The Coon Tree Tablet (also known as the Colonial Soldiers Gathering Monument) is located on Bancroft Street in Pepperell, Massachusetts just around the corner from Minuteman Park. This monument marks the reported location where the Prisoners of War from Saratoga gathered in their military finery as Capt. Bancroft would have likely had confiscated their weapons before allowing them to lodge on his farm.

According to Footprints of the Patriots Beside Old Hearth Stones, Bancroft Street is named after Sergeant Edmund Bancroft, who served at Bunker Hill. The author, Abram Brown, interviewed his grandson, Edmund Bancroft, who talked about the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Col. Prescott and other men from Pepperell were in that service when the Northern army surrendered.

“After the surrendered army arrived at Cambridge, several of Burgoyne’s officers were sent out to Pepperell on parole. Two of them were boarded in the Bancroft family, and others were quartered in the neighborhood. This provision was doubtless made through the influence of Mr. Bancroft… It is claimed that these officers were permitted to meet at a certain place once a week for friendly conference, a monument having been erected to commemorate the tradition.” (Footprints of the Patriots Beside Old Hearth Stones, page 50.)

Photos courtesy of W. Gavazzi via Google Images

This story was submitted by Wendy Cummings, former Regent of the Prudence Wright Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, as part of the program, Revolutionary Stories: The Enduring Legacies of the American Revolution in the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area.