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Fourth of July Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty. “E Pluribus Bostum.”

[Franklin, Conn.:] Printed on the Double Back-Action Mammoth Hydraulic Forked-Lightning Press at the Portapaug Spy Office, [ca. 1870]. Broadside, 19” x 12”, on yellow paper. CONDITION: Very good, some chipping and tearing to edges, two document tape repairs to verso.

A rare broadside announcing an upcoming “Horribles” Parade—a little-known but distinctly American celebration of parody and silliness originating in the early nineteenth century and still enjoyed in some New England communities today—with a reference to African American suffrage.

“Horribles” Parades, also called “Antique and Horribles” Parades, emerged in the early nineteenth century as a reaction to the pomp and solemnity of the Independence Day parades by the Ancient (“Antique”) and Honorable (“Horrible”) Artillery Company of Massachusetts, which, chartered in 1638, is the oldest chartered military organization in the western hemisphere. The tradition spread rapidly, and—probably to prevent the main events from being overrun by revelers—became increasingly organized. The broadside offered here—"Printed on the Double Back-Action Mammoth Hydraulic Forked-Lightning Press at the Portapaug Spy Office"—is representative of the outsized lampoonery of these displays, which in the case of this celebration, was to begin with “The day” itself, which would be “ushered in at an early hour, by ringing of the Portapaug Methodist bell…by our brave and patriotic fellow citizen, (intimate friend and associate of Lieut. General Grant,) the sexton.” Following this, “two citizens of Norwich, Dr. R. and John D., will perform on a maple limb, which bridges the brook in Perk Ladd’s bog meadow, after which they will repair to the office of Hon. Phelix Grundy, and ‘take a nip.’” Events continue throughout the day, including the tapping of Prof. Francis Lawler’s “second empty barrel of Cider” as a treat to “the Fenian Brotherhood”; a race between the same Prof. Lawler, riding his “young mule, Bishop McCloskey”—named after the second Archbishop of New York—and “the American Deer, alias Commodore Augustus Perry”; a procession led by “the arch Fenian,” Lawler, “seated in his grand colossal chariot (Black Maria,) drawn by the celebrated stallion, Belzebub”; a picnic with music, stories, and so on.

A speech, delivered by “Hon. Joseph Badger, on the subject of Negro Suffrage” (“No manifestations of indignation, or applause, will be allowed”) may have been inspired by Connecticut’s ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 (although poll taxes and other means of disenfranchisement would be enforced for almost another century). Fireworks and a ball would conclude the festivities. Unusual in this broadside is its mention of so many participants by what seem to be their real names, including Simon Abell (1794–1879), Dr. Stephen Sweet (1798–1874), and Col. T. H. C. Kingsbury (1806–1880), and several others.

According to the research of the late, great Robert Rubin of Robert H. Rubin Books (Brookline, Mass.), “the tradition (supposedly) died out in the late nineteenth century, only to be revived when a Fourth of July ‘Ancient and Horribles Parade’ came to life again in 1927 in the little village of Chepachet, in the town of Glocester, R.I. It spread rapidly and is today very much alive and well in New England, though its antics (witness YouTube) can far exceed anything remotely imaginable in the 19th century. If it has not already been done (and we could find very little by way of systematic research) this ritual deserves attention for its place in the history of grass roots American culture.”

OCLC records just one example, at AAS.

Item #10159

Price: $1,250.00

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