This year we will celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary. While Washington D.C.’s plans may include an IndyCar race through the streets of our nation’s capital and an Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House lawn, Mark Simonson and his America 250 Oneonta committee have a different vision — celebrations based upon history, education and family activities.
“I grew up in Oneonta,” Simonson began, “and in 1976, I fondly remember the parade downtown. And then, we walked down to the Swart-Wilcox House which had just begun to have some cosmetic work done and now it looks great, 50 years later.”
Having personally arrived in Oneonta in 1975, I recall the bicentennial fireworks display in Neahwa Park, which I do not believe was an annual event prior to 1976.
“There are some really nice places that we should showcase for 250 Oneonta,” Simonson said. “I remember the bicentennial being chaired by Oneonta historian Eugene Miller. So, I thought, who is going to take on things here in Oneonta for the semiquincentennial – I guess 250 is easier to say.” As our current Oneonta historian, Simonson followed Miller’s lead and started talking to, and working with, people and sharing ideas. “Maybe we could do an event at the Swart-Wilcox House as we are getting that new barn — perhaps a dedication in July,” he said.
While it appears that the new barn will not be ready for dedication on July 3, a full slate of other activities at that site is coming together. Family activities from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 3 will include vintage baseball, live music and dedication of a historic marker recognizing Lawrence Swart, a Revolutionary War soldier, by the Oneonta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Folk singer Susan Trump will perform the Swart-Wilcox original song, “Built by Hand, 200 Years I Stand,” hopefully along with the Oneonta fourth-graders who wrote the last verses. Originally written in the 1990s by Trump and fourth-graders at that time, the song will be updated this spring to cover the last 50 years of Swart-Wilcox history. There will be food including Brooks’ barbecue and food trucks.
Hill City Celebrations’ annual Independence Day celebration, with food, entertainment and fireworks will be followed on July 5 by family activities inspired by the Oneonta 1914 Chatauqua. “Oneonta Chatauqua?”, I asked Simonson. Yes, he explained, “Both Cooperstown and Oneonta hosted Chatauquas from 1914-1931.” The educational and uplifting plays, music and lectures, which Lake Chatauqua is well known for, apparently became so popular that other communities picked up on the concept.
Oneonta, I learned, held its first Chautauqua in 1914 on the property belonging to Henry E. Huntington, which is now the upper level of today’s Huntington Park. Simonson’s idea, now taking shape, will model July 5 after the early Oneonta Chatauquas and will be held, appropriately, in the upper level of Huntington Park from 1 to 5 p.m. We can expect a festival feel with music, food and an ice cream social. There will also be exhibitions of traditional crafts including quilting, blacksmithing and beer brewing, along with a community reading of the Declaration of Independence, a history-based scavenger hunt, a trivia contest and more.
The celebration will actually begin on Memorial Day. Oneonta 250 committee member John Nader described how the traditional Memorial Day ceremony will be expanded — “We will read the names and recognize the many Revolutionary War veterans who are buried in cemeteries around the Oneonta area,” he said, and the Greater Oneonta Historical Society will create a special American Revolution exhibition in its gallery on Main Street.
Thanks to Simonson and members of the America 250 Oneonta committee, we will have the opportunity to not only celebrate our nation’s founding, but to also recognize the role members of our Oneonta community played in its birth. In closing, Simonson, Oneonta’s official historian, added, “Some people may find history boring. I sure don’t.”
We are living in a time when facts seem to be disposable, history easily forgotten and our country is sorely divided — all of which makes the opportunity to learn about and reflect upon the values that our ancestors fought and died for very welcome and much needed.