Much of the Company time in the first half of 1976 was spent in preparation for the huge Danvers Bicentennial Weekend of June 17-20. The Company had decided to actively participate in the community celebration, and the wives and families of the members organized to take on an accurate portrait of the distaff side of eighteenth-century Danvers life.
During the four-day celebration, the Company either was responsible for, or took an active role in eighteen of the major programs including a full-scale eighteenth-century encampment and woman's crafts program, a June 18, 1776 Town Meeting recreation, torchlight parade, Revolutionary War monument dedication, and organizing the colonial units of the Bicentennial parade.
The nationally know Rebecca Nurse Homestead, located on twenty-seven acres of land off Pine Street in Danvers, was formally turned over by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities to the management of the Danvers Alarm List Company on Sunday, June 20, at a morning program following many months of study and effort on the part of both organizations.
Included among the residents of this well-known house were Sgt. Francis Nurse and Mathew Putnam, both of whom marched with the Danvers Militia and Alarm companies in the Lexington Alarm of April 19, 1775, and who now rest in the Nurse cemetery on the property.
The Sunday dedication included remarks by representatives of SPNEA, a talk by Town Historian Charles S. Tapley about the property, the official lease signing, and a "fire of joy" by the Danvers Alarm List Company.
On July 11, 1976, the Company had the honor of participating in a royal Military Review in Boston of eighteenth-century troops by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Philip. During their walk past the assembled troops, the Queen stopped and spoke to Joan and Louis George, Ethel Trask, Dawn and Melissa Meehan, and Laurie Moland of the Company, while Prince Philip chatted with the David Butler family. The foot review of the Queen was later followed by a pass in review by the Company in front of Faneuil Hall.
With its newly acquired headquarters, its demonstrations and encampments, the Company has quickly emerged from the simple "chowder and marching society' objectives into an important preservation and education organization for both its members and the public in general. |
