Where can one find soldiers, school children, fire trucks, classic cars and horses grouped together for a shared purpose? At a parade, of course!
New England has a rich tradition of parades. Some are for holidays, others commemorate specific events. Some celebrate victories, after wars or sports seasons. Some were brought by immigrants –St. Patrick’s Day, Chinese New Year — and others celebrate the birth of our nation. Some are religious in nature, others political. Some are for historical events, such as the Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth, and some are recent, such as Pride.
These ceremonial processions have evolved over time. The earliest picture we have of a parade in New England illustrates a procession of over three miles, the panicle of the Railroad Jubilee of 1851, which celebrated the completion of the link between Boston and Canada. Along with uniformed marshals and military groups, marching bands and school children, the procession included commercial displays. Quincy Market was represented by a float with butchers’ stalls, a fireworks manufacturer with an erupting volcano.
Patriotism, and the development of the Union, was a lasting theme, with states represented by young women symbolic of the original thirteen colonies, and growing in numbers as states entered the union. During the Temperance Movement, floral processions grew in popularity, first with marchers carrying bouquets and baskets and expanding to include floral depictions of crosses, arches, and cornucopias, the precursors to the Rose Bowl Parades which started in 1890. Patriotism soared after the Civil War, and historical tableaux became an important aspect of parades, representing iconic events such as Washington crossing the Delaware and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Immigration increased diversity in American society, which grew evident in parades, with participants representing different ethnic identities and flags flown from various European countries. This was countered with an increase in national symbols as center pieces of the parades, and reminders of the unity of “the melting pot”.
Constants, along with floats and flags, are that parades celebrate what’s important to a community, representing regional and cultural aspects, reflecting historical roots and the changing times. Here in Hampton, we have commemorated Memorial Day with a parade for as far back as any of us can remember. Originally called Decoration Day for the flowers and wreaths placed on the graves of veterans, Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868 to remember the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers who lost their lives in those battles. It was also seen as a way to unify a deeply divided nation.
The first written evidence of a Memorial Day parade in our town is found in Hampton Remembers, Alison Davis’ compilation of interviews she conducted with those who were children here at the turn of the century:
Memorial Day for some years was known as Community Day. The parades always had a band from town. The Hampton Brass Band was led by Everett Whitehouse in 1922, and Mrs. William Pearl was the head of the Hampton Ladies Band that same year.
Ethel Jaworski
I remember many Memorial Days – that was a big day…a big parade – everybody decorated their car up with bunting and everything else and the Ladies Band used to play riding on Lester Burnham’s truck…when you’re small it seems more, but I would guess, that at least ninety –eight percent of the inhabitants of Hampton were at the center of town for a minimum of six hours during that day, or maybe longer.
George Fuller
Our American Legion Post, established in 1924,“sponsored the Memorial Day exercises on May 30”, Colon Merrell recalled, “with a parade, which included townspeople and the school children.” To this day, Memorial Day and our parade serve as Hampton’s premier event. Veterans have been represented by those who serve and have served, the National Guard and Grand Marshals. Children on foot, floats, bicycles, scooters representing the elementary school, scouts, Little League teams, 4-H, the marching band from the high school. Lots of flags, lots of fire trucks, lots of tractors to represent our agricultural roots, as well as a bee float, livestock, horses, including the symbolic rider-less horse, and a human carrot representing our local farmer’s market. Historical roots have also been a presence, with antique cars, the Historical Society’s fife and drum corps and floating tableaux of domestic life and the one-room school house, and a few years ago, many former students marched with the banner “The Class of 19xx”, one of the first to graduate from the consolidated school. Other organizations have been represented with floats, the Congregational Church last year to commemorate their 300th anniversary, the Fletcher Memorial Library this year for their 100th, and participants have included such dignitaries as Smokey the Bear.
These are our happiest associations – residents old and young, gathering together on a float or beneath a unifying banner, to form a community procession; but parades are associated mostly with veterans and with wars. It is uncertain as to whether or not there was a parade in Hampton after the American Revolution, though the signing of the treaty, three years prior to our town’s incorporation, probably prompted a parade in Windham. The 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence did occasion a parade, when, according to Janice Trecker’s Discovering Hampton, “no fewer than forty-two revolutionary veterans were still alive and hearty enough to squeeze into their old uniforms for the celebratory parade”. In Folklore and Firesides, Susan Jewett Griggs describes the July 4, 1826 parade as “the first grand celebration on Hampton Hill” when these veterans “’paraded under their old leader, Abijah Fuller, with Nathaniel Farnham as drum-major, and Joseph Foster and Lucius Favill as fifers”, adding that, though Foster wasn’t a member of the original company, he was “one of a family of twelve sons who fought in the strife for freedom”.
One-hundred and fifty years later, Hampton would celebrate the nation’s bicentennial on July 4, 1976 with a wonderful parade, featuring resident participants in colonial clothes, a Revolutionary War militia, and several floats including one illustrating construction of “The House the Women Built” and another with folks sitting on rocking chairs with copies of the newly published book and the banner “Everyone’s Reading Hampton Remembers”. Participants marched beneath a banner of the Pearl Farm on the Little River, designed by artist Pat Donahue, and stitched together by resident seamstresses and quilting groups. The banner also represented Hampton as part of the State’s bicentennial parade.
With Willimantic’s nationally acclaimed Boom Box Parade so near, Hampton no longer celebrates Independence Day with a parade, however we apparently participated in a less familiar 4th of July procession — “The Horribles”. According to an article in Antiques, The Horribles began in the 1840’s as a satirical response to the “disorderly and drunken training days that characterized the last years of compulsory militia service”. Horrible parades were secretly organized, and sometimes sanctioned, with participants in costumes, masks, and even blackface “to illustrate gender and class reversal”. Their social commentary was usually “aimed at authority, women and foreigners.” Described as “aggressive, and critical” and sometimes “offensive”, Horrible parades still continue in a few New England communities, however, here in Hampton we have evidence of only one, in 1926, in the form of photographs. And they’re not pretty.
The 1918 “monster parade” in Willimantic no doubt described the size rather than the costumes for the Armistice Day commemoration of the victorious conclusion of the “War to End All Wars”. Similarly, Willimantic celebrated the end of World War II with a parade and fireworks, while here in Hampton, the town hosted a turkey dinner in the Little River Grange for returning troops, their families and neighbors, “complete with what was then a novelty,” Trecker recounted, “frozen corn-on-the-cob out of Dorothy Holt’s new-fangled freezer”. There were also military processions prior to wars. Jewett describes May 1st as “Training Day”, and Trecker details the uniformed militia of 1855 who “march proudly into the breezy autumn sunlight to the cheers and waves of their families and neighbors”, socializing on the Congregational Church and other porches, where women sip lemonade or cider, men “raise a glass” at the tavern, remembering “other musterings and bygone wars”, and children run “mock parades”. Trecker wrote, “All is gaiety and cheer, but to us, watching from the doorway, this happiness is poignant, because we know what is coming”: the Civil War.
Hampton has had happier reasons for special parades. There were Doll Parades. Photographs of the one in 1954 show little girls in frilly dresses carrying parasols and pushing tiny baby carriages filled with their favorite companions. In 1927, “Hampton Old Home Day” included a parade, and 55 years later, the historical society’s “Hampton Old Home Day” sponsored a parade of antique vehicles. There have also been holiday parades. Kit Crowne recalled one Halloween procession when he “crossed the Rubicon” at the Little River Grange, parading around with the witches and clowns wearing a shiny blue dress, high-heeled red shoes, and a mop dyed yellow for a wig. “Hamptonites,” he wrote, “weren’t prepared for the spectacle of a 13-year-old cross-dresser invading their midst,” and years later he still feared that this “seismic event” contributed to the decline in Grange membership. Thirty years earlier, the Grange sponsored an Easter Parade described in a diary entry in Hampton Remembers:
The grand finale was an Easter Parade put on by the men – with gorgeous flower-garden hats, high heels (where did they get shoes big enough?) , and fancy gowns – all perfectly respectable men, the first selectman and the minister among them.
Curious.
We have also held parades for the special celebrations of special people. In 2020, there was a procession of fire trucks and vehicles festooned with banners and balloons and families saluting Josephine Dauphin on her 100th birthday. And when Phyllis Stensland asked for a parade for a retirement gift, staff, current and former students and their families, neighbors and friends, marched and rode on floats to thank Mrs. Stensland for her 50 years of dedication to the students at Hampton Elementary School.
If parades reflect the regional and cultural values of a community, ours reveal appreciation for our veterans, our fire department, our rural and historical roots, our schoolchildren. And our parades show that we volunteer, and volunteer together, care for one another, and always look forward to an opportunity to gather.
Dayna McDermott