As TOF writes the Great Fireworks display down on the river is reaching its crescendo, since today was the celebration of the Glorious Eighth. (Yes, we know. Today is the Glorious Twelfth, but it is customary to move celebrations to the nearest weekend for the usual reasons of having people actually attend them. Besides, the 12th of July is Orange Day, celebrating the Williamite victory over the Jacobites at the Battle of the Boyne, and TOF sees no reason to celebrate such a calamity.)
Heritage Day celebrates the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, which took place in Easton, as well as Trenton and Philadelphia, on 8 July 1776. This year it was read by a re-enactor playing Robert Levers, the original reader. (One year, they tracked down a descendant of Mr. Levers to do the honors.) There was a second reading in the afternoon in German. (The news of the Declaration was first broken on 5 July 1776 by a Pennsylvanian paper: the Pennsylvanisher Staatsbote.
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| Listen up, dudes! |
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| The Easton Flag, said to have flown on 8 July 1776, but oldest surviving one is attested in the War of 1812 |
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