SMETHPORT — McKean County President Judge John Pavlock will present a program on the background of Memorial Day and his reflections on this federal holiday at 7 p.m. Thursday in the large courtroom of the courthouse in Smethport.
The program, which is free and open to the public, is another in the McKean County Historical Society’s continuing observance of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
“My focus will be on the history of Memorial Day — the how and why it started and its importance to McKean County, as well as my reflections on this day as growing up in nearby Wilcox and later as a citizen, district attorney and now as judge,” said Pavlock, who was elected to the judiciary in 2009.
Pavlock pointed to McKean County’s traditional strong sense of patriotism that has led to many citizens answering the country’s call to military service and honoring our veterans.
McKean County, like many American rural counties, has been well-represented in the nation’s wars and during peacetime.
“As testimony to the local veterans’ service,” said Pavlock, “the county has placed a large monument on the courthouse lawn.”
On that monument’s base are engraved the years, 1812, 1861, 1865 and 1885. The wording reads: “They gave their lives that their country might live. To the defenders of their country and the county of McKean, this monument is affectionately dedicated.”
McKean countians continued to remember our servicemen’s and women’s sacrifices with the more recent memorial markers that were placed on the courthouse lawn in 1990 and 2006.
Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day from the custom of placing flowers on soldiers’ graves, is observed the last Monday in May.
Its origins date back to May 5, 1868, three years after the close of the Civil War, when Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, officially declared Memorial Day. In part, Logan’s order to decorate the graves said this should be done “with the choicest flowers of springtime.”
It was first observed later that month on the 30th, when the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers were decorated at Arlington National Cemetery.
