A Lancaster Fourth of July, 1880

Date: 1880 [unknown]
Location: Lancaster, Erie, New York, United States

In the aftermath of the US Civil War (1861-1865), the Fourth of July became the leading secular holiday in our country and Congress, therefore, made Independence Day a federal holiday on June 28, 1870.[1]

Before the Civil War, the Fourth of July was typically a day when leaders and constituents of political parties held political rallies that presented issues facing the nation. Political parties often held separate partisan festivals. By the 1870s, with the growth and diversification of American society (due in part to immigration), the Fourth of July commemoration became a patriotic tradition which many groups sought to claim. Thus, the Fourth of July celebration as a venue for politics declined in importance and became more like the midsummer leisure holiday that we know today.[2]

In Lancaster the Fourth of July celebration included a parade and a picnic, sponsored by the Lancaster Benevolent Association. The association was organized in the village of Lancaster on October 30, 1868, and its members paraded on the streets of the village for more than thirty years. The purpose of the organization was for mutual relief and death benefits, and it was the organization that sponsored the town’s annual Fourth of July celebration.

The celebration began with a parade which included a band (often from outside of Lancaster), fraternal organizations, and in later years wagons representing town businesses. The Lancaster Star described the 1879 parade. It was led by the Queen City cornet band,

“then came Rescue [Hook & Ladder] Co. No. 1; then Mr. Schrankel’s force pump, drawn by a number of small boys …; then the Benevolent Association, followed by a large, decorated wagon, containing thirty-eight girls, who at intervals sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ and another containing boys. … The ‘Ragamuffins’ brought up the rear. They could not be more appropriately named, for such a combination of rags and bright colors.”[3]

Beginning in 1880, Lancaster businessmen joined the parade, represented by appropriately decorated and equipped wagons. In that year, Jefferson’s Brass Band from Attica led the parade. Members of the Lancaster Benevolent Association marched two by two next to the Band. They were followed by “the Firemen of the Rescue Hook and Ladder Company, all dressed in scarlet uniforms with large fire-proof helmets, drawing after them their beautiful truck of ladders.

“Next came the representatives of our principal local industries. There were two or three brewery wagons, two of the Lancaster Marble Works, a large, covered bakery wagon, four Singer Sewing Machine Carriages, and other industrial exhibits which we do not now remember. ...

“The line of march led through the principal thoroughfares, up Railroad Street as fare as the Erie Depot where it faced about and went down Railroad to Main street; up Main street as far as the residence of Mr. Hoffeld, where it faced about again, and then proceeded down Main street to Railroad street; down Railroad street to West Main Street, then across the bridge on Water street, and from thence it entered Mook’s Grove.”

The picnic was hosted at Mook’s Grove on Water Street. “Amusements at the grove included sack races, swinging, bowling, a shooting gallery, and greased pole-climbing.” Refreshments “of all kinds” could be had at the Grove and plenty of lager beer. Fireworks were set off in the evening.

In 1880, the Declaration of Independence was read to the crowd by Charles Tabor, a prominent lawyer, who would become New York Attorney General from 1888 to 1891. Tabor attended the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was a resident of Lancaster from 1867 to 1883 and town supervisor in 1881 and 1882. According to the Star, Tabor’s reading “pour[ed] forth in impressive tones the sublime language of that immortal instrument.” His “thrilling voice … gave new force and expression to many passages, which only a true orator, and one who has made the masterpiece of Jefferson’s a study, can fully interpret.”[4]

After Tabor’s reading and a “patriotic piece” from the band, Nathan B. Gatchell [5] addressed the crowd. He opened with a glowing tribute to the Lancaster Benevolent Association “under whose auspices this celebration of the 4th of July in Lancaster was held.” He “then adverted to the occasion which had brought them together—to celebrate with fitting rites the glorious anniversary of our national independence.”

Gatchell’s address was about the “glorious nation.” Nothing partisan in it, nothing about prohibition, the Sabbath, nativism, or any other divisive content that might offend someone like, John Leininger [6], the highly respected German Catholic saloon owner, who was present that day.

The Lancaster Star summarized the 1880 picnic in the following way: “The crowd at the Grove the Fourth was immense; the music was splendid; the lemonade was d-d-d-d-delicious; the lager was exhilarating; the declaration was patriotic; the oration was inspiring; and the dancing, O the dancing.”

Nathan Gatchell and John Leininger differed on the question of religion and on the question of temperance, nevertheless, they could both unite within an emerging American national identity defined, not in cultural terms, but in ideological terms. To be an American in the wake of the Civil War was to renounce foreign loyalties and voluntarily subscribe to the basic tenets of republican self-government.

In the years around 1880, the people of Lancaster joined others in America who adopted a literal version of republicanism. They came to believe that unlike other nations, America was held together by political allegiance alone. An allegiance to the institutions of a free nation made one American. Consequently, cultural differences were irrelevant to the nation and its identity; immigrants could cultivate them or not as they wished, the nation’s integrity would remain.[7]

Notes
[1] “Independence Day,” https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-04/
[2] “Independence Day,” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Independence-Day-United-States-holiday
[3] Lancaster Star, July 10, 1879.
[4] Lancaster Times, July 8, 1880.
[5] https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gatchell-98
[6] https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Leininger-251
[7] For a fuller discussion, see Michael Nuwer, “The Failed Assimilation of German Immigrants in Lancaster,” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E1wRQ9tXd9GEJ1qZmAVZo1qVvhdELNXx/