Bayley-Hazen Military Road
The Bayley-Hazen Military Road was a military road that should extend from Newbury , Vermont to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu , Québec . The section between Newbury and Hazen's Notch mountain pass in the town of Westfield , near the Canadian border , was built during the American Revolutionary War from 1776 to 1779 . The street was named after Generals Jacob Bayley and Moses Hazen , who planned and built the street.
background
Bayley and Hazen were generals in the Continental Army under George Washington . They founded the neighboring towns of Newbury in Vermont and Haverhill in New Hampshire . The transport routes of the settlers and the army were mostly limited to the large rivers and trails through the forests , due to the recently begun settlement of the densely wooded mountain ranges of the Green Mountains . The idea for the military road came about during the invasion of Canada in 1775 by the continental army. Among other things, this suffered from the fact that the supply of the continental army with supplies was extremely difficult. Bayley presented the idea for a road through the Northeast Kingdom to George Washington and the Second Continental Congress , and Washington, under the impression of the problematic situation in Québec, approved the construction of the road on April 29, 1776, without the consent of the Continental Congress. He was aware that a road would also facilitate attacks by British troops from the north.
When the invasion failed in mid-1776, Washington stopped the construction of the road, also to prevent British troops from using it for a counter-attack. By then, Bayley had reached Peacham .
Further construction stalled until April 1779, when Moses Hazen received the order for the further construction in preparation for another military operation in Canada. Together with the men of his regiment and those of Timothy Bedel's regiment , he built log houses in Cabot Plains and Walden next to the road . The next was built on Caspian Lake in Greensboro . In late summer, the road reached Hazen's Notch, a mountain pass named after Moses Hazen, in the town of Westfield, where work came to a standstill about 40 miles (64.4 km) from the actual destination of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Again it was the rumor of a counterattack by British troops trying to use the road.
Militarily, the continental army could use the Bayley-Hazen-Road little. Rather, it favored counter-attacks by the British on settlers in Peacham, Ryegate and Newbury, as in September 1781 when two members of a Continental Army scouting party were killed by British people near the log cabin on Caspian Lake. Today the Bayley-Hazen Road is partly used by modern roads. It is also a popular route for cyclists.
Individual evidence
- ^ Newbury, Vermont, New England, USA. In: virtualvermont.com. Retrieved October 7, 2017 .
- ^ A b c d In Search of Bayley-Hazen, Cross Vermont Trail Association , accessed October 7, 2017