Patriots' Day 2018

     The following verses are from, "LIBERTY: An Ode for the Celebration of the Battle of Lexington" by Hannah Flagg Gould. 

Dear is our Liberty

For great is the price that bought her,

And dear the memory

Of those, who nobly sought her!

Fair daughter of the skies,

As million after million,

In other days shall rise

Beneath thy wide pavillon,

There may they find their names enshrined,

Their memory green and spreading,

That all may know to whom they owe

The gifts thy hand is shedding!

O live, sweet Liberty,

The course of time pervading, Here may thy glory be

Still pure and never fading!

Tomorrow, Monday April 16th, we will celebrate Patriots' Day, a day of remembrance of those who participated in the war for Independence, the Revolutionary War.  Only Maine, Massachusetts and Wisconsin observe this day.  R.C. Carroon, Wisconsin Society of the Sons of the American Revolution wrote:

The American Revolution was brought about by many men and women working together in a common cause.  History remembers the great, and near great, the Washington's, the Franklin's and the Jefferson's. History also records the stories of those who were made to play the villains, the Hutchinson's, the Arnold's and the Butler's what history does not often reveal, are the stories of the ordinary people who brought, by hard labor and great personal sacrifice, this nation into being. 

The real hero of the American Revolution is the common soldier, had he not been convinced of the rightness of the cause for which his leaders asked him to fight, the Revolution would never have succeeded.

     Four Veterans of the Revolutionary War are interred at the East Deering/Grand Trunk Cemetery and their stores are included in posts within this blog.I am including the post of the Dedication Ceremony for Joseph Lunt because of the two excellent speeches that reflect our reason for commemorating this day. 

 The following is a stanza from:

The Revolutionary Soldier's Bequest

by Hannah Flagg Gould

"Behold"the hoary veteran said,

"The silver scattered o'er my head;

A remnant of the auburn hair,

That curled in sunny clusters there,

When in the land that now is thine,

With bounding flock and fruitful vine,

While Freedom's banner waves unfurled,

The envy of a gazing world,

Life was but slavery to me;

And when I fought, my son, for thee.

     How ever you choose to commemorate the day, I hope you will remember our Veterans of the Revolutionary War as Patriots whose commitment paid for our independence and freedom as Americans.