ly promoted to colonel, and Captain John Williston attended. 1787 also marked the year of Shays Rebellion. Captain Luke Day, who had marched with the minutemen in 1775 and served honorably in the Continental Army for seven years, threatened to lead a group of his fellow townsmen into Springfield to join forces with Daniel Shays. Shays had disrupted the court in Springfield and was making ready to seize the Armory. The rebellion was crushed when Shays, thinking Day was moving his forces to join his, moved on the Armory. Luke Day was later pardoned under a general amnesty in 1788. He would return to West Springfield to live out his life poor and suffering from the gout. He would die in 1801 at the age of 58. He was buried in his hometown in an unmarked grave in Paucatuck Cemetery. The fledgling years of both America and West Springfield were marked with heroism and sacrifice as a young nation and her people struggled to become the great nation we are today....
