May 19, 1825
An amusing sensation started in 1824 continued to attract attention in Philadelphia during the following year.
There had been more or less laxity in the various militia organizations in the election of their officers and this was much more evident in Philadelphia than elsewhere in the State.
John Pluck, an ignorant hostler, was elected colonel of the Eighty-fourth Regiment as a joke and to ridicule the militia system, which at that moment was very unpopular with the members.
This election had been resisted by many who were disinclined to treat so serious a matter jocularly, and the board of officers set aside the election as illegal, and ordered a new election.
At the next election John Pluck received 447 votes; Benjamin Harter, 64; and John Ferdey, commonly called “Whistling Johnny,” 15.
The successful candidate treated the matter seriously and issued an order for a parade of the First Battalion on May 1, on Callowhill Street, the right resting on Sixth Street; and the Second Battalion was ordered to parade at the same place on May 19.
The order further directed that Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Norbury was to command the training of the First Battalion. The colonel himself was to take charge of the Second Battalion.
The papers of that day do not notice the parade of the First Battalion, which was scheduled for May 1, but they have much to say about the big parade of May 19.