For a young Steve Ewing growing up in 1960s Edgartown, the beginning of summer had a very distinct flavor.
But the season didn’t officially arrive, he recalled, until the Fourth of July parade made its way through the neighborhood, drawing everyone — including him and his siblings — into the street.
“We’d ride our bikes alongside it. We’d put those streamers on the handlebars, all that. And baseball cards on the spokes,” he said.
Back then, the Edgartown parade tradition was relatively new, but Islanders quickly embraced the pomp and circumstance. Since then the parade has grown enormously, drawing more and more visitors each year to the streets of Edgartown.
“I am convinced the Island tilts a little bit to the east that day,” said Edgartown police chief Bruce McNamee.
This year’s parade begins at 5 p.m. on July 4. Marchers old and new, along with their floats, will line up in the Edgartown School parking lot earlier on Thursday, and when the bell tower strikes five, they will all proceed down a well-worn path.
Parade grand marshal Joe Sollitto said that putting on the parade each year is a team effort and a labor of love.
“It’s a good public service,” he said.
In 2013, Mr. Sollitto succeeded longtime Edgartown selectman Col. Fred (Ted) B. Morgan, who was the parade’s grand marshal for 43 years. A World War II veteran, Mr. Morgan was a decorated medic and paratrooper. He died in 2019.
Mr. Sollitto said that Mr. Morgan left behind big shoes to fill.
“I’m the boss in name only,” Mr. Sollitto said. “Even up there, he’s still the boss.”
This year’s parade will pay remembrance to D-Day on its 80th anniversary. At the front of the parade, Mr. Sollitto will drive a golf cart hung with a uniform belonging to Mr. Morgan, who aided in the liberation at Normandy.
•
Edgartown’s first organized Fourth of July ceremony took place in 1844, but the tradition didn’t stick. Just two years later, the Gazette reported that the Fourth came and went in Edgartown “without any public demonstration of joy.” The steamer Naushon carried Islanders to New Bedford to celebrate off-Island instead.
The next few decades were stop-and-start. The traditional parades and fireworks withered in 1941 when Islanders called for a “silent Fourth” out of respect for the ongoing World War.
When the war ended, the joy of the Fourth crept back to the Island slowly and somewhat accidentally. Fireworks returned in 1951, when Freeman F. Wallins and his wife drew a crowd firing their own rockets off the dock at their Starbuck’s Neck summer home. A Gazette reporter wrote that the occasion caused unprecedented congestion on North Water street.
In 1956, the Edgartown parade returned in full force, this time for good. The parade quickly became a conduit for political activism on the Island.
In 1964, on the crest of the Civil Rights movement, the Martha’s Vineyard NAACP marched in celebration of its first year. Kids holding signs flanked a car emblazoned with the phrase, “LET FREEDOM RING.” Sixteen-year-old Bob Tankard carried the American flag.
“I think that was one of the first parades the NAACP was in,” Mr Tankard said. “I just felt proud to be able to represent my people.”
A retired educator and football coach, Mr. Tankard was recently named this year’s recipient of the Art Buchwald Award for his longstanding community service.
In 1987, Mr. Ewing abandoned the tricked-out bicycle of his childhood in favor of a homemade float protesting suburban development on the Island. The rolling political cartoon featured a sinking schooner and six scantily-clad women to symbolize the exploitation of the Island by developers.
“It won most original,” Mr. Ewing said with a laugh.
The parade has also been a way for the Island to address global tragedy. In 2002, the parade was anchored by a float commemorating those who had died during 9/11. When Covid-19 restrictions dashed hopes of a traditional parade in 2020, WWII veterans Herb Foster and Bob Falkenberg put on their American Legion caps, boarded a bright yellow jeep and cruised the parade route with an Edgartown police escort.
Through it all, committed Vineyarders have worked hard to keep the parade a part of Island life. The Edgartown Fire Department has long played a key role. In addition to organizing the fireworks display for many years, the department still walks and drives the route with its collection of antique trucks.
One of the fire department’s most dutiful marchers was Senior Captain Richard J. Kelly, who died in early June at 91. Captain Kelly marched in the first parade following the end of World War II and in every parade thereafter.
Fireman Scott Ellis accompanied Captain Kelly for 25 years, the pair driving the department’s 1927 Mack fire engine.
“He was one of the elders of the fire department,” Mr. Ellis said. “He taught us a lot.”
For longtime parade goers, the absence of figures like Ted Morgan and Richard Kelly is keenly felt.
“People tend to be in their same spots year after year, so you notice when the old timers start disappearing,” Mr. Ewing said.
But the parade, like time, marches onward.
Mr. Tankard, who served in Vietnam, is still involved with the parade as a veterans outreach coordinator for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. He organizes the group of Island veterans and walks the two-mile route alongside them.
“We look forward to it to represent the brothers and sisters that went before us in the wars, our fallen comrades, [and] our country,” he said. “I’ll take my Tylenol, and I’ll make that two miles this year, too.”
Mr. Ewing will also march in the parade again this year, now as treasurer of the Scottish Society. He started marching with the society in 1995, stepping in for his father following his stroke. He remembers visiting his father in the hospital after the parade, squeezing his hand and telling him that he continued the family tradition by wearing his kilt.
He now walks the route in his father’s memory, kilt still swaying.
Editor's note: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated Richard Kelly's title. He was a senior captain with the Edgartown Fire Department.
Comments (2)
Comments
Comment policy »