The Sudbury Fight Sites today

  There is very little today of the Sudbury Fight.  The area has been built over but there are a number of markers where buildings were located.  The site of the Green Hill fight is now a very upscale and crowded neighborhood who's people will get rather upset with you if you tramp through it near or on their land. And the Sudbury police just want to test you for drinking or drugs if you explain you are looking for the 1676 battlefield.   The Sudbury river has been famed and tamed and the wet lands filled in and cultivated.    In other words it looks nothing like it did in 1676. 

  But if you know where to look it can be a fun day.  The text description here is from the book "King Philips War:  The History and Legacy of Americas forgotten conflict. ". This is a outstanding book.  Good summary of the war and individual battles. If you want to trace the battlefields and what is located there today thus book tells you.  Highly recommended!

Haynes Garrison house; 

The site of the Deacon Haynes garrison House is on Water-Row Road, about two-tenths of a mile north of Old Sudbury Road (Route 27). The house was situated about fifteen yards from the road, facing south. It survived the Sudbury Fight, only to be demolished sometime after 1876. The cellar hole of the garrison is still visible.

John J. McCann, a Sudbury resident who was born in the Haynes garrison in 1860, remembered that “the rooms on the second floor toward the hill were bricked about four feet high, between the outer and inner walls” to keep the Indians from shooting those sleeping."

Goodenow Garrison House:

A state marker at the intersection of Old County Road and the Boston Post Road (Route 20) designates the site of the Goodenow garrison. The marker reads: THE GOODENOW GARRISON HOUSE PORTION OF THE GOODENOW GARRISON HOUSE IN WHICH SETTLERS TOOK REFUGE FROM KING PHILIP’S INDIANS DURING THE BATTLE OF APRIL 18–21, 1676. The house was standing as late as about 1815, but was moved or destroyed shortly thereafter.

Noyes’ Mill:

The site of Noyes’ Mill is marked on Route 20, west of Concord Road, near the present-day Mill Village shopping center. The marker reads: HOPBROOK MILL TO THE LEFT IS THE SITE OF HOPBROOK MILL, ERECTED IN 1659 BY VIRTUE OF A TOWN GRANT TO THOMAS AND PETER NOYES, “TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN A MILL TO GRIND THE CORN OF THE SETTLERS.” IT IS NOW THE PROPERTY OF HENRY FORD. 

Sudbury Fight Marker and Green Hill Fight:

Wadsworth, Brocklebank, and twenty-seven of their men were buried in a mass grave described by Alfred Serend Hudson as about six feet square “in which bodies were placed in tiers at right angles to each other.” The spot was marked by a heap of stones, in part to deter wolves. In 1852 the remains of these men were excavated and moved fifty feet north to the site of a new monument. A state marker at Boston Post Road (Route 20) and Concord Road designates this memorial, which is four-tenths of a mile north on Concord Road at the Wadsworth Cemetery. The marker reads: SUDBURY FIGHT ONE-QUARTER MILE NORTH TOOK PLACE THE SUDBURY FIGHT WITH KING PHILIP’S INDIANS ON APRIL 21, 1676. CAPTAIN SAMUEL WADSWORTH FELL WITH TWENTY- EIGHT OF HIS MEN. THEIR MONUMENT STANDS IN THE BURYING GROUND.

The Wadsworth Monument and Grave:

The monument itself sits toward the back of the cemetery and reads: THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE TOWN OF SUDBURY IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THE SERVICE AND SUFFERINGS OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE STATE AND ESPECIALLY IN HONOR OF CAPT. S. WADSWORTH OF MILTON CAPT. BROCKLEBANK OF ROWLEY LIEUT. SHARP OF BROOKLINE AND TWENTY SIX OTHERS, MEN OF THEIR COMMAND, WHO FELL NEAR THIS SPOT ON THE 18 OF APRIL 1676 WHILE DEFENDING THE FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS AGAINST THE ALLIED INDIAN FORCE OF PHILIP OF POKANOKET 1852

 Samuel Wadsworth’s stone, set up in 1730 by his son, Benjamin (then president of Harvard College), was moved with the bodies to the base of the new monument. It reads: CAPT. SAMUEL WADSWORTH OF MILTON, HIS LIEU. SHARP OF BROOKLINE, CAPT. BROCKLEBANK OF ROWLEY, WITH ABOUT TWENTY-SIX OTHER SOLDIERS FIGHTING FOR YE DEFENSE OF THEIR COUNTRY WERE SLAIN BY YE INDIAN ENEMY, APRIL 18TH 1676, & LYE BURIED IN THIS PLACE

Sudbury Fight April 21, 1676

 

 By early April 1676 colonial authorities were aware that a sizable body of  Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett warriors under King Philip had gathered near Mount Wachusett.  They had already  attacked and burned the settlements of Lancaster and Groton and forced the partial evacuation of Marlboro.   To assist the towns the colonial Council of War ordered Captain Samuel Wadsworth and about seventy men to march to the garrison at Marlboro, passing through Sudbury on the evening of April 20, 1676. At the same time as Wadsworth and his troops marched westward along the Marlboro Road, five hundred or more warriors from the Wachusett camp had begun taking position in and around Sudbury. 

Map from Eric Shultz's book King Philips War: History and Legacy of Americas forgotten conflict.

About sunrise on the morning of April 21, 1676, Philip started his attack;  focusing first on on the houses on the western bank of the Sudbury River. the settlers quickly retired within the five garrison houses.  One garrison house known as The Haynes garrison drew fighting all morning.  Because of the long morning siege most authors feel it as the object of the natives attack.  But based on later events it could also have been a faint to draw the English  reinforcements into an ambush.  To the rear of the garrison a slight rise provided cover to a group of natives who set fire one of Haynes’ wagons with combustible material and rolled it downhill to set fire to the house.   But  the flaming cart  hit a rock and rolled over short if it's destination.  In the end, the Haynes garrison would hold out.  But  destruction raged around it. 

The Hayes Garrison House

When news of the attack on Sudbury reached Concord, eleven brave ( or foolhardy) men marched to Sudbury's defence.  They proceded along the west bank of the Sudbury River. When they arrived within view of the Haynes garrison, they were ambushed with only one man escaping. 

In the early afternoon, troops under Captain Hugh Mason from Watertown arrived to help.  They drove the natives from the central settlement and crossed the Town Bridge to the western bank of the Sudbury River. Hearing  the sound of heavy fighting on Green Hill, Mason and his troops tried repeatedly to reach that fight but were driven back each time. Finally at the  risk of being surrounded and cut off, they retreated to the Captain Goodenow (or Goodnow) garrison house.    From the west a troop of eighteen mounted men finally fought their way into Sudbury after a long running fight.

Captain Wadsworth learning of the attack on Sudbury soon after his arrival at Marlboro gathered together his exhausted troops, including those under Captain Samuel Brocklebank already stationed in Marlboro, and  rapidly retraced his march back to Sudbury. As Wandsworth and Brocklebank  force crossed the bridge at Noyes’ Mill just south of Green Hill, they spotted a handful of warriors fleeing northward in the large field at the base of the hill. Thinking they had surprised Philip’s rear guard, Wadsworth and Brocklebank’s men left the road and set off in pursuit along the west side of Green Hill.  When they reached the pass between Green Hill and Goodman’s Hill, shots rang out from both hillsides as bodies of warriors (perhaps five hundred in all) sprang their ambush.  With their escape  block to the northern and southern Wadsworth’s men were thrown momentarily into a panic.  The Captain was able to rally his men and firmed back to back repulsed several native charges. As the afternoon wore on and relief was effectively blocked from reaching them Wadsworth and his troops fought their way up its side so that by late afternoon they had reached the top.  Nearby to the south sat the Goodenow garrison and the Noyes’ Mill, the latter uninhabited but able to be fortified. Darkness might bring hope of escape. It was then that the natives lit the dry brush of Green Hill on fire, forcing Wadsworth and his men to flee from the smoke and flames. As they retreated in the direction of Noyes’ Mill and the Goodenow garrison.   Wadsworth, Brocklebank and most of their men were killed. A few reached the Noyes Mill  and held out their till relieved the next day.

Fighting on Green Hill

 As night fell the natives, having completed their rout, retreated to the west, leaving the frightened settlers scattered throughout Sudbury’s garrisons to wonder what fate would bring them in the morning. The next day Captain Samuel Hunting and his company of praying Indians (they had marched from Charlestown late that day) searched the area for the English dead, gathering the bodies of five of the Concord militia. These were buried in a common grave at the east end of Town Bridge.  Wadsworth and his men were buried near where they fell.

 The Sudbury Fight should have been one of King Philips best victories. The feint at the Haynes garrison, the ambushes of both the Concord and Wadsworth’s troops, the ability to seal off Green Hill from reinforcements,  were a brilliant display of military tactics.   A victory here should have given the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett warriors a tremendous lift. But such was not the case. Perhaps their unacceptable losses or the fact that the English settlements still held out and  reinforcements continued to pour in was made the victory hollow. In addition the native supplies of weapons, powder and especially food stuffs were exhausted.  No matter how many fights he won his people were starving.

  In any event, when the war party returned to its camp at Mount Wachusett, captive Mary Rowlandson wrote: To my thinking, they went without any scruple but that they should prosper and gain the victory. And they went out not so rejoicing, but they came home with as great a victory, for they said they had killed two captains and almost an hundred men. One Englishman they brought alive with them; and he said it was too true for they had made sad work at Sudbury, as indeed it proved. Yet they came home without that rejoicing and triumphing over their victory which they were wont to show at other times, but rather like dogs (as they say) which have lost their ears. Yet I could not perceive that it was for their own loss of men. They said they had not lost but above five or six, and I missed none, except in one wigwam. When they went, they acted as if the Devil had told them that they should gain the victory; and now they acted as if the Devil had told them that they should have a fall. 

Shortly after the fight Philip's alliances would splinter and scatter.   Philip returned with his people to their homeland around the Bristol area while the other native warriors concentrated their efforts on feeding their people.

Please note:  I will be following up on this post with two more.  One will be a visit to the sites today and what you can find there.  This will be followed up with a possible wargames scenario for refuge ting this action.  Stay tuned for more!