Mountain Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
“Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne had a magnificent army. It mustered 7863 men, 42 guns, 400 Indians.
On Nov. 4, 1777, the army-500 men, no guns, no Indians – straggled through Mountain street, Worcester.
Local records are vague on whether the troops were going to or coming from Rutland.
The Continental Government had selected the site as a safe encampment for prisoners against wishes of the Rutlanders.
When they refused to sell wood or other materials with which to build barracks, the Government threatened to confiscate it.
“The inhabitants could scarcely turn their eyes without seeing Red Coats marching in every direction,” wrote Jonas Reed, a Rutland historian.
On their march through Mountain street, legend has it some prisoners dropped chestnuts on the dirt road, not far from Burncoat street.
From the nuts sprang a clump of trees. Early in Worcester history they were called the Burgoyne chestnut trees. They died of the chestnut blight which killed all similar trees in New England.
Mountain street is one of Worcester’s earliest roads. It was part of the Sixth Massachusetts Turnpike. Through it you could get to Boston from Amherst.
Before getting its present name in 1851, it was known as the Holden and Shrewsbury turnpike. The Summit splits the West Boylston or eastern end, from the Holden, or western end.
“It was so hilly as to be famous in the days of the stage coach,” wrote an anonymous Worcester historian.
On the turnpike, near the Shrewsbury town line, David Bigelow dispensed hospitality and rum flips in an inn built in 1773. He was a brother of Timothy Bigelow, colonel of the 15th Massachusetts Regiment, Continental Army.
Chances are tavern keeper Bigelow came out to stand under a towering elm, folded his arms across his broad stomach and stonily watched the Red Coats pass.
Chance are that the troops cast envious eyes at the tavern sign and licked their thirsty lips and swallowed a deep swallow.
There’s a great deal that history doesn’t tell.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
