LORDVILLE, NY — The annual Lordville 4th of July Parade started about 1948, according to Callie Brunelli, a direct descendant of the Lord family, for whom the tiny riverside community of Lordville is named.

According to Brunelli, the parade started in those bygone years when local folks didn’t want to travel all the way upstream to Hancock for a parade in celebration of America’s independence—so they started their own parade, marching through town from house to house along Main Street.

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She recalled that her Aunt Ida pulled a wagon, Callie and her cousin Connie riding in it, around the small community.

The exact date of the inaugural parade seems to be shrouded in the mists of time. “The only way we can tell now is how we looked in pictures… it’s part of our life every Fourth of July,” Brunelli said. 

Back then, the trip to Hancock was an arduous journey upriver—“Nobody wanted to drive all the way to Hancock, which in those times was a long way to go to a parade,” she said. “So we made our own with paper hats and flags, and she pulled us up and down all the way to the church.”

Brunelli stressed the recurrent theme: “We’re very careful that we honor our patriotism, not our politics. It’s one of the freedoms.”

Terri Lord Ellis was on hand to help her cousin Callie Brunelli decorate the lead vehicle with small American flags and red, white and blue bunting. She recalled that she was in one of the earliest parades, proudly riding a blue bicycle. “It was old, little and dented.

“This is just part of our family; this is what we do,” she said of the annual parade. Over the years, it has attracted a diverse crowd made up of local folks and artists from the city, all joined in the common cause of honoring the Fourth of July.

Before the parade kicked off, Brunelli was joined on the bluestone front steps of the Lordville Presbyterian Church by former church pastor Jack Garhart to take turns reading the Declaration of Independence to the crowd.

His family has owned property in Lordville for more than a century, and although he stepped down as pastor, Brunelli keeps the Spirit of the Lord flowing as head elder and deacon of the ca. 1896 house of worship, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places 

(For more information on the church, visit Facebook postings by the Lordville Hysterical Society.)

After the recitation of the Declaration of Independence, the crowd made its way through the charming hamlet, across the bridge that spans the Upper Delaware River, and then back again to the shores of the Empire State.

Joseph Matthews of Haverton, PA was resplendent with a set of luminously iridescent butterfly wings, one of the more colorful costumes—which included several versions of Uncle Sam.

Brycelin Gray, a 10-year-old from Thompson, PA, volunteered to be the honorary flag bearer for the parade.

“I was surprised. I’ve never done it before; I was excited,” she said of being the standard bearer and of listening to the reading of the Declaration of Independence. “I think it’s really cool and I appreciate it.” 

For more photos, visit www.riverreporter.com. 

Fact: Lordville was originally part of a land grant dating back to the French and Indian War—part of a larger conflict known in Great Britain and France as the Seven Years War of 1756-1763.