A new documentary by Pittsfield Community Television traces the Massachusetts city’s 4th of July parade back to the turn of the 19th century.
With the procession canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Coordinator of Advancement and Community Production Bob Heck says the station wanted to find a different way to celebrate the holiday.
“We were excited to be able to find some really old newspapers, and the Pittsfield Sun – which was the paper of the time back in the early 1800s – on July 7th, 1801, they printed an article about a parade that happened in Pittsfield,” he told WAMC.
Previous efforts only established the parade’s origins back to 1804. “Fighting For Independence: The History of the Pittsfield Fourth of July Parade” is streaming at PittsfieldTV.org.
