Pawlet Expedition of 1777

Early September 1777, Colonel Benjamin Lincoln and General Horatio Gates of the Continental Army met to plan the Pawlet expedition to divide, divert, and deter General John Burgoyne and his army in their advance to take Albany, to restrain the Loyalists in the area and to protect valuable country filled with provisions, this marked the beginning of a new military climate. The long retreat and defensive posture of the main American army had been reversed.

Pawlet, a remote hamlet and impenetrable fortress surrounded by mountains, with Haystack towering above, was the base and strong post of the Continental Army. The geography enabled strategic tactical planning for troop movement and attacks. Approximately 2,500 American troops encamped in Pawlet under General Lincoln; among these men Col. Samuel Herrick raised a company of Rangers that hindered and harassed Burgoyne’s army. Burgoyne later referred to them as hanging “like a gathering cloud on my left flank.”

Companies of approximately 500 men were dispatched under Col. John Brown to Ticonderoga; Col. Samuel Johnson to Mount Independence, and Col. Benjamin Woodbridge to Skenesborough (Whitehall). Seth Warner supplied soldiers with battle experience. Ebenezer Allen’s company of Green Mountain Boys and Col. Samuel Herrick’s Vermont Rangers mounted a heroic assault capturing several enemy outposts including Mount Defiance. The presence of troops in Pawlet disabled General Burgoyne’s army, thereby contributing to the historic surrender at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, stunning British leaders who had anticipated a quick victory of their own.

“The Pawlet Expedition became, not a main strand, but one of the threads of the web that entangled and destroyed Burgoyne, and that destruction was momentous for American History.” – Hoyt & Kingsley, Vermont Historical Society Montpelier August 1977

In grateful memory of the Revolutionary soldiers who fought for our freedom and honoring those who are buried here at Pawlet Cemetery Hill, The Blossom Cemetery and The Mountain View Cemetery.