Great Guns!

Fourth of July Fireworks in downtown Springfield are a treasured part of people’s holiday celebrations. But you may be surprised to learn that they have a history dating back to the years of the American Revolution - and not just in July. Fireworks, cannons, and rockets marked celebrations then as well and were important in a time before modern media and WiFi as a way to let people in surrounding areas know there was news to be shared.

An aged Reverend Stephen Williams of Longmeadow recorded many details of life in the greater Springfield area during the war years. Its location on the Connecticut River made the area a busy place for military recruiting, deployments, and weapons storage and repair. It was during this time that the Springfield Arsenal - the precursor to the Springfield Armory - was a hub of military activity.

On the night of October 17, 1781, Reverend Williams sat to record in his diary, “this day the Great Guns were fired at the Town, & in the Evening Sky rockets were played off & other fire works. This in remembrance of General Burgoyne’s surrender. I am sorry such measures were gone into…”  In Williams’ diary any mention of “Town” means Springfield - not Longmeadow - as Longmeadow was a precinct of Springfield and not an independent town until 1783. From his parsonage located next door to the meetinghouse on the green, it was easy to hear the “great guns” firing just a few miles up the road in what we know now as the Court Square area of Springfield.  

In a turning point of the American Revolution, British General John Burgoyne surrendered to American General Horatio Gates near Saratoga, New York that October day back in 1777, and clearly it was a day worth remembering in Springfield. As for why Reverend Williams was “sorry such measures were gone into,” that had less to do with any supposed Tory leanings on his part and more to do with the fact that celebrations inevitably wound up in taverns, and drunken revelry and taverns went hand in hand. Few things upset the pious religious in New England more than drunkeness because one sin so easily begat another.

Less than a month later on November 6, 1781 more news of victory caught Reverend Williams’ attention: “this day was kept at Town as a day of rejoicing upon account of Earl Cornwallis’ being taken. The Great Guns fired (Bells at Town and here were rung) in that Evening the rockets played off the Court House, and the Taverns illuminated -”

It’s exciting to imagine what those guns, rockets, and fireworks might have sounded like across the border in Longmeadow, and how curious residents likely stepped forth from their homes to try to figure out what the guns were signifying. The news was just as likely to be spread by word of mouth by a passerby on foot or horseback as it was by letter or print. How many children were sent out as messengers by their parents to run along and spread the word to neighbors and cousins up and down Longmeadow Street?

Sadly, Reverend Williams passed away in June 1782 before decisive victory was ever declared in the war that set the colonies free from Great Britain. If anyone knows what THAT celebration looked like in 1783 after the signing of the Treaty of Paris please let us know!  

-Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Longmeadow Historical Society

Sources:

King, Moses, ed. King’s Handbook of Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield, MA: James D. Gill, 1884. 

Williams, Stephen. Diary Vol. 10.  (Manuscript) accessed at https://www.longmeadowlibrary.org/stephen-williams-diary-online/