Evacuation Day

July 4 has always been celebrated as a major holiday, especially in the original colonies/states. But back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, another day commemorating the Revolution was almost as popular, at least in New York: Evacuation Day.

Evacuation Day - November 25, 1783 - was the day that the Brits finally left New York City. They had occupied it since 1776, remaining an impenetrable thorn in the side of the Revolution until the very end.

According to an article in the New York Archives magazine (an historical journal), a woman named Mrs. Day bopped a British officer in the nose with her broom when he tried ordering her to take down the American flag on the day the Redcoats left. It was, the journal author notes, "the only violent exchange of the day."

The holiday was a great excuse for a late-fall party until after the Civil War, when its popularity quickly faded. It's not exactly clear why - New Yorkers will take any excuse to party, after all - but Evacuation Day's decline came right around the same time that Thanksgiving became enshrined as one of the nation's great holidays. (Lincoln's proclamation establishing the last Thursday of November - which some years would be November 25 - was issued in 1863. Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 26 that year.)

I have my own theory on its demise: it's much more fun to sit outside and set off fireworks in the middle of the summer than late fall. So I think I'll stick with July 4.