THE FIRST LABOR DAY

Times are tough lately but this is not the first recession the country has gone through.

Back in the nineteenth century when a recession hit there was little the government could or would do. People often starved or froze to death.

Not to say that people out of work didn’t call on the government to help they did. And when the government didn’t respond often they rioted.

In 1886 there was a terrible depression in America that leads to the so-called Haymarket massacre. Hundreds of strikers in Chicago had rioted in Haymarket Square where a bomb went off. The police then fired into the crowd. Eight policemen were killed and dozens of strikers. It scared the heck out of the country. Politicians blamed it on the Anarchists.

Times got better but than another recession hit in 1894 leading to the May Day Riots in Cleveland, Ohio.

The federal government was again scared to death and as a result of this rioting they passes a bill honoring the working stiffs of America and creating a special holiday just for them.

And so on the first Monday of September of that year every working person in America was entitled to a day off.

It was, of course, the first Labor Day.

Here in Concord the labor unions paraded lead by their inscribed banners and the state and federal flags. Here at the Eagle Hotel speeches were given by Governor Hiram Tuttle and Mayor Henry Clapp.

Then everyone took the train to Lake Shore Park where the Third Regiment Band played a concert and the locals played a baseball game.

That night the Capital City Orchestra played for a dance at the pavilion and everyone greed that the new Labor Day was a good thing.

    Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards, the Folk Singer used to live in the town that I lived in and I, at least indirectly, had a small part in his moving there.

That town was Peterborough.

Between the mid-seventies and the mid-eighties I was the News Director and later the General Manager of the radio stations in Peterborough.

WSCV am and WSLE fm called ourselves “The Folks Station” and we played folk music, alternative music, jazz and selective Rock-n-roll. We also featured a lot of local music.

The Folkway Coffee House just down the street was a center for folk musicians from all over America. When they came to town did interviews with us and played their music, live.

We were a big hit with a certain audience (and that audience was not necessarily the general public in Peterborough).

However there were businesses in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts who put up special antennas simply to receive WSLE’s signal.

The Boston Globe featured our play lists.

So one day our Program Director, Tim Tobin was on the air when he looked up from the console and there stood Jonathan Edwards. Wow! Double wow! Jonathan Edwards has a mega hit out at that time.

You remember, it was called “Sunshine”.

Tim put a record on (yes, this was back when we played LPs) and he shook Jonathan Edwards’ hand.

“You may have the best radio station in America,” Mr. Edwards said.

Tim almost fainted. He was the guy who chose the music.

Why was Jonathan Edwards there? Well, he and his wife had been looking for a place to live in New England. For the last few weeks they had been going out from Boston in ever-increasing arcs looking at property.

“We came over Temple Mountain,” Edwards said, “and picked up your station and Caroline and I knew we were home. We just bought Big Boulder Farm.”

Wow. Gosh I was proud of that station and those people I worked with.

The winter of 1862 lasted well into April. In Claremont that year four feet of snow fell late in the season.

Not that it hadn’t melted earlier. It had. At the end of March there was sleet and rain and then brutally low temperatures that froze an ice top onto the snow.

It was an effect no one had ever seen before. The top of the snow was so strong that heavy teams of oxen and horses could walk on it. Everything now had four inches of ice on it. The ice was as strong as if it were on a pond.

Not only that but the ice topped fields and roads were smooth as glass. Perfect of sliding and even ice-skating.

And that’s just what the citizens of this town did. They got out their sleds and ice skates.

You could skate up hill. You could skate down hill. The sliding was the fastest anyone had ever seen.

The sliding was so good that people left work to create an impromptu weeklong carnival, the only one ever held in the town.

The Claremont Town History says the entire town, “thronged with boys, girls and frisky older people with hand-sleds enthusiastically coasting down the knolls into the valleys.”

On the twelfth of April Confederate ships fired on Fort Sumter and the Civil began. No one in town knew it that day.

And next day, the thirteenth of April, one week after the great freeze, the sun came out.

Within two weeks all the ice had disappeared. And the rest of the spring had normal or higher-than-normal temperatures. Soon the kids were swimming in the river.

And for years people told the story about how the war began the last day of “the great ice celebration of 1862.”

Great happiness followed by great sadness.

The Skating Party

Jonathan Edwards