Coolidge Birthday Celebration (redirected from Calvin Coolidge Birthday Celebration)

Coolidge (Calvin) Birthday Celebration

July 4

The village of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, contains what many consider to be the best preserved and most authentic of all presidential homesites. It was here that Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th president of the United States, spent his boyhood and was sworn in as president by his father following the death of Warren Harding in 1923. The Coolidge Homestead was donated to the state of Vermont by John Coolidge, the President's son, in 1956. The state eventually acquired his birthplace, the general store and post office owned by his father, the homes of his mother and stepmother, his paternal grandparents' farmhouse, the family church, and the cemetery where the President and six generations of Coolidges are buried.
On the Fourth of July each year, the anniversary of Coolidge's birth, there is a noontime march from the green near the Plymouth Post Office to the Notch Cemetery, led by a Vermont National Guard colorguard with a bugler and a chaplain. The White House sends a wreath, which is laid at the President's tomb. Townspeople, tourists, and descendants of the Coolidge family listen to a brief graveside prayer service followed by the playing of taps. Next to the President's grave are those of his father, his wife, and his son, Calvin Coolidge, Jr., who died at the age of 16 during his father's White House years.

CONTACTS:
Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation
P.O. Box 97
Plymouth, VT 05056
802-672-3389; fax: 802-672-3369
www.calvin-coolidge.org

SOURCES:
AmerBkDays-2000, p. 502

Celebration day: Jul 4