Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/122

 96    BIOGRAPHY AND time—driven from their homes—robbed and plundered, and so recently located in a sterile waste, one thousand miles from all supplies, except what they extracted from a long-barren soil; it will be at once realized that it required no small stretch of thought and ingenuity to organize, and with appropriate honors, celebrate a day of so much historical importance as the one in question. But they had "the right man in the right place;" for in this instance, as in everything he undertook, Lorenzo verified the adage, "What is worth doing, is worth doing well." And, to make a success of whatever he undertook, he neither spared labor nor application.

Although, since that early day of our mountain home, as circumstances have changed—means been multiplied, and foreign resources brought within the reach of this once isolated people, insomuch that in more recent celebrations of that ever memorable day, the twenty-fourth of July, mammoth displays have been crowned with wealth and magnificence, this first, the opening one—this display of civilization in a desolate wilderness has never been eclipsed.

As it may be interesting to many of the coming generation, we will here give a brief description of the celebration, as follows: The inhabitants were awakened by the firing of cannon, accompanied by music. The brass band, playing martial airs, paraded the principal streets of the city, in a gaily decorated omnibus, with prancing steeds, and with banners flying, returning to the Bowery, from whence they started.

The Bowery was one hundred feet long, by sixty wide; it was built on one hundred and four posts, and covered with boards; but for the services of this day, a canopy or awning was extended about one hundred feet from each side of the Bowery, to accommodate the vast multitude at dinner.

At half-past seven, the large national flag, measuring sixty-five feet in length, was unfurled at the top of the liberty pole, which was one hundred and four feet high, and was