July 4, 1844, Thursday.

Jim had just got up and was feeding the noisy chickens when he heard a loud 'boom'. He didn't worry: it was just the militiamen firing their prized cannon over in Elijah Heath's field.

'They do love that cannon,' he thought. 'I wonder if the navy is ever goin' to ask for it back.' The story was that the cannon had belonged to Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. He was the one who had popularised the phrase, 'Don't give up the ship!' Local people were very proud of the Battle of Lake Erie. Western Pennsylvania had supplied the fleet, with all its rope coming up from Pittsburgh, and a lot of its food coming from places like Brookville.

The firing of the cannon was followed by a furious ringing of every farm bell, fire bell, and whatever else in the way of bells could be scared up. The tintinnabulation set off the cows, who started lowing in chorus. Not to be outdone, every rooster within a ten-mile radius crowed his displeasure at the noise. The militiamen could be heard shouting 'Hurrah!' as far as Barnett's Inn.

The Fourth of July was officially underway. Jim ate a hurried breakfast and helped serve a few customers while everyone waited for the militia to parade.

HUT-two-three-fowar! There they were, the Independent Greens, led by Captain Hugh Brady. This was not the rag-tag-and-bobtail of the yearly training. No, sir: these were the elite troops of Jefferson County. Well, such as they were. At least they had something resembling uniforms, and they all had guns. (Some were borrowed for the occasion.) They stopped to drill in front of the Peace and Poverty, showing off their style. When a sufficient crowd had gathered, they set off for the courthouse, with Judge Taylor playing the fife and Charles P Merriman keeping the beat on his snare drum. Everybody headed to the courthouse to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle'.

When they got to the courthouse, the speakers stood on the steps, ready to orate. The militia stood in two columns along the sides. The crowd actually got quiet as Mr Dunham stood at the top of the steps and cleared his throat. Mr Dunham had a good, clear voice that carried.

He also had The Document.

'Mr Mayor, men of the Independent Greens, fellow Americans. 68 years ago, this document…' he held up the yellowed paper 'was first made manifest to an astounded world. What I have here is an original newspaper copy from Philadelphia from the blessed year of 1776. I will now read it to you.'

Every man in the crowd took off his hat as Mr Dunham read the Declaration, which was a treasured possession in his family. He began at the beginning of this stirring document.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

'That's only polite,' thought Jim. But not too exciting.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

'Okay, now you're talkin'', thought Jim. 'But what about the slaves?' He suspected the Whigs and the Democrats, who were about evenly divided in the crowd, would be getting into arguments about that later in the day. But for right now, they were busy being pious and patriotic, and all about 'unity'.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes…

This was a mouthful, but Mr Dunham was a good reader. This, too, was a good thing, because frankly, the rest of the Declaration of Independence is pretty dry stuff. It wouldn't even make you mad, unless you knew King George III personally. Then you might be insulted: the Declaration spends a lot of time explaining why George was a terrible king.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records…

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners…

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments…

'George III must have been a really bad king,' thought Jim. 'If a president acted like that, they'd run him to Canada on a rail.'

The litany of evil worked its way up to

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

Nobody booed. Or reacted at all. They just stood there, solemnly, and listened with enormous reverence as this strange document (which was groundbreaking in its day) was intoned aloud, as it would be in every city, town, and hamlet in the 26 states of the Union. Finally, after listing all the sins of the king, the Declaration reached its final, stirring sentence:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

At this, the crowd responded with shouts and applause. Hats were thrown into the air. The militia fired into the air (no bullets), and the 'band' struck up the most popular national song, 'America':

My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride,

From every mountain-side let freedom ring!

Jim was sure the British, whom nobody liked, never had as good a song as that¹.

After this, the militia marched off, followed by the more dignified members of town society. Not being one of those, Jim stayed behind. The militia and their ladies, plus all the 'leading lights', were off to George McLaughlin's hotel up the street. They were going to have a big dinner with speeches and toasts. The toasts were likely to be incapacitating for all involved, but at least numb them to the effect of all that public speaking.

For his part, Jim went back to the Peace and Poverty, where Mrs Gallagher and the neighbours had prepared a picnic buffet for outdoors. There would be eating, drinking (though no toasts), and jollification until the evening. Then somebody would row out into Redbank Creek and set off a few firecrackers.

Dmitri Gheorgheni