South Hadley honors Revolutionary War veterans at Patriots’ Day ceremony

SOUTH HADLEY — The rights listed in the Declaration of Independence did not apply to enslaved people like Caesar Cambridge, but the South Hadley man saw the fight for American freedom from Britain as a path to his own emancipation. Cambridge asked his slaveowner, David Mitchell, for permission to enlist in the military despite both the Continental Congress and George Washington forbidding Black people from joining up.

In 1776, he enlisted in the Navy of the State of Connecticut and then the Continental Army. He would use the wages he earned to buy his freedom from Mitchell on March 6, 1778. With that newfound independence, Cambridge continued to serve in the military of the young country.

“He buys his own freedom from his master, not to go off into the sunset, not to enjoy his freedoms, but to enlist again in the continental forces, to fight again,” Commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart Brian Willette said at the April 18 South Hadley Patriots’ Day Ceremony.

Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth, Willette honored 50 South Hadley residents by dedicating a plaque near their final resting place to recognize their service in the country’s earliest military ranks. Nearly 70 people gathered at the Evergreen Cemetery on Hadley Street in the first of three events commemorating hundreds of South Hadley Revolutionary War veterans, including those who were denied the very freedoms that they fought for.

On May 18, a similar event will honor the eight veterans buried in the Village Cemetery in South Hadley Falls. Then on July 2, historians will hold talks diving into the lives of the 58 documented Revolutionary War Veterans of South Hadley, including South Hadley’s delegate at the Constitutional Convention, Captain Noah Goodman, and the famous Col. Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, who served as a commander at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

This event, however, started with a boom — literally. A parade of the honor guard, 25th Continental Regiment Historical Reenactors and Scouting America Troop 303 marched through the cemetery to the sound of a beating bass drum and whistling flute. The scouts carried eight different iterations of early American battle flags, from the Bedford flag to the Betsy Ross flag.

“Now we don’t necessarily carry flags as we did into battle as in those days, but we do fight under those flags. Still to this day, this is our battle flag,” Willette said, holding up a large American flag that flew in Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2010. “This is our battle flag today.”

A year before America officially declared its intentions to become its own country, the colonies began coordinating military units and training soldiers. The first South Hadley Patriots’ Day ceremony took place last year to commemorate the Battles of Lexington and Concord, an early battle in 1775 where an army of Minutemen prevented the British from destroying military supplies. Of the 50 veterans honored, 33 of them also served as Minutemen.

“They’re the ones who, when they were called, picked up their muskets and their gear, and they marched on the very next day towards Lexington,” said Leo Labonte, historian with the South Hadley Historical Commission. “It was a 94-mile walk with that kind of equipment.”

The equipment Labonte referenced was worn by the 25th Continental Regiment Historical Reenactors, complete with gaiters, tricorne hats and muskets. Soldiers of this regiment came from the north and south shores of eastern Massachusetts, but one of the soldiers buried in South Hadley — John Fink Sr. — likely merged with their group during the war effort. Reenactor Captain Robert Keenan said he hopes to find his former acquaintance’s gravesite.

“We’re very honored to be able to come to events like this one,” Keenan said. “And participate with you and show you some of the things that our ancestors had to go through, had to wear.”

Labonte and John Camp spent 200 to 300 hours each searching for the records, graves and paperwork necessary to document 58 South Hadley Revolutionary War Veterans with the Office of Veterans Affairs. Camp started the project by searching for the eight veterans buried in the Village Cemetery in South Hadley Falls, and Labonte came on later to certify the names in Evergreen Cemetery

“He’s (Camp) the master of knowing what the VA wants,” Labonte said. “He’s got the format. He knows exactly how spent a year doing it before me. I’m just his student.”

With all 17 volumes of the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors Records on his computer, Labonte and Camp have set out to find the 150 to 200 names of South Hadley Revolutionary War veterans who were not buried in town. The journey has taken them all the way from Texas to Canada.

“People may have joined here, born here, raised here, people moved here, joined, enlisted here, but they got buried somewhere else,” Camp said.

While most of the event looked to the past, one part of the ceremony took a moment to recognize a veteran of the present. State Rep. Homar Gómez, D-Easthampton, presented Willette with a Massachusetts Military Appreciation Day medal from 2025. Willette had been nominated by Gómez last year, but could not attend the ceremony last year.

“I know that the people who defend this country in South Hadley should be proud of you,” Gómez said. “But the people from the Commonwealth should also be proud of you and the people from the nation should be proud of you because everywhere we are doing something celebrating, remembering, honoring the veterans, you are there.”

Bob Judge, chair of the South Hadley Historical Commission, and Robert Szklarz, committee member for The Sycamore House, Woodbridge’s historic homestead, also shared a few words before the 25th Continental Regiment capped off the event by firing their muskets.

Each of the graves was reflagged with a fresh Betsy Ross American Flag. Skip Taylor from Wilbraham drove up to see the grave of his ancestor Captain Williams Taylor.

“My brother and I, 20 years ago, we drove up here, and we were just astounded how many Taylors there were,” Skip Taylor said. “The last Taylor that left South Hadley was my great-grandfather, John Porter Taylor. I guess he was quite a character. In the old transcript, there was a column almost every week with something about John.”