Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

July 4th Celebration, Wakefield Common, 1887

Description

"The country's first Independence Day celebration took place on July 4, 1777, and by the early 1800s, the traditions of parades, picnics, and fireworks were established as the way to celebrate. The Town of Wakefield has celebrated with activities centered on the Common or more than a century. Wakefield's early celebrations were generally scattered throughout the neighborhoods until the 1880s when townspeople could gather on the newly developed Common for part of the day to listen to band concerts on the 'pagoda', which was erected in 1885, play games and cast their rowboats and canoes off one of the many docks that lined the shores. The Common was beautified by funds bequeathed to the town by Cornelius Sweetser in 1883. Improvements included the bandstand/pagoda, grading, new gravel, concrete walks, and malls, new fences, drainage, and the addition of the rockery. Within three years of this photo, the third meetinghouse of the First Parish Congregational Church, in the center of the photo, was razed, in 1890, and rebuilt."

Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2011

Photo courtesy of the Wakefield Historical Society.

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Quannapowitt, Lake (Mass.)

Wakefield Common (Wakefield, Mass.)

Date

1887

Format

image/jpeg

Publisher

Wakefield, Mass. : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

Fourth of July celebrations

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture: b & w

Extent

28 x 21 cm.