Friday Flashback #396

This week marks one of the most historic moments in our town’s history.

At dusk on April 25, 1777, 26 ships carrying 2,000 British troops under the direction of General William Tryon — a force larger than at Lexington or Concord — landed at Compo Beach.

Tory loyalists planned to guide them up Compo Road to Cross Highway, across to Redding Road, then north through Redding and Bethel to Danbury, where they would burn a major munitions depot.

Patriots fired a few shots at the corner of the Post Road and Compo, but the British marched on. In Danbury they destroyed the Continental Army’s munitions, then headed back toward their waiting ships at Compo.

Hastily assembled patriot forces fought them in the fierce Battle of Ridgefield. Led by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold — not yet a traitor — and outnumbered 3 to 1, the patriots deployed a strategy of selective engagement.

British forces landed at Compo Beach, marched to Danbury, returned south and — after the Battle of Compo Hill — retreated to Long Island.

The next day — April 28, 1777 — patriots tried to capture the Redcoats at a bridge across the Saugatuck River. That forced the soldiers to march 2 miles north, and swim across.

Meanwhile, marksmen waited on Compo Hill (the current site of Minuteman Hill road).

Twenty colonials were killed, and between 40 and 80 wounded when the British made a shoulder to shoulder charge with fixed bayonets — but, wearing everyday work clothes and using hunting guns or pistols, they gave the Redcoats a fight.

It was reported that resistance here was more severe than at Lexington and Concord.

Graves of some of the patriots who fell that day lie along Compo Beach Road, just past the Minuteman statue. British soldiers are buried across Gray’s Creek, by the Longshore golf course.

Though Tryon returned to burn Norwalk and Fairfield, never again during the American Revolution did British troops venture inland in Connecticut.

The next time you pass the Minute Man, think about the Battle of Compo Hill. That’s the reason our Minuteman stands guard, facing Compo Road.

Like his fellow patriots 247 years ago, he’s ready to give the Brits his best shot.

The Minuteman statue today.

This important anniversary often passes without much recognition.

Every so often though, the town pays attention.

That was the case in 1977. Westport saluted the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Compo Hill with a special postcard:

Alert “06880” reader Mark Yurkiw — who lives on Cross Highway, directly on the path the Redcoats took (and whose former home next door bears a hole left by a musket ball) — sent the bicentennial souvenir along.

Fittingly, one of the stamps depicts George Washington.

That was 47 years ago.

Time to start planning our 250th-anniversary celebration of the Battle of Compo Hill, 3 years from now.

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