“New Milford has done wisely and well to inaugurate this home coming, for such home comings are vitally essential to the right life and growth and prosperity of any community.
“New Milford is proud of her history; proud of her position among the hills and towns of old Litchfield County, in this blessed commonwealth of Connecticut; proud of her business enterprise, of her schools and churches; and proud of her children, whom she welcomes home to-day.
“You are here, not as chance visitors, or strangers, but as members of one great family. We ask you to be not only with us, but of us at this time; to become, for the time being, citizens of our town, and would be glad to have you become so in fact.
“New Milford and its Celebration are yours; be at home with us; survey the attractions of our town; visit and greet old friends; enjoy the Celebration to the utmost, and then if you must leave us, take with you the kindest thoughts, and happy memories of the Bi-Centennial.”
At the close of this address, the band, playing “Auld Lang Syne,” marched to the south end of “The Green” (the chairmen of the committees, the New Milford Cadets under command of Capt. Gifford Noble, and the audience falling in behind) to the new, white, eighty-foot flag pole, which had been erected there under the supervision of Grand Marshal, Samuel R. Hill. To the strains of the “Star Spangled Banner,” Mr. Hill, assisted by Lewis W. Mosher, ran a new flag[16] up the pole, while the Cadets stood statue-like near its base. As the flag touched the peak, a cannon salute was fired by a firing squad under the direction of Samuel R. Hill, Jr. This was a signal for the playing of “We’ll Rally Round the Flag, Boys,” by the band, for the blowing of factory whistles, and the ringing of church bells; and, with this acclaim, the formal opening of the New Milford Bi-Centennial Celebration was ended.
THE LOAN EXHIBITION
The Loan Exhibition in Memorial Hall was opened to the public at ten o’clock Saturday morning, several hours in advance of the formal ceremonies of welcome described above, and was kept open during the entire four days of the Celebration. It proved an agreeable surprise, not only to the guests of the town, but to the townspeople themselves, who had no idea how rich their homes were in relics of the past until they were thus brought together for this Bi-Centennial occasion. Indeed, it was pronounced by competent judges one of the most interesting collections of antiquities ever seen in the State of Connecticut. By its aid, any person possessed of the slightest imagination could easily reconstruct the every-day existence (in-doors and out-of-doors) of the ancestors, and could even divine the intellectual, moral and religious ideas and ideals which governed them. Besides the local relics associated directly with the New Milford life of yore, were a number of curiosities from remote corners of the globe, which testified to the important rôle played by natives of New Milford in earlier times as merchants, ship-owners, travellers, and missionaries.
These various richly-stored heirlooms were a source of great joy to the aged, whose observations and reminiscences, as they moved about among the show-cases, were well-nigh as fascinating as the exhibits themselves; and a means of instruction for the young, to whom most of the objects displayed appeared as strange as if they had been brought from another planet.
The finest thing about this exhibition, however, was the public spirit it exemplified. The committee in charge met scarcely a refusal from the persons to whom they applied for loans, and, once the character of the undertaking was understood, volunteers came forward in such numbers that twice the space afforded by the G. A. R. rooms might have been filled, had it been available.
Many of the visitors expressed regret that so remarkable a collection must be scattered so soon and a hope that New Milford would one day see its way clear to maintaining a permanent exhibition of the sort. And it would not be surprising if the ultimate outcome of this loan exhibition should be a museum of antiquities, since a large proportion of the exhibitors would gladly contribute their treasures to the common-weal, if a specially-constructed, fire-proof building should be provided for the conservation of them.