A History of America’s Milestones: Celebrating the Nation’s Independence

Soon, America will celebrate its 250^th birthday. As the day approaches, we can look back at the commemorations of four milestone anniversaries to provide context for our celebrations to come.

We start with July 4, 1826, the 50th celebration of American independence. At the time, the nation had 24 states and about 11 million people. To mark the occasion, businesses closed, cannons fired, parades rolled and fireworks lit the sky. In small towns and growing cities, dignitaries mounted hastily built platforms to hold forth on the young nation’s short history. 

In New Orleans, Independence Day festivities were nearly nonexistent in 1826. Only one man was reported celebrating. He had “procured a venison ham, two bottles of ‘Newark cider’ and thirteen peaches” for the occasion. He read the Declaration, offered 13 toasts and chased each one with a slice of peach.

Invited to attend the July 4 jubilee in the nation’s capital were old friends and rivals John Adams, the second president and signer of the Declaration, and Thomas Jefferson, the third president and author of the Declaration. Aged, slowed and ill – Adams was 90, Jefferson 83 – neither could make the trip. The only other surviving signer, Charles Carrollton, couldn’t make it either; he would live six more years, dying at 95.