The Day We Celebrate

The Mendocino Beacon, Mendocino, CA

Kelley House Museum Column

July 4th: The Day We Celebrate

—Dateline: June, 28, 2012

Though the roots are a bit hazy, its obvious Mendocino has celebrated Independence Day in fine style since settlers first established themselves on the coast. WH Kent, an “esteemed Little River pioneer” remembered July 4th festivities in 1853. That’s only three years after the good ship Frolic, en route from China to San Francisco, ran aground off Point Cabrillo and started the whole Mendocino thing. 

You remember the story, right? Local Pomo tribes people looted the Frolic’s cargo, and when bolts of silk and fine chinaware turned up in trade, San Francisco businessman, Henry Meiggs got curious. He sent Jerome Ford to see what could be salvaged from the wreck and Ford took one look at the lush Redwood forests, and reckoned a fine profit could be made supplying San Francisco’s boomtown. The rest, as they say, is history.

Independence Day itself, grew amongst Americans spontaneously. The Declaration of Independence was first read to the public accompanied by the “ringing of bells and band music” in July 1776 in Philadelphia's Independence Square. A year later, Congress adjourned on July 4th and celebrated with bonfires, bells, and firecrackers. Independence Day wasn’t established as a holiday until 1870, but by then towns everywhere marked the day with “processions, oratory, picnics, contests, games, military displays, and fireworks.” 

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be,” Thomas Jefferson wrote. “All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.… For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” California joined the Union in 1850, and Mendocino folks were proud, thrilled really, to be Americans.

By 1884, Mendocino City called their July 4th festivities, “The Day We Celebrate,” and the tradition of a grand parade down Main Street was securely in place. So too, “oration and appropriate etceteras.” That year, news had come that across the Atlantic in Paris, the completed Statue of Liberty would be formally presented in a July 4th ceremony. In celebration, a young Mendocino “Goddess of Liberty” lead the parade. “A lofty car bore the Goddess of Liberty, supporting the stars and stripes and surrounded by thirty-nine misses representing the States of the Union.”

The day commenced at sunrise with a “national salute.” The “old iron cannon at the Point proudly did service the honor of the day.” According to the Beacon “its deep thunder reverberated with surprising distinctness far up Big River canyon, and another salute was fired at sundown.” 

The Grand Marshal was “in the saddle” by 9am, “getting the different parts of the procession in their places in the column.” Mendocino, the Beacon proclaimed, was “literally alive with stars and stripes.… We think, [we] may safely challenge comparison with any other town of its size in the State in patriotic display of the national colors.” Dr. John Murray, one of Mendocino’s founding fathers, had even “laid in ammunition” and “small artillery fire” echoed throughout the day.

That year, the Blosser Brass Band came all the way from Willits to join the parade. Soldiers marched in uniform. The IOOF and West Coast Encampment were “out in full force wearing the regalia of the order,” and Bertie Stone and Alice Switzer dressed as George and Martha Washington, another Mendocino tradition. The couple took “an airing in their buggy” and “naturally fell in with the procession.”

According to the Beacon, even nature cooperated. “The weather, concerning which there had been much hoping and fearing for many days lest it might take on one of those disagreeable moods not unusual on the coast, was all that could be desired.”

Just a few years later, in 1887, the Ukiah Independent called Mendocino’s celebration of Independence Day “one of the greatest events of the coast.” That year, the Ukiah Silver Band brought marching music to lead the parade. “As early as Friday, the 1st,” the Independent reported, “vehicles of all sorts began to arrive, bringing people from all parts of the county and by Saturday night, the hotels were all full.” 

 “The procession marched through the principal streets and to the picnic grounds, where the usual exercises were gone through with, such as reading the Declaration of Independence, the patriotic poem, the oration, music by the band and choir.” (The etceteras, one assumes.)

Foot races kept the crowds cheering on Main Street all afternoon and greased pig wrestling on the corner of Howard attracted the daring. After sunset, everyone watched a “grand display of fireworks.” And then, at 10pm the annual ball commenced. “It was, no doubt, the largest ball ever given in Mendocino County; there were 125 couples on the floor at one time.” The partygoers danced all night and, according to the Ukiah Independent, the boys from the band were “very anxious” to stay in Mendocino. “We do not know the reason why,” the newspaper mused, “unless they are attracted by the beautiful ladies of that city.” 

As for the Kelley House Museum, they’ve been right in the middle of July 4th celebrations for a very long time, providing festivities and raising their flag. To learn more about the olden days on the coast, visit their archives. And come out this year, enjoy the parade and join in the rich traditions of this day Mendocino loves to celebrate.