Unlike their neighbors in nearly Lincolnton, the citizens of Charlotte celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of American independence in a style more fitting the occasion. According to the report in the Catawba Journal from July 11, 1826, the festivities began with a march through town by the Lafayette Artillery, followed by a church service and dinner that featured “several of the venerable relics of the revolution.”

After the meal, “the cloth was removed, the following toasts were drunk, accompanied with discharges of cannon.”  They drank a total of 24 toasts, lauding the leaders of the Revolution (including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom would die on that day), the Army and Navy, the state and federal constitutions, “State Rights,” “Political and Religious Tolerance,” the University of North Carolina (“The pride and ornament of the State”), and the county of Mecklenburg.

Here’s the full list.  If you’re going to a party tomorrow, I’m sure you’ll want to consider printing out a copy and impressing your fellow guests with your historically-accurate salutes.

I found this announcement in the Catawba Journal from July 4, 1826, about the town of Lincolnton’s celebration of the Fourth of July.  Fireworks and parades were not on the agenda — quite the opposite.  The organizers wrote that “economy ought to characterize the celebration of the 4th of July, and that extravagance is contrary to the republican simplicity and patriotic spirit of ’76: therefore, a dinner will be furnished at a very moderate price, so that all may unite in feasting together on this glorious occasion.”

 

As we chip away at newspaper digitization with the North Carolina Newspapers digital project, we often marvel at the amount of work left to be done. We’ve made great progress so far — digitizing well over 60,000 pages in the past year and a half — but there are many millions more to go.  However, we sometimes come across especially rare titles that remind us that we should be grateful for those papers that we do have: there are many historic papers from North Carolina that simply have not survived.