Middletown 4th of July celebrates Abe's 200th

[July 03, 2009]  MIDDLETOWN -- Middletown residents are coming together to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial. Their celebration on Saturday will include some fun, family events celebrating the history of Middletown.

Saturday morning the Stagecoach Inn/Dunlap House and the Knapp Library Museum will open their doors at 10 for tours. At 10:15 a.m. the Stagecoach Inn will dedicate the Looking for Lincoln wayside exhibit. Following the dedication the park pavilion will have "Ceremonies in Celebration," which will include the posting of the colors by the Middletown Boy Scouts, the Pledge of Allegiance, "Honoring of Heroes" and retiring of the colors. Also there will be a dedication of the Surveyor's Rock, marking Abe Lincoln's survey of the Samuel Musick Salt Creek Ferry Road through Middletown to New Salem and Jacksonville: June 2, 1834. The Middletown Village Board will also dedicate the Middletown area as an Abraham Lincoln Historic Site.

Following a community lunch at the American Legion Hall, there will be two afternoon dedications. One will be for the granite marker at the oldest brick building in Logan County, the Knapp Library, and the other will be the dedication of the exterior sign at the library-museum, depicting Abe reading a book. The granite marker was made possible through a bicentennial grant from Main Street Lincoln's Looking for Lincoln program and the Illinois Bicentennial Commission. The exterior sign was made possible through a grant from the Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County and a donation from an anonymous Middletown resident. Logan County historian Paul Gleason will be at the afternoon dedication to speak on Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence.

The afternoon will end with entertainment at the park pavilion by Fealty 1974, and a presentation of Abe on the 8th Judicial Circuit given by brothers Bob and Chuck McCue.

Middletown celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2007, making the village the oldest community in Logan County.

[Text from file received from Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County]