Today in Illinois and elsewhere, the Fourth of July is a holiday for boating, barbecues and fireworks. More than 180 years ago, the celebrations were more scripted and formal, though fireworks were always a constant.
Back then, revelry on July 4 was an all-day affair, complete with processions, bands and a multitude of speakers. The events were large and sweeping, and most of the town took part.
In many events, the men of the town gathered at a local tavern or hotel for dinner, complete with 13 formal toasts – one for each of the original colonies. Though 13 is considered an unlucky number today, it was a recurring theme in many July 4 celebrations of the era, and sometimes featured the firing of 13 guns or cannons in commemoration.
In a gala in the former state capital of Vandalia in 1839, the locals added plenty of extra toasts. The Illinois State Register reported that the “dinner was prepared at great expense…and we venture to say, in a style unsurpassed in this country.”
The toasts included “the day we celebrate” and drinks to the memories of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, as well as “the officers and soldiers of the American Revolution, Freedom’s chosen band.”
Next came toasts to the nation itself, the current president, and the “memory of the brave who have fallen in the service to their country.” The eighth toast was to “the Army and Navy of the United States,” followed by “the militia of the United States” and “the state of Illinois – the garden of the Union.”
“Agriculture, commerce and the arts” were the eleventh toast, with “internal improvement” as number 12. The thirteenth and final toast was to “our fair countrywomen – daughters of freemen – fair, virtuous and happy.”
The 13 standard toasts were followed by a string of “volunteer toasts,” ranging from “the sovereignty of the people” to Henry Clay to the Declaration of Independence. Other toasts were raised to the “youth of America,” the “Valley of the Mississippi,” liberty, democracy, “the free sons of Columbia,” veterans of the Black Hawk war, “farmers and mechanics” and the state printer.
Among the final toasts were to “modesty, beauty, virtue and chastity, the characteristic graces of our fair,” as well as “the fair of Illinois” itself – “their smiles the only smiles we care for, their censure we all fear.” In all, at least 30 additional toasts were raised, though the Register offered no comments on the sobriety of the revelers.
At a celebration in Troy in 1844, the toasts came after a lengthy procession of around 1,800 people, “including a large number of ladies and several citizens from Edwardsville and Collinsville,” as if visitors from those communities were some sort of oddity.
Heading the procession were clergymen, orators on the schedule and a citizen slated to read the Declaration of Independence. Next were musicians, followed by the “committee on arrangements,” “the ladies,” “the gentlemen” and “the boys.” Where “the girls” were, however, was not clear.
Three years earlier in 1841, the Telegraph noted that an array of Fourth of July celebrations were coming up, particularly one in Upper Alton. There, wrote the paper, “the citizens…have made extensive arrangements for the celebration of the approaching anniversary of our independence. We hope our friends, without distinction of party, throughout the county, will have it in their power to attend.”
Others were heading to St. Louis to attend “the celebration of our National Birthday.” Transportation was provided by the steamer Eagle, which was scheduled to leave at 8 a.m. and “return the same evening should the passengers generally desire it.”
That year, July 4 fell on a Sunday, and since most holiday celebrations were not held on the Sabbath, the Upper Alton event was set for Saturday. The St. Louis affair was on Monday.
Celebrations often had a political tone, and sometimes turned raucous. In tiny Woodburn in Macoupin County in 1840, the Telegraph wrote of a national birthday celebration that was disrupted over politics, particularly a group that had staged their own festivities in nearby Bunker Hill “with considerable spirit, not the spirit of ’76, but that of a barrel of whiskey.”
Orations at Fourth of July celebrations in the era were heavily patriotic and reverent of the Revolution, which was around 70 years before. Revolutionary veterans were cherished in early 19th society in Illinois and elsewhere, especially on the Fourth of July.
On July 4, 1839, the Telegraph reprinted a lengthy address at the “Sabbath-school and temperance celebration in Upper Alton,” where the speaker noted that “the fourth of July, 1776, (was) a day ever memorable in the annals of nations and of mankind,” since on that day, “a free and independent nation” was born.
As he closed, the orator called for the United States to “be not only a great and powerful nation, but what is vastly better, a free and independent people.”
He added that we could “shine not like a deceptive glare that leads us astray, but as a steady beacon light to all the nations of the earth, and prove an incalculable blessing to individual man, throughout the human family.” Those words seem as important now as they were then, over 180 years ago.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.
