Sara Sooknah paused at a Rhode Island copy of the Declaration of Independence and said seeing Mary Katherine Goddard’s name on it was emotional. That moment came as Bristol prepared for the Bristol 4th of July parade, its 241st, which is scheduled for July 4 at 10:30 a.m. and is expected to draw 300,000 people.
Jenn Little, a committee member and parade spokesperson, said, “This is the most patriotic town in the United States.” She said the celebration is treated with the same care every year and noted, “We always take it as seriously as if it was USA 250.”
Hope Street and Hope and Chestnut
The parade begins at 10:30 on July 4 from the corner of Hope and Chestnut streets. More than 30 floats will be in this year’s procession, and the official rules say a blanket or chair cannot be put out until 5 a.m. on parade day. The celebration is entirely funded by donations, costs $250,000 to throw, and relies on more than 100 volunteers.
Fireworks are set for July 3 at 9:30 p.m. over Bristol harbor, and patriotic exercises will take place at 8:30 a.m. on July 4 at Colt Memorial School. The procession is officially called the Military, Civic and Firemen’s Parade, and the committee starts meeting in August to plan the next year’s parade.
Reverend Henry Wight and 1881
Bristol is home to the oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration in the country. The town’s patriotic exercises were first led by the Reverend Henry Wight on July 4, 1785, and the parade has been canceled only a handful of times.
The most recent cancellation came in 1881, when President Garfield was shot on July 2. The parade also carries rules that keep electoral politics out of the line of march; candidates for office are not allowed to march, even as Jenn Little said, “If you’re in Bristol, you’re not a Democrat, you’re not a Republican on this day.”
Mary Katherine Goddard in Baltimore
Sooknah said, “I was so happy to see a woman was involved at that time with the development of our country,” after seeing Goddard’s name. She also said, “It was just a beautiful thing to see. It was emotional to see this actual document.”
Mary Katherine Goddard ran a print shop in Baltimore and printed the first Congress-authorized copies of The Declaration with the names of the signers. In some of her prints, her name has been crossed out, which leaves her as part of the parade day display and part of the broader story Bristol is putting in front of Residents and visitors.
