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After a three year absence, Town Day returns to Arlington on September 17th. Traditionally, this is a day where Arlington businesses and organizations set up booths in Arlington Center with sales and games, including our own Friends of Robbins Library Town Day book sale! But why do we hold a town day in the middle of September? The answer is because of the birthday of one of the United States’ most famous national symbols, Uncle Sam.
The man who is said to be the inspiration of Uncle Sam, Samuel Wilson, was born in Arlington, then known as Menotomy, on September 13, 1766. According to an article in the Arlington Advocate from September 8, 1966 about the 200th anniversary of Wilson’s birth, Samuel Wilson spent his early years in Menotomy as a messenger for the Minutemen and then enlisted with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. After the war ended in 1783, Wilson moved up with his family to Mason, New Hampshire and then in 1797, moved to Troy, New York where he would settle with his wife and children. He earned the nickname “Uncle Sam” in Troy because he would regularly assist workmen in their tasks. Wilson would later become the Meat Inspector for the State of New York, a role he would continue during the War of 1812. As packages of meat were sent to the waterfront to ship to the US Army, they would be stamped with E.A.-U.S., which some in Troy believed stood for Uncle Sam/Samuel Wilson instead of United States. Wilson would die on July 31, 1854, but his nickname and likeness would take a life of its own after his death. According to National Geographic, Political cartoonist Thomas Nast established a model of Uncle Sam in the 1870s that was later finalized by James Montgomery Flagg for military recruitment posters during World War I. While the image of Uncle Sam does not look like Wilson, many of Uncle Sam’s attributes came from observations of Wilson relayed by the Advocate which described him as regularly wearing “a top hat, long cutaway coat, and boots.”
During the 87th Congress of the United States, the legislature codified Samuel Wilson as being the inspiration for the symbol that is Uncle Sam and on his 200th birthday, both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Town of Arlington declared September 13, 1966 Uncle Sam Day. Ten years later, Uncle Sam’s legacy would be permanently honored in Arlington. On September 11, 1976, the Uncle Sam statue was installed in the Town of Arlington. The statue was designed by Theodore Barbarossa of Belmont, a former student of another famous Arlingtonian, Cyrus Dallin, and funded by the Arlington Jaycees and Frederick Houck. This was a process that actually began in 1961 with a design contest which Barbarossa won and then a completion of construction in 1976. After this construction, Selectboard Member Margaret “Peg” Spengler proposed an Uncle Sam Day Committee to plan for annual events of the Saturday closest to Samuel Wilson’s birthday. This would become Arlington’s Town Day which has occurred with the Friends Book Sale every year since every year since, skipping two years due to the pandemic.
Much of the information in this post comes from our Historical Arlington Newspapers Database which you can find on our E-Newspapers page. You can also discover more about Samuel Wilson in our Local History Room Collection. See our page for more information on how you can apply to use the room.
Sources Used
“Town Hall Roundup,” Arlington Advocate, p. 2 , September 16, 1976
“Uncle Sam Returns to Arlington,” Arlington Advocate, p. 1 , September 16, 1976
“Uncle Sam Day- September 13, 1966: 200th Anniversary of His Birth,” Arlington Advocate, p. 24 , September 8, 1976
“Uncle Sam Encyclopedia Entry,” National Geographic, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/uncle-sam