Glen Houston
By Glen Houston
Independence Day celebrations in 19th century Vermont ranged from the profound to the absurd.
Fourth of July observances have a long history in Vermont. Throughout the 19th century, eyewitness descriptions of Vermont’s Fourth celebrations were published in small town and village newspapers. A number of these newspapers are available today through the Vermont state archives and the Library of Congress; they include the Burlington Free Press, the Rutland Herald, and the Middlebury Register. All of the quotes in this essay are sourced from archival 19th century Vermont newspapers.
Sacred Remembrance
On July 13, 1803, a newspaper called the Green Mountain Patriot reported “The citizens of Montpelier, and its vicinity, holding in sacred remembrance, the day which gave our country Independence … met for the purpose of its commemoration.” The article goes on to describe the standard ceremony, a ritual of sacred remembrance, that dominated Vermont’s Fourth of July celebrations in its early history.
The ritual included a benediction, oration, choral music, prayer, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence. The ceremony often included Revolutionary War veterans and had the solemn tone of a church service. It was followed by a community meal and a variety of patriotic toasts.
The formulaic ceremony dominated the first third of the 19th century with little variation. Notable among the early celebrations were those in 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, when surviving Revolutionary War veterans were honored throughout Vermont.
On July 4, 1826, a procession in Montpelier was formed on the Statehouse lawn and led by “the aged and respected matrons of the revolution.”
The women were followed by “about one hundred of the Revolutionary patriots, and a numerous company of the citizens of this and the adjoining towns.”
The Patriot and State Gazette deemed the procession of elderly Revolutionary War veterans to be “truly affecting” and declared: “To see the few remaining fragments of that heroic band … now gathered together to greet and bid each other a last farewell … was enough to melt the heart … and call forth the warmest gratitude.”
Later that evening, toasts were offered at the Montpelier House. One of them was to “Carrol, Jefferson, and Adams — The only surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence. Having lived to witness the fiftieth anniversary — Well may we exclaim! Now O lord let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the Salvation of my Country.” The toast proved to be prophetic; Jefferson and Adams died that very day.
The Cause in Which He Fell
A distinctive ceremony of sacred remembrance occurred in Castleton in 1820. According to the Rutland Herald of July 18, 1820, the remains of a Revolutionary martyr were ritually exhumed and reburied with military honors on July 4. The soldier, Captain Nathan Williams, was mortally wounded on July 6, 1777 as he “repelled the attacks of an advancing party of British troops and Indians … on Fort Warner.”
That evening the scalped body of Capt. Williams was buried where he fell. Forty-three years later, local citizens, including veterans who had witnessed William’s death, set out to locate his remains and apparently found them. On the Fourth of July a procession marched from the village to the spot where Williams was buried. His remains, “forming a perfect skeleton,” were exhumed and placed in a coffin. The procession marched back to the village to the sound of muffled drums. They carried the coffin into a church, where “solemn and appropriate” services were held, including an oration that emphasized “the cause in which he fell, and the duties devolving on the rising generation.”
Outside in the church cemetery, “the remains were consigned to the protection of our common mother, while the coffin was strewn with evergreens by thirteen young lads.”
From Ritual to Holiday
As the revolutionary generation passed from the earth, the Fourth became less solemn and more festive. The ritual of sacred remembrance was still a part of the celebration, but it was followed by a variety of entertaining events. Fireworks, balloon ascensions, fire company musters, and light entertainments all worked to create a country fair atmosphere. In 1839, The Burlington Free Press reported:
“At an early hour our town was filled with men, women, and children — in coaches, in carts, and on horseback — singly, and in pairs — all bent on the enjoyment of a real day of independence … Tin pedlars, street musicians, dancing dogs, and other ‘kickshows’ were to be met at every corner. Each had his merry audience and received his share of applause.”
By mid-century the Fourth could be recognized through individualized leisure activities. In 1855, the Middlebury Register opined:
“Patriotic orations and gunpowder explosions are not absolutely necessary to a full appreciation and enjoyment of the day. Walks in the country, excursions on the water or among the woods and mountains, quiet amusement in books and gardens, and the joys of home are befitting to the day.”
The mid-nineteenth century saw the first of the satirical parades that would become known as the “Horribles,” with appearances in Montpelier and St. Johnsbury in 1856 and Glover in 1857. Those burlesque performances were a far cry from the solemn patriotic rituals from years prior, as they often mocked the militia, orators, politicians, and patriotism itself.
The Civil War Era
In July 1860, no southern states had yet seceded, but several were threatening to if Abraham Lincoln was elected in November. In the Montpelier parade, a horse drawn float held 34 girls, each wearing a banner with the name of a state prominently displayed. The float exhibited a large banner that read “The UnIon Forever.” This banner “elicited the applause of the multitude.”
In 1861, three months after the bombing of Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the Fourth parade in Randolph had the 34 states float with a banner that read “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.” But in Burlington that same year, the traditional states float was omitted because “no girls could be found in these parts willing to personify the seceded states.”
In 1862, General Robert E. Lee defeated the Union in the Seven Days Battle on July 1. Three days later in St. Johnsbury, no Fourth celebration was held because the battle “threw a general thoughtfulness, not to say gloom, over everyone.”
In July 1863, word spread through Burlington’s celebration of the victory at Gettysburg the previous day and the telegraphed news “added much to the joyful celebration of the day.”
In July 1865, the Civil War had just ended the previous April. The Montpelier parade included the traditional national float with 36 states represented, including the two newest ones, West Virginia and Nevada. The parade also featured “Disabled soldiers in carriages.”
Gilded Age Celebrations of Tumult and Chaos
“The noble sentiment of patriotism has taken a remarkable descent from the sublime to the ridiculous,” was written in the Rutland Herald in July 1871.
Gilded Age celebrations in Vermont were preceded by an all-night riot of noisemaking and pranks by local youths. Daytime festivities often began with an early morning satirical parade of “Horribles,” followed by conventional parades and a wide variety of entertaining festivities. These included greased pig contests (the winner gets the pig), athletic competitions, fire company musters, horse races, and afternoon baseball games. The indiscriminate use of firecrackers by children and youths made the crowded events somewhat dangerous, especially when the “crackers” were thrown at terrified horses, which tended to bolt. Some of the celebrations were orderly; others were characterized by widespread intoxication and riotous behavior.
Rutland 1874
In the July 4, 1874 issue of the Rutland Herald, an editorial lamented the changes time had wrought on Independence Day: “… we have always felt that the celebration should be something more than a tumult, the antics of harlequins and buffoons, chasing greased pigs and drunken riot … . We believe in processions, speeches, music, military demonstrations … It has been a matter of regret with many people that our annual celebrations of Independence Day should have so depreciated in dignity, heartiness, and decency.”
The very day the editorial was published, Rutland hosted a crowded, tumultuous celebration containing many of the elements the Herald deplored.
The day started with an early parade of Horribles. The troupe satirized the Rutland newspapers, public library, and fire department. They also ridiculed the Eddy’s, a Vermont family who were famous (or infamous) for holding seances. Cacophonous “music” was provided by an “Or-kat-stra.”
After the satirical parade, a “greased pole” contest took place. A large crowd gathered to watch young men attempt to climb a soap-covered wooden pole with a ten dollar bill at the top as a prize. Eventually, Edward Glover won the contest “aided by steel spurs on his feet.”
Soon after, a greased pig was released and chased by a “yelling, hurrying, and jostling crowd of several hundred who had a taste for pork.” A sack race followed but was disrupted when “the crowd rushed in and tumbled over the contestants.”
An elaborate parade was then organized on Merchants Row consisting of two brass bands, a drum corp, military cadets, and three distinct fire companies. The parade wove through the crowded streets and terminated at Depot Park.
A crowd then gathered at Wales and Center streets to witness a tightrope walker named Prof. Harry Leslie. His walk was cut short by a rain shower, but Leslie repeated the performance that evening as “numerous candles and other fireworks” were set off from the roofs of nearby buildings.
The fireworks display was rained out.
While all these events were taking place, the Rutland police were busy with the disorderly conduct of intoxicated individuals, of whom there were many. In one incident, an Officer Crawford attempted an arrest: “The man was powerful and resisted with all his might. Crawford threw him several times, and he as often arose. The tussle quickly brought a crowd around, and in a short time, a singing, hooting, yelling crowd of several hundred was gathered around the officer and prisoner. The majority of this crowd was in favor of letting the prisoner go, as was evidenced by their cries to that effect, but they were afraid of laying violent hands upon the officer. They surged against him and did all they possibly could to get him away without resorting to forcibly taking possession of him … After a severe struggle he got some assistance and succeeded in getting on one handcuff, but could not get the other one on. In the meantime, the crowd was gradually increasing and growing excited. They surged against the officer and the prisoner got clear, but he was soon recaptured.”
Two unconventional traditions that began before the Civil War became widespread during the Gilded Age. One was an unnamed tradition often called simply “the night before the Fourth”; the other was the parade of Horribles.
Hideous Pandemonium: The Night Before the Fourth
“If noise is patriotism we had plenty of it,” declared the St. Johnsbury Caledonian on July 6, 1898.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, anarchy reigned on the night of July 3. Riotous, noisemaking groups of boys, adolescents, and young men roamed in semi-organized mobs through Vermont towns and villages creating a cacophony.
As midnight approached, the youths would gather and prepare “instruments of torture”: firecrackers, (including the infamous “cannon cracker”), drums, horns, guns, cannons, homemade gongs, cowbells, and rum.
Shortly before midnight, the “celebrationists” broke into churches in order to use their bells. They often brought their own bell ropes in case the resident ones were removed in anticipation of the expected intrusion.
At the stroke of midnight, “hideous pandemonium” would commence. Church bells rang out disharmoniously. The noisemakers would circulate en masse through residential neighborhoods “murdering sleep.” Residences of the pillars of the community were given special attention. The cacophony was so intense one journalist reported: “… it really (seemed) for a while as though the inhabitants of the infernal regions had broken loose.”
The roving mob also indulged in vandalism and pranks. Commercial signs would be rearranged. Buggies and carts could end up on the roofs of businesses. Picket fences and porch steps were removed from homes and used as fuel for the customary bonfire, usually located in the middle of Main Street or on the town common.
The riotous behavior on the night before the Fourth was tolerated for many years. But as the nineteenth century advanced, a growing number of citizens condemned the practice, and many Vermonters came to dread the Fourth of July because of it. In editorials, the Burlington Free Press applauded the tradition as patriotic exuberance, while the Rutland Herald was livid about it.
The Herald once opined that “the boys who blew the tin horns in advance of the Fourth, should be compelled to swallow said horns.”
In 1874, the St. Johnsbury Caledonian complained “the adult portion of the community acquiesced” in the yearly tumult and urged the commission of a special police force to suppress it. The appeal apparently had little effect. Over 20 years later, the youths of St. Johnsbury were firing cannon rounds in a residential district when they blew a load of wadding through a window and into a house. The next day the Caledonian mildly suggested that “the boys who fired the cannons almost in yards of others ought to apologize for their rudeness.”
Despite the complaints, the tradition was still going strong at the close of the 19th century. In 1899, the night before the Fourth in Montpelier was “noisier than usual” and in Rutland the youths held their “annual bombardment of the atmosphere.”
A Strange Spectacle: The Parade of Horribles
The parade of Horribles was a theatrical performance that took place on the morning of Independence Day, distinct from more conventional events. The Horribles presented locally produced parodies that mocked local and national institutions and individuals in a humorous and irreverent manner. Local objects of derision could include the mayor, selectmen, the barber shop, the library, the fire department, and the temperance movement. The Horribles were wildly popular and evoked “intense amusement” and “infinite laughter” among the spectators. Their parades were a once-a-year chance to ridicule the sacred cows of the community and were arguably the most irreverent public event to take place in nineteenth century Vermont.
One of the earliest accounts of a Horribles parade in Vermont appeared in the Vermont Watchman on July 11,1856. The article described an event in Montpelier called the “Second Annual Parade of the Montpelier Regulatory.” It parodied a wide variety of social and political topics including “Hooped Skirts” and “Yankee Character Personified.”
The political satire included the “Brooks and Sumner Tragedians,” based on an incident in which Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner was severely beaten with a cane by southerner Preston Brooks in the Senate Chamber. The spectators responded with “groans and hisses for Brooks, and echoing applause for HON. CHARLES SUMNER.” The parade disbanded to “showers of applause.”
The 1856 parade was called “novel,” something new and unusual. By the mid-1880s a dozen or more towns in Vermont hosted Horribles parades on the morning of the Fourth. On July 4, 1884, 12,000 spectators lined the streets of Montpelier by 10 a.m. eagerly awaiting the Horribles.
The parade included caricatures of Generals Benjamin Butler and Winfield Scott Hancock (both prominent Democrats) as well as an instrumental “Amazonian Band” consisting of men dressed ridiculously as women.
The parade also featured a political satire based on recent “Wall Street swindles.” It displayed a cage with “the man who stole $50,000, with his feet on a table enjoying a cigar and reading a newspaper with all the nonchalance of a banker in his private office, while in the other end of the cage, without even a chair for furniture, crouched the miserable wretch who stole a loaf of bread to keep his family from starving.”
The 1886 parade of Horribles in Stowe was immense. When the parade came into view “all was hushed in astonishment at its magnitude.” The parade made a second appearance at dusk: “In the evening the horribles reappeared, accompanied by the Grand Army of the Republic post, all bearing torches, which, amid the surrounding darkness, the booming of cannon, the firing of crackers, shooting of rockets and the general din and confusion, formed a strange spectacle.”
At the very close of the 19th century the Horribles reflected just how far the nation had come from its anti-colonial roots. In a number of 1899 parades they mocked Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippine leader who led the insurrection against the American imperialist takeover.
