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Independence Day is that singular American holiday when everyone in this country, for a day or maybe only for a few hours, focuses on what it means to live in the U.S. and what the nation’s history tells us.
Memorial Day and Veterans Day should inspire Americans to think about the sacrifice made by a few to preserve the freedom of so many. But Independence Day celebrates that freedom.
For the nation’s new arrivals, July 4 is a chance to celebrate being a part of this country and, hopefully, a productive contributor to it. For all Americans, the day, by definition, is an opportunity to reflect on the struggle for freedom and tyranny that preceded Independence Day.
History lessons on both topics dot the region and, of course, Lynn where graveyards first dug more than 300 years ago offer silent history lessons about what came before the United States of America.
Hidden behind Central Congregational Church is a burial place divided into three sections and dotted with gray tombstones. Most of the markers are tilted or have tumbled to the ground, waiting to be claimed by time. The names and lifespans etched into the oldest stones have all but disappeared. But other stones bear witness to a time when a great and wild land surrounded people clinging to Lynn’s coastal uplands, trying to make a living on small farms.
Many of them did not live very long. Some of the graves record deaths at birth or short lives cut short by disease and accidents considered unthinkable in the 21st century. Others ventured into the ocean and never returned, leaving behind small stone markers to chronicle their passage through life.
Graveyards on Union Street, and at the end of Lynn Common, reflect an era when the city expanded its boundaries beyond the coast and its origin point off what today is lower Fayette Street and Lafayette Park. Bigger graves and crypts point to the wealth that began to be amassed by some of Lynn’s first residents.
Other historical sites ranging from monuments to the Saugus Iron Works offer a glimpse into the century preceding the nation’s founding. With its water wheel and early examples of cast iron, the Iron Works was once cutting-edge technology defining the Industrial Age two centuries before factories would emit smoke across the skyline.
The people who built Lynn’s early industry settled and started farms and amassed fortunes and risked all they had, including their lives, to gain independence. The odds against them were long. Their leaders were inexperienced and their foe was a world power with an army and navy to match that status.
The first Americans did not create a nation perfectly formed, but they fought and died for a freedom all Americans are obliged to never surrender.
