“Fourth of July in the ‘Old Days’ Even Had a Jig by the Justice of the Peace” from the June 30, 1960 Door County Advocate
Fourth of July in the ‘Old Days’ Even Had a Jig by the Justice of the Peace
By MABEL SPENCER
In the early days the Fourth of July was one of the highlights of the year and a day that fully satisfied long anticipation. The celebration began with the first gray light of dawn when a cannon started booming and giant firecrackers popped all over town. At breakfast we received our spending money for the day and tied it carefully in one corner of a handkerchief, feeling as wealthy as Croesus. A 50 cent piece meant 50 separate purchases, each one shopped for and bargained for.
After breakfast we trooped down to the main street, and even by today’s more sophisticated standards that street would be exciting. Cedar and young birch trees had been fastened at the edge of the board sidewalks and along the fronts of the buildings all along the business section and we walked through a fragrant bower with flags flying, a band playing and the excitement of crowds of people as the surrounding countryside came into town to celebrate the big day. On each side of the walk were the booths where we bought firecrackers of all sizes, ammunition for our cap pistols and torpedoes. We contributed our noise to the uproar until our ammunition ran out and then pried open the knot in the corner of the handkerchief and took out a few more pennies.
Besides the noise makers these booths offered a bewildering variety of penny candy. Strings of licorice, lady gum in hearts and stars with colored pictures on the front and tasting like flavored paraffin, and a glue like mess that came in little fluted tin dishes complete with tiny tin spoon and was known as ice cream, chocolate baby dolls, realistic flags made of sweetened coconut in stripes of red and white with starred blue field.
But all this was just a “warm-up” for the real events of the day. About 10:30 a.m. the big parade began to form around the present Martin park. First came Chief Stroh in a light cart drown by his beautiful horse Gray Eagle. And Gray Eagle entered fully into the spirit of the day—prancing and dancing with all the grace and sophistication of a circus horse. Next came the fire engine with red paint gleaming and brass polished bright. Then the band in uniform and after this the Civil War veterans led by the drum corps. Among this blue clad division came an authentic Door county character—the “Sage of Shivering Sands” as Joe Marden of Lily Bay was known. Under his old campaign hat his shoulder length curly hair was braided in many small, tight braids which stuck out in all directions and each tied with ribbon in red, white or blue. His light cart and the team of oxen which drew it were also decorated with bunting.
Then came the most exciting entry of all for a small girl of the town—a float consisting of a hayrack with benches built in tiers on which rode 40-odd little girls each dressed in white and with a sash lettered with the name of a state tied diagonally from her right shoulder. Much feeling developed over which little girl got the names of the favorite states and hair pullings were known to occur over the much coveted “Wisconsin” sash. On the topmost tier a chair was securely affixed and there the goddess of liberty rode in state. We had an ideal goddess in Miss Ella Mae Washburn—tall, stately and beautiful with hair as shining gold as the crown that topped it.
Then came files of school children with flags, uniformed corps from various lodges, fleets of bicycles with wheels wound with red, white and blue bunting. In the later days those exciting contraptions, an automobile or two snorted and banged along in the rear of the parade.
The whole procession, followed on the sidewalk by most of the population of the region, marched through town to the stirring music of the band and up the big hill to the park at the top where picnic lunches were spread on the tables in the grove and families ate and relaxed for a time. Then we all moved to the benches in front of the speaker’s stand and the exercises began with the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Then our statesmen home from Washington or Madison talked of national affairs. Veterans mounted the stand and fought over the Civil War, campaign by campaign and battle by battle. Then followed the local dignitaries and one year our dignified Justice of the Peace, Judge Hamilton, was so carried away by his own oratory that he wound up with a spirited jig to the whistling and hand clapping accompaniment of the delighted audience.
After the exercises most of us went home long enough to bind up burned fingers and rest for the exciting evening ahead. Festivities then moved down to the bay shore along what is now Memorial Drive where fireworks reflecting in the water brought double tribute of ohs and aahs. The finale was usually the Venetian Night parade of boats; small launches and fish boats hung with gay colored Japanese lanterns moving single file down the bay—a beautiful sight with each light reflected a myriad times around it.
When the last lighted boat had passed the great day was over and we stumbled home, footsore and utterly weary but each a dedicated patriot happy to have done her share for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and convinced that in some incomprehensible way the whole hullabaloo had ensured that “liberty shall not perish from the earth.”
FOURTH OF JULY PARADE — An Independence Day parade was in progress when this photo of what is now Third av. was taken many years ago. Stores visible include the City Drug Store, Rosenberg Dry Goods, Alexander Hopp’s Anchor Saloon and a laundry.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
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