“Greeting the President: St. Johnsbury Pays Her Respects to Mr. Harrison – Handsome Decorations – A Fine Parade in Four Divisions”
That was the headline for the Caledonian-Record on Thursday August 27, 1891, the day after President Benjamin Harrison’s visit. Security wasn’t an issue in the town’s preparations for this Republican President and grandson of another President (William Harrison). Instead, the town focused on honor and celebrations, with committees working in advance to hang flags, create the largest parade outside of Bennington, even make the night-time town sparkle with fairy-lanterns. The newspaper descriptions of decorations along Main Street filled multiple columns, with details like draping at the court house, stores with fantails of bunting, and Chinese lanterns. A banner at Dr. Bullard’s read “Welcome to the President and the Old Veteran.”
Why did the President come to St. Johnsbury? He was surely drawn by the political power of the Fairbanks family (who created this Athenaeum), and maybe equally by E. & T. Fairbanks Company, the manufacturer of scales used around the world.
A reception committee met the President at Montpelier and came back to town on the rain with him. They all passed in carriages along Railroad Street, then fell in at the end of a procession of marching bands, veterans, Catholic societies, and police, to head up Eastern Avenue to Main Street, then to Mt. Pleasant, to Summer Street, then Central, Cliff, and finally to Underclyffe, the home of Colonel Franklin Fairbanks, official host. The President’s group included Secretary Redfield Proctor (a Vermonter who had invited the President), Secretary Halford, a number of colonels, the presidents stenographer, and four reporters (for the United Press, Associated Press, and Press News Association). About 250 students welcomed the President when he stopped at the school, presenting him with “a large floral key, emblematic of the granting of the freedom of the town.” The newspaper report continued:
Arriving at Underclyffe, the procession came to a halt until all the carriages had alighted, when the lines reformed and passed in review before the presidental party, St. Johnsbury band standing one side and furnishing music meanwhile. … The decorations in the interior of Underclyffe were very artistic and consisted of flags and bunting, while there were flags of all nations around the room. The picture of ex-Gov. Erastus Fairbanks in the library was draped with two silk flags, while in the bay window of the dining room was an old flag made by the ladies of St. Johnsbury when the war broke out. … Dinner … was an elaborate ten course banquet served by Carter Webber of Boston.
Immediately after dinner the party was escorted to the Athenaeum.
The President’s speech, given from the balcony of the Athenaeum to about fifteen thousand people, focused on the love for the flag, as well as on its significance in a country still vividly remembering its Civil War. “After the speeches there was another season of hand-shaking at the Athenaeum, the interior of which had been handsomely decorated with cut flowers and plants; then the crowd enjoyed the fireworks given under the auspices of the committee, in the court house yard.”
[from President Benjamin Harrison’s speech, as described by Edward Fairbanks in his Town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont]
I am most happy to witness in this prosperous New England town so many evidences that your community is intelligent, industrious, enterprising, and your people lovers of home and of order. You have here manufacturing establishments whose fame and products have spread throughout the world. You have here public-spirited citizens who have established institutions that will be ministering to the good of generations to come. You have here an intelligent and educated class of skilled workmen; nothing pleased me more as I passed through your streets today than to be told that here and there were the homes of the working people of St. Johnsbury, homes where every evidence of comfort was apparent, homes where taste has been brought to make attractive the abodes in which tired men sought rest, homes that must have been made sweet for the children and comfortable for the wives whose place of toil and responsibility is there. This is what binds men to good order, to good citizenship, to the flag of the constitution; and I venture to say that all our public policy, all our legislation, may wisely keep in view the end of perpetuating an independent, contented, prosperous and hopeful working-class in America.
More from the President’s speech, this time from the newspaper report, revealing his connection with flags inside schools (something that wasn’t common before):
It occurred to me to suggest, at the centennial banquet [the nation had recently celebrated its 100th birthday], that the flags should be taken into our school houses. I rejoice to know that everywhere throughout the land, in all our patriotic towns and villages, movements have been inaugurated to display the American flag in our institutions of learning.
I have sometimes been brought into contact with incidents showing this love for the flag. I remember that when Hood was investing Nashville, and when that gallant, sturdy and faithful leader Gen. Thomas, [applause] was gathering the remnants of the army that he might confront his adversary, it ws assigned to me to intrench through the beautiful ground of a residence in Nashville. The proprietor was a Tennessee Unionist. While I was tearing up the sod of his beautiful lawn, he was bringing out his library and other valuables. Happening into his library, he opened a closet below the book-shelf and taking out a handsome flag asked me whether I had a garrison flag. I said no. “Well,” said he, “take this, Sir, I have never been without an American flag in my house.” I would be glad if that could be said by every one of our people. … Let us keep it thus in our hearts. … This is our compact; this the liberty which we offer to those who cast their lots with us – not a liberty to destroy, but to conserve and perpetuate.
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