Memorial Day in Billerica

Memorial Day, first called Decoration Day, has been kept in Billerica as a town observance since the 1880s, when the veterans of the Civil War began to receive a yearly appropriation from the town meeting to decorate the graves of their comrades. The Civil War Soldiers' Monument on the Town Common, dedicated on October 8, 1873, became the center of the day's exercises, and the tradition has continued through every later war, carried in turn by the Grand Army veterans, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and since 2002 by the town's own veterans' services office.

The first town money for the day appears in the report for the year ending February 1889. A committee "appointed by the Town at the last annual town meeting to take charge of the Decoration day exercises" spent its $100 on flowers ($30), markers and holders for the graves ($17.67), flags and a band, an oration ($10), repairing graves ($7.50) and a "barge from Lowell" ($12), a large horse-drawn passenger wagon. From then on the warrant asked each year for a sum "for the use of the Veterans on Memorial Day, May 30," at first $75 to $125, and the money was paid to Coburn S. Smith as Treasurer of the Billerica Veteran Association, who accounted for it in the town report until the First World War. In 1892 the Talbot Mills band played. In 1913 the Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R., had eighteen members, with Franklin Jaquith as president, Marcus Cowdrey as vice-president and Smith as treasurer, and its one meeting of the year was held on Memorial Day in the Town Hall; the Ladies of the G.A.R., Asa John Patten Circle, had seventy members. On the Sunday before, the Unitarian church held special Memorial Day services "to which all veterans are invited."

After World War I the day passed to the new veterans. The town welcomed its returned soldiers and sailors with a parade from Colson Street in North Billerica to the Common on July 4, 1919, and from the 1920s it paid rent for the quarters of Billerica Post 116 of the American Legion. The Memorial Day appropriation rose to $200 in 1920 and $250 in 1922, when it was first entered as "Memorial Day Celebration." In 1923 the warrant also asked the town to observe an "Old Home" week, and the annual meeting voted a committee and $150 for an "Old Home Week," but the money was carried in that year's accounts as unexpended and no record of the week being held was found. As the last Civil War veterans died, the town meeting of 1934 stood in silence for members of the Grand Army who had died in 1933, among them Marcus M. Cowdrey, "after which taps were sounded." The same year a warrant article proposed to name the new school at Pinehurst for Thomas Ditson, the patriot of the Ditson Affair and the Alarm of 1775 and dedicate it on Memorial Day; the town voted the name Old Ditson School in 1935. In 1939 and again in 1940 the town meeting instructed the Moderator to appoint a Memorial Day Committee "to have full charge of the Memorial Day exercises," made up of the commander and one other member of each of the two Legion posts (Billerica Post and the Harold W. Estey Post), the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Spanish American War veterans, "eight in all."

After World War II the day grew again. The town voted $200 extra for "increased expenses of Memorial Day Exercises" in 1946, and the appropriation reached $500 in 1947, $1,000 in 1960 and $2,000 a year from 1968. At the Memorial Day exercises Legion Post 116 gave its award to the high school's entry in the American Legion oratorical contest. Col. Charles A. Ranlett, the horseman, was long a familiar figure riding in the Memorial Day parades. In 1961 the town meeting debated whether the band concert should be held near the Common rather than with a carnival at Treble Cove Plaza. The parade of 1975 marched with the Sacred Heart Parish Band, V.F.W. Solomon Post 8819 and the Billerica Colonial Minute Men.

In 2002 the Department of Veterans' Services took charge of the parade for the first year, and the day settled into its present form: a parade with a Grand Marshal chosen from the town's veterans, exercises and speakers, and an essay contest for schoolchildren on "What Memorial Day Means To Me." In 2004 the Grand Marshals were the veterans and families of those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the end of the parade the new granite World War Memorials on the Common were dedicated. The parade was cancelled for bad weather in 2003 and 2016 and put off in 2020, during the pandemic. Veterans' groups also place wreaths at the squares named for Billerica's dead and flags on veterans' graves. The parade of Monday, May 30, 2022 was led by Grand Parade Marshal Francis Fraine.

People

• Coburn S. Smith: Treasurer of the Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R., who received and accounted for the town's Memorial Day appropriation from about 1889 into the 1910s.
• Franklin Jaquith: Civil War veteran and president of the Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R., in 1913, the body that kept Memorial Day.

References

1. Billerica Annual Report, year ending Feb. 28, 1889, pp. 11-12: report of the committee on the Decoration Day exercises: flowers, markers and holders, flags and band, oration, repairing graves, barge from Lowell.
2. Billerica Annual Report, year ending Feb. 1890, p. 16 of the warrant: Art. 24, $100 "for the use of the Veterans on Memorial Day, May 30, 1890"; Decoration Day account of Coburn S. Smith, Treasurer.
3. Billerica Annual Report, year ending Feb. 1892, p. 40: Decoration Day account, Talbot Mills band $28.50, signed by Coburn S. Smith, Treasurer of the Billerica Veteran Association.
4. Billerica (monthly), vol. 1, 1912-13: societies list, Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R. (Franklin Jaquith, Marcus Cowdrey, Coburn Smith; 18 members; meets Memorial Day) and the Ladies of the G.A.R.
5. Billerica (monthly), May 1913 calendar: special Memorial Day services in the Unitarian Church for veterans; Memorial Day meeting of the Billerica Veteran Association, G.A.R., in the Town Hall.
6. Billerica Annual Reports 1915-1919, 1919 report, pp. 68-69: Welcome Home celebration of July 4-5, 1919, parade from Colson Street to the Common.
7. Billerica Annual Reports 1920-1924: Memorial Day appropriations of $200 (1920) and $250 (1922); quarters for American Legion Post 116; 1923 vote of $150 for an Old Home Week, carried as unexpended.
8. Billerica Annual Reports 1930-1934: 1934 town meeting stands in silence for G.A.R. members who died in 1933, taps sounded; 1934 article to name the Pinehurst school for Thomas Ditson and dedicate it on Memorial Day.
9. Billerica Annual Reports 1935-1939: V.F.W. Post 2597 and Memorial Day exercises; Ditson School named (1935); 1939 vote for a Memorial Day Committee of Legion, V.F.W. and Spanish War veterans; committee named.
10. Billerica Annual Reports 1945-1949: $200 for increased expenses of Memorial Day exercises (1946); Legion Post 116 oratorical award at the Memorial Day program (1947, 1949).
11. Billerica Annual Reports 1960-1964: 1961 town meeting debate on the Memorial Day appropriation and the band concert near the Common rather than at Treble Cove Plaza.
12. Billerica Annual Report for 1975, p. 36: unpaid Memorial Day Parade bills, Sacred Heart Parish Band, V.F.W. Solomon Post 8819, Billerica Colonial Minute Men.
13. Billerica Annual Report for 2002, p. 329, Veterans' Services: first year the agency ran the Memorial Day parade; "What Memorial Day Means To Me" essay contest.
14. Billerica Annual Report for 2004, p. 190, Veterans' Services: Grand Marshals the veterans and families of Iraq and Afghanistan service members; dedication of the World War I and II Memorial.
15. Billerica Annual Report for 2022, Veterans' Services: Memorial Day Parade held Monday, May 30, 2022, Grand Parade Marshal Francis Fraine.
16. Massachusetts Civil War Monuments Project, Billerica: the Civil War Soldiers' Monument on the Common.