The tramping of hobnailed boots and the boom of musketry will return to the Stockade District this fall as the city commemorates the 246th anniversary of the burning of Kingston by British forces during the Revolutionary War. The event — scheduled for the weekend of October 13-15 — will be the first commemoration since 2017 to feature re-enactors in the roles of British Redcoats and Ulster County militiamen.

The biennial event commemorates the day in 1777 when a force of about 1,500 British soldiers under the command of Major General John Vaughn came ashore near Kingston Point, marched up what is now Delaware Avenue and Broadway, and put modern day Uptown Kingston to the torch. The blaze destroyed about 300 buildings and rendered over a thousand Kingstonians homeless. The atrocity also helped fan revolutionary sentiment as woodcuts and often exaggerated accounts of British barbarism spread through the colonial press.

Kingston was a late casualty in Britain’s failed 1777 attempt to split off New England, where revolutionary sentiment burned hottest from the supposedly more loyal middle and southern colonies. Plans called for British forces to push south from Canada, north from occupied New York City, and west along the Mohawk River Valley to seize Albany and establish control over the strategically vital Hudson River. The plan came apart when Crown forces from western New York were checked at Fort Stanwix while troops in New York City were deployed south to seize the American capital at Philadelphia.

That left General John Burgoyne, commander of the Canadian column, alone to face American forces under General Horatio Gates. Burgoyne was running short on supplies after an expected outpouring of support from loyalist Americans failed to materialize and a foraging raid on Bennington, Vermont, was repulsed with heavy casualties. The defeat at Bennington led most of Burgoyne’s Native American allies to abandon the campaign. American ranks, meanwhile, swelled as militia forces poured in from around the region.

Meanwhile, British forces from New York City mounted a belated push up the Hudson River to relieve Burgoyne’s forces. By mid-October, having successfully overcome American forts guarding the river in Orange and Dutchess counties, the fleet bearing the Redcoats was anchored off of Kingston when word reached the relief force that Burgoyne’s position was hopeless (Burgoyne would formally surrender to Gates on October 17).

With the relief effort failed, the British forces turned their attention to Kingston, and revenge. The city was well known as a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment. Earlier in 1777, Kingston became New York’s first capital when delegates gathered there to draft the state’s first constitution and elect Kingston resident George Clinton as New York’s first governor.

The sack of Kingston was a bloodless affair. American forces, including Ulster County’s militia, were still down to the south defending positions in Orange and Dutchess counties. Most of the city’s residents, and the state government, had fled, taking with them whatever valuables they could carry. The only recorded casualty of the attack was a British naval officer who was wounded in the process of destroying military stores on the Rondout. Redcoats bearing torches made their way through the town methodically burning barns and homes and scattering livestock.

Fortunately for Kingston residents, and history, about three quarters of the residences torched by Vaughn’s troops were of the old stone Dutch design. Roofs and interiors were destroyed, but the walls in most cases remained standing. This allowed the city to rebuild relatively quickly and within a few years the city once again played host to the state capital.

The Burning of Kingston commemoration has been a biennial event since 1997. Details of this year’s commemoration are still being hashed out, city officials said. In previous years, the Burning of Kingston has been marked with a grand ball in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall and interactive experiences at historic sites in Uptown Kingston like the Senate House and Matthewis Person House that allow visitors to experience life in colonial-era Kingston. The event also traditionally includes a dramatic, if ahistorical, showdown between Redcoats and colonial militia on the streets of the Stockade District. That tradition was interrupted at the last two commemorations. In 2019, the area reenactment group pulled out citing cost and a lack of community support. In 2021 the reenactors again canceled citing a newly passed gun law that they said could allow them to be prosecuted for carrying their muskets in public.