HYANNIS – Cape Cod will celebrate Independence Day with a series of parades, activities, and fireworks across the region.
Fireworks shows are planned for tonight in Hyannis (Lewis Bay), Provincetown (MacMillan Pier), Sandwich (Lower Shawme Pond) Falmouth (Falmouth Heights Beach), and Edgartown (off the lighthouse). All the shows begin at dusk.
A number of Cape Cod towns held parades today as well, and had a beautiful day for it. The annual Centerville parade began at 10 a.m. at the Centerville Elementary School, with hundreds of local and visiting families lining the streets as classic cars, decorated boats, and wagons carrying children throwing candy rolled by. The show got off to a late start as a result of an unforeseen mishap with a firetruck (it jumped a curb, everybody was fine) which resulted in the crowd-favorite vehicle being pulled from the parade’s line-up.
Steve Luciani, who has served for years as the Centerville 4th of July Parade’s grand marshal said that the 4th is one of his favorite days of the year, “This is like a Norman Rockwell setting and every year it gets better and better.” The parade was followed this year by a free picnic at the ball-field off Main Street featuring hot dogs prepared by Champ House, an array of pies courtesy of Centerville Pie Company, and Four Seas Ice Cream.
Festivities got underway in Orleans with their annual parade at 10 a.m. Wellfleet’s antique car parade made its way through town at 9:30 a.m, with floats beginning at 10. In Hyannis, the inner harbor boat parade is planned for 2 p.m. with the Main Street parade set for 4 p.m.
Many of the celebrations are expected to be well-attended, as thousands of visitors have flocked to the region for the Fourth, marking one of the busiest weeks of the year for hotels and businesses.
AAA had predicted a record-breaking week for Fourth of July travel, with more than 1 million people expected to travel more than 50 miles by car in Massachusetts. Nationwide, AAA predicted more than 44 million Americans would hit the roads for Independence Day.
The CapeFLYER has been operating an expanded scheduled since Friday, with daily runs to and from Boston. The Tuesday train departs Hyannis at 6:40 p.m.
In Osterville, a new flag pole was dedicated Monday just in time for the Fourth. The old pole at Dowses Beach was damaged in a lightning storm last year, leading the Osterville Rotary Club to donate the money to replace it.
“It’s perfect that [Monday was] the dedication for the flag pole given that we’re celebrating Independence Day,” said Becky Richardson, a member of the Osterville Rotary Club.
The flag that now flies over Dowses Beach was once flown at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C.
Across the country, Americans are celebrating their country’s birthday with big-time fireworks, small-town parades and the quirky spectacle of competitive hot dog eating.
In New York, throngs are expected to watch the annual Macy’s fireworks blowout and the Nathan’s Famous frankfurter-chomping contest on Coney Island on July Fourth.
In Washington, President Donald Trump is observing his first Independence Day in office by hosting a White House picnic for military families, followed by a fireworks viewing event for military families and staffers.
Meanwhile, more than 15,000 new citizens will be sworn in during more than 65 Independence Day-themed naturalization ceremonies across the country.
In Boston, thousands are expected to turn out for the annual Boston Pops concert at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade. The city’s fireworks display will follow the performance.
One of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence is going to be on display at Commonwealth Museum in Boston. The historic document will be available to the public from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. Tuesday.
One of fourteen original copies of the document, it was sent by the Continental Congress to Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War.
Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin says John Hancock included a cover letter with instructions that the Declaration of Independence be kept “in the archives of your state” to inspire future generations.
You can read the transcription of the Declaration of Independence below:
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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