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Norfolk Highlights 1584 - 1881
By George Holbert Tucker
Chapter 60
Norfolk and the Revolutionary Centennial
If it hadn't been for Michael Glennan (1844-1899), the owner and editor
of The Norfolk Virginian, the original ancestor of The Virginian-Pilot,
there might never have been a national centennial celebration at Yorktown
in 1881 or a permanent marble monument at the same place commemorating
the surrender of Cornwallis to the American and French forces one hundred
years earlier.
Glennan, who began his career as a poor immigrant boy from Maynooth,
County KIldare, Ireland, became the sole proprietor of The Virginian
on March 24, 1876, when he was thirty-two. One year earlier, after the
celebration of the centennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill, he began
a one-man campaign to promote a similar celebration at Yorktown in 1881.
In 1878, Glennan began a correspondence with Hugh Blair Grigsby, the
president of the Virginia Historical Society and the chancellor of the
College of William and Mary, to promote the project. When this led to
no definite conclusion because of Grigsby's failing health, Glennan
decided to advocate publicly the proposed celebration in the editorial
columns of his newspaper.
On July 8, 1878, The Virginian commented: "The 19th of October
1881, will be the centennial anniversary of the capture of Cornwallis,
and the American nation owes it to itself and the memory of the men
who achieved its liberties, that it should be celebrated with a pomp
and circumstance worthy of the event it commemorates."
Glennan's personal crusade in The Virginian was hailed enthusiastically
by the nation's press and resulted in a meeting of the governors of
the thirteen original states in Independence Hall in Philadelphia on
October 18, 1879. At that time, Governor Frederick W. M. Holliday of
Virginia appointed Glennan, who was present, as commissioner to represent
Virginia in appreciation of his services.
In that capacity, Glennan participated prominently on October 23, 1879,
at a preliminary celebration at Yorktown, at which time he offered the
unanimously adopted resolutions that instructed John Goode, the Virginia
representative in Congress from the district that included Yorktown,
to request the government to appropriate funds to erect a Yorktown Victory
Monument and to plan for a four-day national celebration of the surrender
of Cornwallis to take place at Yorktown in October of 1881.
In view of the enthusiastic national endorsement of the project that
had originally been spearheaded and fostered by Glennan, Congress rose
handsomely to the occasion and appropriated the funds for the monument,
the erection of which had been considered by that body as early as October
29, 1781.
The centennial celebration at Yorktown on October 18-21, 1881, in which
Glennan played a prominent part, was presided over by President Chester
A. Arthur and was attended by notables from at home and abroad as well
as thousands of patriotic citizens from all over the country.
On the Norfolk aspect of the celebration, Robert W. Lamb, editor of
"Our Twin Cities of the Nineteenth Century: (Norfolk and Portsmouth)
Their Past, Present and Future" (1887-88), wrote:
"On October 11 a proclamation by the Mayor requested an active
participation by all citizens in a week of festivities from Monday,
the 15th. He specially included the large fleet of British vessels lying
at our wharves to participate in this celebration, as they gave our
port "a great victory of peace, instead of the dread alarm of war
which the British fleet created one hundred years ago." "It
was a sight," Lamb continued, "to see the throngs by day wending
their way through the triumphal arches adorned with appropriate mottoes
and pictures, but a greater sight at night, in the full glare of the
electric light, introduced into our city for the first time to grace
the occasion, the old and staid citizen vieing with the child in merry
amusement to honor our great centennial."
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