Little Falls Patriots Day Program this Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

The rain date for this event is Sunday May 19 at 11:00 AM.

Patriots Day is celebrated each year in most of New England to commemorate the April 15, 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord which marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

The first Patriots Day was declared in 1894. In 1938 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts established the third Monday in April each year as Patriots Day and it has become a civic holiday. Lexington and Concord have battle re-enactments and the City of Boston swells with activity and celebration.

At the urging of the Little Falls Historical Society, the City of Little Falls established a local Patriots Day in 2010 to be celebrated each year on the third Saturday in May. This is in recognition of our ancestors’ contributions to America’s quest for independence.

Each year, the Little Falls Historical Society honors Patriots Day by hosting an event at a local historical site that played an important role in our colonial and Revolutionary War eras. We have commemorated Patriots Day at Yellow Church Cemetery, Herkimer Home, Fort Herkimer Church,Indian Castle Church, Snells Bush Church, Little Falls Masonic Temple, Historic Dutch Reformed Church at Historic Four Corners in Herkimer, Historic Trinity in Fairfield, PainesHollow Church, Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Little Falls, Norway Rural Cemetery and last year’s return at Yellow Church Cemetery.

PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION / OPENING REMARKS
Michelle Baum

PREAMBLE TO U.S. CONSTITUTION
Pat Frezza-Gressler

HISTORY OF THE JOHN BELLINGER HOUSE
Tom Overman

1824 LITTLE FALLS RETROSPECTIVE
Louis Baum

PETRIE FAMILY IN EARLY LOCAL HISTORY
Nicholas Petrie

BATTLE OF ORISKANY – THOMAS VAN HORN
Pat Stock

HERKIMER, ORISKANY, SARATOGA AND FRANCE
Jeffrey Gressler

CLOSING REMARKS
Jeffrey Gressler

LAYING OF WREATH
Pat Stock – Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)

PLAYING OF “TAPS”
Dr.Oscar Stivala

MUSICAL SELECTIONS
Robert Schmelcher

Please bring your own chairs. Free water will be provided.

JOHN BELLINGER 1824 HOME

John Bellinger purchased this property in 1820, his wife was Anne Zimmerman. The Federal style building was completed in 1824 using nearby quarried limestone. The walls are 30” thick in the basement and 24” thick at the roof level. The interior is post and beam construction using six hand-hewn beams. 

The Bellinger family sold the building and grounds to the Simms family around 1880 who in turn sold it to the O’Hara family who owned it until the early 1950s. The home underwent substantial renovation around 1930, but in the late-1940s, the building was abandoned and fell into disrepair.

The Weaver family worked to stabilize some stonework in the 1980s, and in 2000, the Straney / Neesom family carried out much interior repair work.

The McGillan / Overman family purchased the property in 2011 and began extensive final-stage restoration in 2014, repointing stonework, upgrading the plumbing and electrical systems, and insulating the building for the first time. Tom and Mary Ellen were able to move into their historic home in 2019.