Preserving the Knox Trail in Otis
The famous trail over which General Henry Knox dragged cannon from Fort Ticonderoga, NY, to Boston to reinforce General Washington's Continental Army in January 1776 passes right through Otis. Created centuries earlier by Indigenous inhabitants of our region, the Knox Trail became a vital route for European settlers and a key link in the struggle to liberate Massachusetts and the other colonies from British Rule. We are working to educate the public about the Trail in Otis and to make sections of it available for the public to hike and enjoy.
General Henry Knox
The Knox Trail was named after General Henry Knox, who was born in Boston in 1750 and was the seventh of ten children. Knox supported the American cause, and as early as 1772, he became a member of the Boston Grenadier Corps. He became a minuteman in June 1775 at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He served under General Ward, who was in charge of the colonials around Boston. In 1775, Washington arrived in Boston, taking command of the young American army. There he met and developed a friendship with Knox, a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Washington realized the need for artillery in the American forces and found Knox to be well versed on the subject. Washington asked Knox his opinion on what the army should do. Knox devised a plan to use the cannons captured from Fort Ticonderoga to drive the British out of Boston Harbor. Thereafter, Knox was commissioned Colonel, placed in charge of all artillery, and given the task to bring the cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston by way of oxen and sled. Knox successfully transported fifty cannons to the city of Boston traveling the now famous Knox Trail.
An Ox Team Hauls Cannon Toward Boston
On December 5, 1775, Knox commenced what came to be known as the noble train of artillery, hauling by ox-drawn sled 60 tons of cannon and other armaments across some 300 miles (480 km) of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped Berkshire Mountains to the Boston siege camps.
The Knox Trail from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston
The Knox Expedition, was an expedition led by Continental Army Colonel Henry Knox to transport heavy weaponry that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga to the Continental Army camps outside Boston, Massachusetts during the winter of 1775–1776.