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A2 UP FRONT
Monday 11 SepteMber 2023

Benedict Arnold burned a Connecticut city. Centuries later, residents

get payback in fiery festival

By PAT EATON-ROBB London to the ground. Arnold Festival, recreating
Associated Press It has been 242 years, but a tradition that was once
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) New London still hasn’t for- practiced in many Ameri-
— A month before the Brit- gotten. can cities.
ish surrender at Yorktown A crowd of several hun- “I like to jokingly refer to it
ended major fighting dur- dred revelers, some in pe- as the original Burning Man
ing the American Revolu- riod costume, marched festival,” said organizer
tion, the traitor Benedict through the city’s streets Derron Wood, referencing
Arnold led a force of Red- Saturday evening chant- the annual gathering in the
coats on a last raid in his ing, “Burn the traitor!” be- Nevada desert.
home state of Connecti- fore watching as officials For decades after the Revo-
cut, burning most of the set Arnold’s effigy ablaze lutionary War, cities includ-
small coastal city of New for the Burning of Benedict ing New York, Boston and

An effigy of Benedict Arnold is seen at the annual Burning
of Benedict Arnold Festival, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in New
London, Conn.
Associated Press
Philadelphia held yearly ber New London,” and
traitor-burning events. They put a torch to the effigy.
were an alternative to Brit- The crowd chanted “U-S-
ain’s raucous and fiery Guy A” as the life-sized Arnold
Fawkes Night celebrations burned.
commemorating the foil- Ellen Warfield, of Mystic,
ing of the Gunpowder Plot brought her 9-year-old son,
in 1605, when Fawkes was Lucian Bace, because she
executed for conspiring said their ancestors fought
with others to blow up King in the Revolution and she
James I of England and hoped to get her son ex-
both Houses of Parliament. cited about the history that
Residents “still wanted to surrounds him.
celebrate Guy Fawkes “It’s wild to show the kids
Day, but they weren’t Eng- something like this,” she
lish, so they created a very said. “You get to see it in
unique American version,” real life, rather than see it
Wood said. play out on TV. They spend
The celebrations died out too much time on their
during the Civil War, but screens today.”
Wood, the artistic director Lucian had a singular fo-
of New London’s Flock The- cus.
atre, revived it a decade “I just can’t wait to see
ago as a piece of street them burn that man,” he
theater and a way to cel- said. “Burn that turncoat!”
ebrate the city’s history us- Arnold, a native of nearby
ing reenactors in period Norwich, was initially a ma-
costumes. jor general on the Ameri-
Anyone can join the march can side of the war, playing
down city streets behind important roles in the cap-
the paper mache Arnold to ture of Fort Ticonderoga
New London’s Waterfront and the Battle of Saratoga
Park, where the mayor on in New York.q
Saturday cried, “Remem-