Danbury learned the cost of being useful to the American cause when the British decided to destroy it. In April 1777, a British expeditionary force of approximately 2,000 troops under General William Tryon landed at Compo Beach in Westport and marched inland to Danbury, where the Continental Army had established a critical supply depot. The raid destroyed an enormous quantity of provisions, tents, and military equipment that the American army desperately needed.
PEOPLE
KEY EVENTS
STORIES
HISTORICAL VOICE
The Ride They Almost Forgot
Sybil Ludington was sixteen years old on the night the British burned Danbury, and what she did — or what tradition says she did — has become one of the Revolution's most debated stories. The broad ou...
MODERN VOICE
The War They Fought With Barrels and Boots
People come to Danbury expecting a battlefield, and we have to explain that the most important thing that happened here was the destruction of a warehouse. That is not a dramatic story, but it is an e...