Waterford 4th of July, 1832
An Old-Fashioned Toast To The Nation's
Birth
by Eugene Scheel
A Waterford historian and mapmaker
In the 56th year of our independence, Brook W. Sower, editor of the
Leesburg newspaper Genius of Liberty, asked the organizers of festivities
in four bellwether Loudoun County towns to send him descriptions of
their festivities. The four communities were Leesburg, Middleburg,
Waterford, and Woodgrove.
Each unnamed correspondent recounted in detail the thirteen official
toasts—one for each of the original states. The master of ceremonies
then asked others to add their snippets of oratory.
In Waterford the gala took place "at a spring near the town," and
there the day passed "with great harmony and much hilarity, and
good feeling." My guess as to the spring's location. On
the Spring Branch of Ball's Run, about 1,800 feet east of High Street.
Several
of the Waterford toasts might be deemed unusual for a town of Quaker
(supposedly pacifist) persuasion, but at least half of the town and
surround's populace were of other Christian faiths.
For instance, Waterford toasted the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought
in the American Revolution and visited the area (but not Waterford)
in 1825. Waterford was also the only town to toast the United
States Army and Navy—and I'm sure the goblets were meant to be raised
to the Marine Corps as well.
President Andrew Jackson, no favorite in
Loudoun because of his opposition to the Bank of the United States
received some boos from each of the town toast lists. Jackson
lost the 1828 vote in Loudoun to John Quincy Adams by more than a two-to-one
margin. The powerful bank could finance the roads, canals, and railroads
that enabled farmers to bring their milled corn and wheat to Alexandria
and Baltimore. At these
seaports these and other staples commanded high prices (to feed a starving
Europe) and the wagons could then bring manufactured goods and back
to the countryside.
During this era, some of the vital transportation
links to those cities were reaching the hinterlands. In 1830
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached Point of Rocks. In 1832 the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal reached The Point, and the Leesburg and Snickers'
Gap Turnpike (old Route 7) was complete from Leesburg to the Shenandoah
Valley. Leesburg
and Alexandria had been linked by the turnpike in the 1820's.
Waterford's
S. C. Dorman, in an extemporaneous toast, added some levity: "May
a beneficent providence equally avert the cholera and the reelection
of Jackson."
Dorman's toast was to naught, for even though Henry
Clay trounced Jackson in Loudoun. he won his second term in 1832.
In another impromptu toast, townsman Thomas Bond compared South Carolina's
nullification of federal tariffs with the recent appearance of Comet
Pons-Winnecke: "The first has passed away without disturbing
the harmony of the planetary system; the second shall fail to destroy
the power of traction between the United States."
Indeed the crisis
passed the next year when Congress enacted a compromise tariff bill
and South Carolina repealed its nullification ordinance.
An improvisatory
toast was made to the Emperor of Russia: "May
a great light appear 'round the city of Warsaw, and a voice be heard
saying 'Nicholas, Nicholas, why persecutist they sons of freedom.' " Poland
would not be free until 1918, and then for only twenty-one years.
Great
Britain was the only other nation to receive a toast, from a Waterford
guest. Citing horrible conditions of child labor and
the death penalty for thievery, he noted: "Despotism may
flourish for a while, corruption may extend to its lawful influence,
but liberty and celestial influence must eventually triumph."
That
year the British middle class received the right to vote. A
year later the nation abolished child labour, and in 1835 the British
Empire abolished slavery.
The thirteenth toast in all the towns went
to women, and Waterford's was most literate: "The American
Fair [lady]—merit accompanied with beauty is a jewel set to advantage."
As
to the Fourth: "It stands alone, like Adam's recollection
of his fall."
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