FEDERAL PROCESSION: INTRODUCTION

The arrangements committee requested that one member from each
branch of the mechanics meet on 5 July. Since a member from each
branch of the mechanics did not attend the meeting, the committee
would call again for those who had not attended (or who had not
contacted the committee) to get in touch with the committee. The
committee clearly wanted the widest range of mechanics. (See "Com-
mittee of Arrangements to New York City's Mechanics Concerning
Their Participation in the Procession," 3-15 July, below.)
Individual groups of mechanics and tradesmen announced their
plans for the procession by advertising in the city's newspapers begin-
ning on 4 July. These groups included (in the order that they ap-
peared in the published advertisements) house carpenters; white-
smiths and blacksmiths; master printers and booksellers; members of
the Marine Society; merchants and traders; master tailors; cordwai-
ners; physicians; and schoolmasters. The Marine Society noted in its
advertisement that "All strangers, Masters of Vessels, are particularly
invited to join the Society on this occasion." (For these advertise-
ments, see "Advertisements for Meetings of Mechanics and Trades-
men," 4-22 July, Mfm:N.Y.)
On 7 July the Daily Advertiser announced that the procession had
been postponed from 10 July to 22 July (below). On 16 July a com-
mercial agent reported that the procession had been postponed again,
this time from 22 July to 23 July, "in order to give the Jews an oppor-
tunity to Join in the festivals, the 22nd being one of their holidays"
(Peter Collin to Nicholas Low, below. See also Adrian Bancker to Evert
Bancker, 20 July, III, above.). The date of July 23 was now definite.
According to Richard Platt, "Such was the Ardor of our fellow Citizens
on this account, that they could not be restrained, till our State had
come in" (to Winthrop Sargent, 8 August, III, above).
On 22 July the New York Packet published the "Order of Procession"
and the "Orders for the Day of Procession," both of which were also
printed as broadsides. The broadsides are printed under 23 July (be-
low).
At 8 A.M. on 23 July, the procession's participants, about 5,000 of
them, assembled at "the Fields," now City Hall Park. The procession,
the line of which would extend for a mile and a half, began when the
Ship Hamilton, which had a captain and a crew of about thirty on a
stage pulled by ten horses, fired a thirteen-gun salute at 10 A.M. Fol-
lowing a route prescribed in the "Orders for the Day of Procession,"
the procession-led by horsemen with trumpets and an artillery com-
pany-had ten divisions in honor of "the ten States that had then
acceded to the New Constitution." The first eight divisions consisted

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