Event Details
Powder House Day Comes to Wallingford on April 25th
On April 25th at 10 AM, the Wallingford Historical Society, as part of Wallingford’s America250 celebration, is sponsoring the Second Company Governor’s Foot Guard’s Powder House Day Re-enactment beginning at the Parsons House at 180 South Main Street. For the main ceremony, the 2CGFG and their entourage will march to the First Congregational Church where the Rev. Jonathan Edwards will bless the troops and thence march to the Town Hall where Captain Benedict Arnold will demand the Keys to the Powder House from the First Selectman (Mayor Vincent Cervoni) and from Colonel Wooster (former Mayor William Dickinson).At the end of the ceremony, there will be an open house until 3:00 PM at the Parsons House with a display of the history of the 2CGFG.
This being the 251st anniversary of the chartering of the 2CGFG in March 1775, of Arnold’s Demanding the Keys, and of the 2CGFG marching through Wallingford on its way to Boston to aid their brethren after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, it is the appropriate time for the event to be held in our historic town. In addition, there has been a long history of Wallingford men and women being in the 2nd Company as both enlisted personnel and officers, and even with the Wallingford National Band having served as the unit’s band in the late 1800s. The relationship continues to this day, as both the Commandant, Major Donald Rosadini, Jr. and the Executive Officer, Captain Steven Allinson are Wallingford residents, while several members of the Yalesville Fife & Drum Corps are in the unit’s band.
Please join us at 10 AM at the Parsons House at the start of this historic ceremony.
Captain Benedict Arnold Demanding the Keys to the Powder House 4-22-1775