26th Annual Little Sturgeon Days ~
June 25 and 26, 2016 :: http://littlesturgeondays.com
Free Admission ~ Live Music ~ Parade on Sunday ~ Food ~ Cold Drinks ~ Paddle Wheel with lots of fishing poles & prizes :: Raffle Drawing on Sunday at 4pm ::
Need not be present to win
Door County Web Design by Fox Valley Web Design
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces. The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May, originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
History of Memorial Day
The practice of decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers’ graves were decorated in the U.S. before and during the American Civil War. A claim was made in 1906 that the first Civil War soldier’s grave ever decorated was in Warrenton, Virginia, on June 3, 1861, implying the first Memorial Day occurred there. Though not for Union soldiers, there is authentic documentation that women in Savannah, Georgia, decorated Confederate soldiers’ graves in 1862. In 1863, the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. Local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim that ladies there decorated soldiers’ graves on July 4, 1864. As a result, Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day.
Following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, there were a variety of events of commemoration. The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War, more than 600,000, meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead.
The first widely publicized observance of a Memorial Day-type observance after the Civil War was in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. During the war, Union soldiers who were prisoners of war had been held at the Hampton Park Race Course in Charleston; at least 257 Union prisoners died there and were hastily buried in unmarked graves. Together with teachers and missionaries, black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers. The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled “Martyrs of the Race Course”. Nearly 10,000 people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. Involved were about 3,000 school children, newly enrolled in freedmen’s schools, as well as mutual aid societies, Union troops, black ministers and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field.
David W. Blight described the day:
This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.
However, Blight stated he “has no evidence” that this event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country.
On May 26, 1966, President Johnson signed a presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Earlier, the 89th Congress had adopted House Concurrent Resolution 587, which officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day began one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York. Other communities claiming to be the birthplace of Memorial Day include Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, Carbondale, Illinois, Columbus, Georgia, and Columbus, Mississippi. A recent study investigating the Waterloo claim as well as dozens of other origination theories concludes that nearly all of them are apocryphal legends.
Wrightstown Wisconsin Fox River ~ Drone aerial photography by Fox Valley Web Design ~ American Drone Photographers ~ Outdoor Videographers ~ www.AboveWisconsin.com
“The Village of Hortonville was founded by Alonzo E. Horton in 1848 when he purchased land from the Governor of Wisconsin, which is now the Township of Hortonia and the Village of Hortonville. The land cost him seventy cents an acre! Later, in 1855, he traveled to California and there founded the City of San Diego. In his old age, Mr. Horton returned to Hortonville for a visit and was surprised to see how the Village had prospered. Alonzo Horton was born in 1813 and died at the age of 96 years.” (Village Directory and Commemorative History June 1976)
“Always an opportunist, Alonzo Eratus Horton saw the challenge of gaining riches in land speculation. He was born in Connecticut in 1813 and came to Milwaukee in May, 1836, later purchasing a home in Jefferson County about 1840 or 1841. His first wife, Sally Wright, whom he married in 1841, died five years later. He did not marry again until 1861, by which time he had left the area.
At the close of the Mexican War Horton went to St. Louis where he bought up land warrants issued to soldiers. After acquiring several for land in Wisconsin, he decided to move here. On March 25, 1848 he used Warrant Number 5896 to purchase 160 acres “on the Southwest 1/4 of Section 35 in Township 22 North, Range 15 East in the district of land subject to sale at Green Bay, Wisconsin.” In August and September he used two other warrants to buy additional acres in Section 36 T22N – R 15E. He paid the extravagant price of 70 cents per acre for the land.
One wonders how Horton was able to buy the warrants in St. Louis on February 26, 1848 and file the warrant in Green Bay on March 25, 1848, considering the difficulty of travel in late winter through dense woods. Before he could file he had to take an oath that he had seen and inspected the land and that no other settler lived on it.
The first thing Horton did was to build a cabin. Several crews were hired to build a dam on Black Otter Creek, dig a mill race, clear the site for a mill, and lay the foundation for the mill. One again wonders where the men were found willing to leave their homes and come to an unsettled area to establish a new settlement. Some came by themselves, but others brought their families as soon as land was cleared and cabins built. Not until November 5, 1849 did Horton lay out his first plat for the Village of Hortonville. He then began to buy more land and sell it off as lots in the area.
As the town grew and prospered a desire for incorporation was expressed. It was not until 1894 that definite steps were taken to bring about an organization apart from the Town of Hortonia. Leonard Graef was the census taker for the area. This counting was completed the 7th day of June 1894 with 813 inhabitants being registered. On June 18, 1894, this list was presented to the Honorable John Goodland, Circuit Judge, Outagamie County, State of Wisconsin.
Notice of application for incorporation was published in The Weekly Review once each week for six weeks. After the required publications, the incorporation was completed on the 11th day of August 1894. When in September an election was held to determine the will of the electors, 171 votes were cast. Of these 101 favored incorporation.
The first officers for the Village of Hortonville were elected November 3, 1894.” (Hortonville Centennial Village Directory 1994)
Easter is a time to rejoice, be thankful, be assured that all is forgiven so life extends beyond the soil of earth.
The celebration of holy love…
The day of resurrection….
The day that brings us new hope….
Have a wonderful Easter.
Gary & Amy
