Henry Knox was a feisty bookseller born and raised in Boston who became an accomplished general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He first organized and orchestrated his legendary “Noble Train of Artillery” on a miraculous mission from Fort Ticonderoga, N.Y., through the Berkshires, and on to Boston.
Knox was a ferocious reader and became a self-taught expert in military history and artillery. He was only 25 years old when commissioned by Continental Army commander George Washington in 1775 to transport 59 cannons from captured forts on Lake Champlain to the army camp outside Boston. He did not officially receive his rank as colonel in the Army until his trek through the wilderness was well underway.
Records indicate the train of artillery included 43 heavy brass and iron cannons, six cohorns, eight mortars, and two howitzers. Beginning in December 1775, Knox first used boats on Lake George—just as it was icing over—and then transferred the artillery to sturdy, hand-crafted wooden sledges pulled by teams of horses and oxen. The teamsters moved south toward Albany, N.Y. They lost one cannon in the Mohawk River and almost lost another when the ice broke on the frozen Hudson River.
The teamsters moved south again to Kinderhook, N.Y. Five separate groups of cannon haulers, often accompanied by local militia, then headed east through the challenging Berkshire Hills, finally arriving outside Boston in late January 1776. Knox made and adjusted plans every step of the way. While engaged in troubleshooting and coordinating this remarkable effort, he sometimes fell behind his teamsters. According to a brief diary entry, Knox caught up with his team midway through the Berkshires. At this point, Knox noted in his diary that his group had traveled over mountains “from which we could almost have seen all the kingdoms of the Earth.” He also wrote, “It appear’d to me almost a miracle that people with heavy loads should be able to get up & down such Hills as Are here.”
After arriving in Westfield, the team was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd insisting that a cannon be fired. After resting, the teamsters moved more quickly on improved roads and gentler elevations toward their destination in Cambridge. By the end of January, the artillery was delivered to General Washington. A month later, the cannons were placed on Dorchester Heights overlooking the British fleet in Boston Harbor. Negotiations ensued, and on March 17, 1776, the British evacuated Boston to avoid having their fleet destroyed by Continental Army cannon fire. This was a big success and moral booster for the Patriots.
But Henry Knox was no “one-hit wonder.” He was promoted to chief of artillery for George Washington’s military campaigns, which included the planning and execution of Washington’s audacious Christmas-night crossing of the Delaware River in 1776 to deliver a successful surprise attack at Trenton, N.J. This was a pivotal moment in the Revolutionary War during which Knox’s well-positioned artillery played a decisive role in the American victory.
In addition to Knox’s later job as the new country’s first secretary of war, he was responsible for the United States’ relationship with the Native American population in the new territories the nation claimed. His advocacy for fairer treatment of Native Americans included treating Indigenous nations as sovereign. Knox’s idealistic views on the subject were ignored. He remained frustrated by ongoing illegal settlements and fraudulent land transfers of Native lands. In 1795, Knox retired to Thomaston, Maine, where he launched business ventures built on borrowed money. He became a controversial figure in Maine, disliked by some, and sadly died in 1806 from an infection caused by swallowing a chicken bone which punctured his throat.
Which way did he go?
The Knox Trail is a network of roads, trails, and paths tracing the route of Colonel Henry Knox’s “Noble Train of Artillery” from forts on Lake Champlain to the Continental Army camp outside Boston. Since the mid-1920s, there has been considerable debate over exactly what roads Henry Knox and his teamsters took.
In 1925, plans were underway for a Sesquicentennial celebration (150th anniversary) of the American Revolution to be held the following year. New York and Massachusetts state officials and historians began plans to promote the so-called Knox Trail. A committee was formed to review Henry Knox’s diary and correspondence, as well as other early records and memoirs. Based on these sources, the committee identified the route they believed the Knox expedition followed. They recommended that the route be marked at intervals with signage.
Granite markers were installed, each with a bronze tablet featuring a simplified map of the trail and a dramatic bas-relief image of cannons on sleds being dragged by oxen. Included were the words: “Through this place passed General Henry Knox in the winter of 1775 – 1776 to deliver to General George Washington at Cambridge the Train of Artillery from Fort Ticonderoga used to force the British army to evacuate Boston.”
The markers were erected in 1927 and 1928 and placed at intervals of several miles. Decades later, it was discovered that several of the markers in Columbia County, N.Y., may have been placed in the wrong locations. The confusion started with a mistaken interpretation of Knox’s diary. He wrote that he left Kinderhook and stopped for a time at “Claverac about nine miles beyond Kinderhook…” The committee believed that Knox then went from the village of Claverack, along what is now Route 23 into Egremont. Few questioned this until Joseph Elliott, the North Egremont postmaster and storekeeper, began studying the Knox Trail. His interest was first prompted by the Knox Trail marker set in front of his store. Elliott had grown up in North Hillsdale and over the years hiked every old path and trail in the area. By the late 1960s, when Elliott was in his 60s, he began revisiting his old haunts, studying old maps and ancient records. He retraced each road and byway along the trail, much of it on foot. He took detailed notes and measured distances. Elliott then came to a startling conclusion. When Henry Knox wrote that he stayed over in Claverack, he was referring to the broader district of Claverack. He likely stayed at the Hogeboom Tavern in present-day Ghent, N.Y., exactly nine miles from Kinderhook, as Knox noted in his diary.
The actual village of Claverack was a number of miles farther away, and a check of Knox’s diary shows that he was remarkably accurate in his mileage assessment every step of the way. In 1975, as a result of Joseph Elliott’s research, four of the markers were moved to reflect a revised path likely taken by Knox and the teamsters along portions of the old Indian Fur Trail through Ghent and North Hillsdale, N.Y., and then across the present-day state line into Alford, Mass. Unfortunately, Mr. Elliott never lived to see this fulfillment of his efforts. He died in November 1972.
During the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, southern Berkshire towns and Knox Trail aficionados celebrated Knox’s miraculous accomplishment. Reenactors traveled through the towns of Alford, Egremont, Great Barrington, Monterey, and Otis with locals cheering them on despite the cold, snowy conditions. Photographs taken at that time are featured within this article.
There is still ongoing debate about the Knox Trail route in both New York and Massachusetts. Kinderhook, N.Y., historians still question whether Knox came into town via Williams Street or perhaps forded Kinderhook Creek in the village of Valatie, N.Y. Meanwhile, Ghent town historian Gregg Berninger is researching whether one of the roads traveled between Kinderhook and Ghent may be different from what is currently believed. In Massachusetts, Monterey Library Director Mark Makuc and local historians Rob Hoogs and Bernard Drew point out two possible routes Knox might have taken through Monterey. Detailed research by Otis town historian Tom Ragusa proves that the Knox Trail went through northern Sandisfield, but that town has no marker. Sandisfield historian Ron Bernard hopes to rectify that oversight. One can only wonder what might be discovered by the time of the Knox Trail Tricentennial in 2076.
Knox Trail celebrations here in the Berkshires begin on Saturday, January 10, when the New York procession of reenactors meets with officials at the state line in Alford. In early afternoon, reenactors will leave from the Great Barrington Historical Society Museum headquarters on South Main Street and proceed to the Mahaiwe Theater for a state-sponsored commemorative program at 2 p.m. The following weekend, an exciting series of Knox events and exhibits takes place at the Monterey Library and Bidwell House. A new book (written by the Berkshire historians mentioned above) is entitled “Ye Trodden Path — A History of the Knox Trail” has been published by the Berkshire County Historical Society and will be available in a few weeks.
For more information about the Knox Trail festivities, click here and here.
