Eagle Feathers #173 – The Third of March

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Celebrate, observe, proclaim, honor, live it up and show your pride. Somerville, it’s your birthday, and you are 177 years young … Happy Birthday!

Everyone has one, but people didn’t always acknowledge the date of their birth. The Egyptians were the first to start the practice of honoring anniversaries and birth dates. The Greeks followed, adding religious candles to the day of remembrance. Later the Romans celebrated not only the birth of their gods but also the birth of the common man. The Germans added sweet treats and confections to the party.

Throughout the years, the Third of March has been an historic day for America.

• In 1634, Samuel Cole opened early Boston’s first tavern, the Three Mariners.
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• In 1776, the Revolutionary War Fleet under Naval Commodore Esek Hopkins attacked and captured the British colony of Nassau in the Bahamas. It was March 3, and the scene of the first amphibious assault by what would later become the United States Marine Corps.
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• In 1815, the United States first declared war on a foreign country, Algeria, in retaliation for the taking of prisoners and their demands of tribute from America. Captain Richard Somers, Somerville’s namesake, fought and died in this undertaking.
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• In 1820, Maine and Missouri entered the Union. Maine, which had been part of Massachusetts, was declared a free state; and Missouri was declared a slave state. The bloody American Civil War would later settle their differences.
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• In 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was born. He was the father of the telephone. Bell’s first outside call went from an electrical shop at Ten Court Street in Boston to the East Somerville home of Charles Williams, Jr. at One Arlington Street. It was also the same day that Congress allowed the United States Postal Service to utilize postage stamps.
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• In 1925, Congress approved the Mount Rushmore Project honoring Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
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• In 1931, the United States Congress gave approval for the song, The Star Spangled Banner, to become our national anthem. This song honors our flag, the standard that was first raised on Prospect Hill in 1776. After 243 years, she is still there … long may she wave!
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• Somerville, one of the most memorial cities in America, came into existence on March 3, 1842 … a heroic city named after a heroic Naval officer.
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