersfield conference.

June 21-24, 1781, Four 1000+ man French Regiments under General Rochambeau camped on the site of the Rose Farm in Bolton. General Rochambeau was the guest that night of Reverend Colton. Rev. George Colton tried at that time to adopt the 4-year-old child of Royal Deux Ponts grenadier Adam Gabel.

Lieutenant Gabriel-Gaspard baron de Gallatin of the Deux Ponts Regiment relates that at Bolton "the band played outside the camp and we danced on the green."
Louis-Alexandre Berthier says, "Bolton is a small town comprising many scattered houses, some of which are clustered around the meetinghouse on a spacious but low plateau. Through this part of Bolton runs a high road that goes left to Colchester and right to Boston. The Camp is to be located on this (east) side of the meetinghouse.)"

Clermont-Crevecoeur's "21 June, 1781 notes, "Bolton, a very small town, which is quite pretty" "We had entered the providence of Connecticut, one of the most productive in cattle, wheat, and every kind of commodity." 22 June, 1781 From Bolton to Hartford, This country has a very healthy and salubrious climate. We have seen old people here of both sexes who enjoy perfect health at a very advanced age. Their old age is gay and amiable, and not at all burdened with the infirmities that are our lot in our declining years. "

Friday, December 7, 1781 the Hon. Major General the Marquis de Lafayette passed through Bolton on a trip from Philadelphia to Hartford to Boston. The Hartford Courant reports the trip four days later.

November 4, 1782, Yale president Ezra Stiles visited with General Rochambeau at the home of Reverend George Colton now the site of The Rose Farm in Bolton.

October 13, 1784, the Hon. Major General the Marquis de Lafayette passed through from Albany to Hartford to Boston.