Celebrate New Year's Day on Prospect Hill

[ron_newman]

On New Year's Day each year, the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission celebrates the raising of the first American flag to feature thirteen red and white horizontal stripes. Know as “the Flag of Grand Union,” it was first raised by George Washington over the Continental Army’s encampment on Prospect Hill during the siege of Boston in 1776.

The event begins at 11:30 am at the City Hall parking lot, where re-enactors (including 'George Washington' on horseback), fife and drum players, and local elected officials assemble for a short procession. The parade reaches Prospect Hill Park at noon, where there will be a ceremony that includes raising a replica of the First Flag onto the top of Prospect Hill Tower. Coffee, hot cider, and other refreshments will be available. In past years, people have been allowed to climb to the top of the tower after the ceremony, but I can't guarantee you'll be able to do it this year.

I've been going to this event for a few years and have always enjoyed it. To get there from Davis Square, take the #88 or #90 bus from Davis Square at 11:30 am, and get off either at City Hall (if you want to join the parade) or at the first bus stop on McGrath Highway (if you just want to walk up the hill yourself to the ceremony). Sometimes the bus ends up driving behind the parade.

Weather this year should be excellent -- sunny with temperatures in the low 40s. So you could even forget the bus and ride a bike there.

Here's a the official city press release for the event.

Comments

Revolutionary History -- We haz it . . .

[tom-champion.livejournal.com]

Because Somerville wasn’t a town in those days (we were just "Charlestown Beyond the Neck" – sparsely settled farmland attached to what was then the independent settlement of Charlestown) it’s easy even for locals to forget about how much early revolutionary history took place here.
But don’t take my word for it: go to Amazon.com, look up David McCullough’s 1776, and use the “Look inside” feature to check out “Prospect Hill” in the book’s index.
As a Prospect Hill resident myself, I always get a little misty on New Year’s Day when I think about the 4,000 soldiers of George Washington’s Continental Army as they shivered in their tents on Prospect Hill in the harsh winter of 1775-6. They had taken an truly incredible leap of faith and risked everything to take up arms against what was, at the time, the world’s preeminent military power. Looking out at night over the cozy homes of my (wonderfully diverse) neighbors, I can only imagine the uncertainty, the vulnerability, the fortitude and the astonishing courage of that “rabble in arms.”
The flag of Grand Union has come to mean a lot to me in the time I’ve lived in Somerville. It symbolizes that huge leap of faith taken not just by our founders, but by the generations of immigrants who built our city and our nation – and by those who still work today to better our society and heal its divisions. They are heroes all.
It’s a tradition worth celebrating. Come by if you can – and Happy New Year, everybody.