Holy Cow! History: How America’s First Fourth Went Off With a Bang – Inside Sources

Throughout history, milestone Independence Day anniversaries have arrived just when Americans needed them most.

Take the nation’s Centennial in 1876. After surviving the bloodiest war in U.S. history in the 1860s, Americans were ready to let their hair down and celebrate. Likewise, the Bicentennial in 1976 was the perfect tonic for a nation still reeling from the deep funk caused by the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and Watergate.

Now, with America250 at hand, the anniversary stands ready to bolster us once more. Folks of all partisan stripes agree the American spirit in 2026 could use a fresh infusion of the Spirit of ’76.

However, a strong case can be made that the most important, most consequential and most meaningful of all the preceding 249 anniversaries was the very first. This is the forgotten story of how America marked July 4, 1777.

The American Revolution was in its third year. The fighting that began at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts in April 1775, followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill that June, showed the plucky Patriots could hold their own against a global superpower.

After modest successes in early 1776, George Washington’s army was driven out of New York City, then, as now, America’s commercial capital. The decisive year ended with the capture of a Hessian outpost in Trenton, N.J., providing a desperately needed morale boost.

Then came a torturous winter and “the times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine so eloquently put it.

The mere fact that the 13 colonies had clung together and made it to July 1777 was reason to celebrate. That their ragtag armies were still carrying on the struggle seemed almost miraculous.

So Continental leaders made sure July 4 was a blowout. And their celebrations were remarkably similar to ours today.

The biggest bash in 1777 was in Philadelphia, the infant nation’s capital. The Declaration had been signed there, and the Continental Congress still met in its stately Pennsylvania State House.

An account published in the Virginia Gazette reported that the City of Brotherly Love went all out with bell-ringing, military parades, concerts, banquets with toasts to America’s future, large crowds cheering enthusiastically and massive bonfires called “illuminations.” Two activities — artillery salutes and a fireworks display — were especially significant. We’ll see why in a moment.

Likewise, Boston, still joyful after the hated British had evacuated Beantown the year before, organized activities all around town, including fireworks and artillery salutes fired over the Common.

Baltimore, whose port was booming after the fall of New York, held a public reading of the Declaration. It threw a massive public dinner, complete with 13 toasts, one for each of the colonies, followed by military parades and — you guessed it — a 13-gun cannon salute and fireworks.

Farther south, Charleston, S.C., had double reason to celebrate. One year earlier, its defenders had turned back a British invasion fleet in Charleston Harbor. There were patriotic speeches, special church services, more dinners, more toasts and the military firing more salutes.

It’s that last attraction, coupled with all the fireworks displays, that’s telling. We take annual nighttime pyrotechnic displays for granted. They’re lit, they go bang, pretty colors light up the darkness, and the crowd oohs and aahs in unison.

But fireworks had additional importance in 1777. They’re propelled by gunpowder, after all. Not only was gunpowder the lifeblood of the Continental Army, needed for flintlock muskets and cannons, but it was also chronically in short supply. Washington’s men often went into early battles with barely enough powder on hand. Getting hold of it was a massive challenge.

There were small mills scattered around the colonies in places like Portsmouth, N.H., and elsewhere. British supplies were captured from time to time. Although France had yet to ally with the Patriot cause, it secretly sold us precious powder, though it first had to make the long Atlantic crossing to get here.

Little wonder, then, that Colonial soldiers were constantly admonished not to waste gunpowder.

So why, with that commodity in such perilously short supply, were they burning it up for fireworks displays?

Because then, as now, fireworks made a special occasion even more so. Patriot leaders were determined to celebrate the Declaration’s first anniversary as a massive show of public faith, a demonstration of their belief that, although the war still raged, independence was already a reality.

And they were willing to use their scarcest, most precious resource to demonstrate their commitment to that conviction.

So, as you watch the red, white and blue balls of fire breaking through the darkness on the Fourth this year, remember that when our Founding Fathers did it 249 Julys earlier, they were giving evidence not only of their belief that they would succeed, but of their optimism that we would succeed, too.