This town knows how to have a celebration. The Williamsburg, Massachusetts, 250th Anniversary weekend, coming up on July 15,16 and 17, 2022, is chock full of activities and events for the whole family—and of course includes a festive parade. (See https://www.burgy250th.com/ for details.)
The Williamsburg Bicentennial Celebration of 1971 was just as jam-packed. The town celebrated its 200th year with 4 days of pageants, art exhibitions, crafts, parties, athletic events, fireworks music and more—not to mention the great big parade on the final day. They started planning in 1967. The big Friday Block Dance featured the “Golden Brass” dance band and the young group called “Sound Generation”. Saturday started with a field day, featured an art exhibition followed in the afternoon by a 6-mile road race and the Children’s Bicycle and Doll Carriage Parade. The day finished with the Bicentennial Ball. Sunday, after morning church services, had tours of old homes, the “Old Timers” baseball game, an old-fashioned chicken barbecue, the now famous Beards Judging Contest and ended with a Block Dance with the Eddie Forman Orchestra. That year the festivities continued into Monday—with the big events the Mummers Band Concert and finally the grand Bicentennial Parade.
All the celebration activities attracted friends and neighbors from miles and miles around. And a good time was had by all.
Take a look at these eye-catching full-page newspaper announcements carefully kept in a scrapbook about the 1971 town Bicentennial compiled by Esther Hathaway Munson, now in the Meekins Local History Collection, a gift from the Swanda/Wells Family.
Daria D’Arienzo, Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt
Posted to Facebook 6/9/2022
