245 years ago, on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain. A year later, in the most populous city in the “United Colonies” where the Declaration was signed, Philadelphians marked the first anniversary of American independence with a spontaneous celebration, which is described in a letter by John Adams to his daughter, Abigail.

“My dear Daughter Philadelphia, July 5th, 1777 Yesterday, being the anniversary of American Independence, was celebrated here with a festivity and ceremony becoming the occasion. I am too old to delight in pretty descriptions, if I had a talent for them, otherwise a picture might be drawn, which would please the fancy of a Whig, at least. The thought of taking any notice of this day, was not conceived, until the second of this month, and it was not mentioned until the third.”

4th of July Celebrations in Wheeling

Though surveyor William Crawford, writing in 1772 to George Washington, reported that settlers were arriving to the area “in such numbers the like was never seen,” by July 4th, 1777, Wheeling was still little more than an outpost on the western frontier of the colonies. By the time the first federal census was taken in 1790, the population of Wheeling was approximated to be between 200 and 250 residents. Eight years later, Tarleton Bates, a law clerk and newspaper publisher in Pittsburgh described a visit in his journal in 1798, writing that Wheeling consisted “principally of one street [and] about 60 houses one good looking brick one & 5 or 6 taverns —The Inhabitants appear tolerably Genteel & were they not Virginians might pass for decent people.” When Merriwether Lewis passed through in 1803, he wrote of Wheeling, “this is a pretty considerable Village contains about fifty houses…” Though Lewis’s estimation of houses in the village would indicate little growth had occurred, the federal census of 1800 recorded a doubling of Wheeling’s population to 500 residents. In 1806, the same year Wheeling was officially incorporated as a town, Thomas Ashe, author of Travels in America, counted “about two hundred and fifty houses; ten of which are built of brick, eighteen of stone, and the remainder of logs.”

It is a year later that the earliest mention of a 4th of July celebration in Wheeling has been found (if anyone knows of an early record, please let us know). The description of the July 4th, 1807 festivities was printed by Wheeling’s first newspaper, the Wheeling Repository, a weekly which had a short publication run from March 5, 1807 to November 5, 1808. Read More