The Selleck Cabin

The Selleck Cabin. Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site. , In 1775 John and Sarah Selleck, who moved to Hubbardton from Connecticut, built their cabin here near the Castleton Road. They wanted a farm to raise their family away from the crowded coastal area. In the fall of 1776, the newly built American military road intersected the Castleton Road just south of their cabin. Men and supplies moved along both roads to locations throughout the area., In 1777, nine families lived in Hubbardton - one north of this location and seven others south of the Sellecks. The Sellecks and remaining town residents fled Hubbardton in the early morning of July 6, 1777, when a Tory and Native American raiding party attacked. The American rear guard, arriving later that day, used the Selleck's deserted cabin as field headquarters., By the afternoon of July 7, the battle was over and the British and Germans held the field. British Lieutenant James Hadden wrote, , "Unfortunately we gained nothing but honor...", The cabin was then used as British headquarters and a hospital for the most badly wounded., Several local men who joined the fight were taken prisoner and later escaped. The Sellecks returned in 1784, after the Revolutionary War was over. They lived here until at least 1820 and are buried in the nearby East Hubbardton cemetery. This foundation may be from a later Selleck house built on or near the site of the original cabin., The Selleck cabin, left empty after the family fled south to escape the escalating military action, was used for American headquarters, as a landmark during the battle, and after the battle by the British., "East of the garden, next to the Selleck house, on the west side of the...road, [we] removed the three top rails, for seven or eight lengths, so that we could have a better chance at them." , Private Joseph Bird, , 12th Massachusetts Regiment, (drawing captions) , LEFT: "...between which road, and the garden of Selleck's house, was a log fence seven and eight logs in length.” (Private Joseph Bird, 12th Massachusetts Regiment) The "I” on map is location of cabin., RIGHT: Excerpt from Plan of Action at Huberton (sic) under Brigadier General Frazer, supported by Major General Reidesel, on the 7th of July 1777 (Drawn by P. Gerlach, Deputy Quarter Master General; Engraved by William Faden), [FAR RIGHT:]The Selleck home was no longer standing when historian Benson Lossing visited the battlefield in 1848. This lithograph from his 1852 Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution shows its location as the dark hole "near the fence seen between the larger trees in the foreground.", EXPLORE THE BATTLEFIELD LANDMARKS , 1 Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site , 2. Beginnings of the Battle , 3. Monument Hill and the Morning Charge , 4. British Flank the Americans , 5. The Selleck Cabin , 6. Germans Arrive, Americans Retreat