It Happened in Hillsborough: The Memorial Day Parade

In its May 14, 1972, edition, the New Brunswick Home News printed a two-paragraph notice headlined
“Hillsborough Plans 1st Memorial Parade.” According to the newspaper, the parade was scheduled for
Monday, May 29, was the official observance day that year. The parade would start at the high school and
finish at the old municipal building (where the Department of Public Works is today), and Mayor Marian
Fenwick would be the Grand Marshal. But was this truly Hillsborough’s first Memorial Day Parade?

The Memorial Day Parade

It seems only natural that we should look into and question Hillsborough Township’s history of
Memorial Day Parades, since the origin of Memorial Day itself is often questioned. The practice of
dedicating a day to remember fallen soldiers began during and especially immediately after the Civil
War. Many people and jurisdictions in both the South and the North claim to have been the original
practitioners of Decoration Day (as it was then known). Some point to the 1863 dedication of the
cemetery at Gettysburg as the first Memorial Day, while others link it to Lincoln’s assassination.

What we do know is that parades have been a part of the tradition since the 19 th century. The larger
Somerset County towns, such as Somerville and Bound Brook, held major parades on Decoration Day,
which was always on May 30 th until the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 moved the holiday to the
last Monday in May. Marchers would parade through downtown and end at one of the cemeteries,
where wreaths would be laid, and speeches would be made in memory of the heroic fallen.

And that gives us the first clue. Where would Hillsboroughians of the 19 th and early 20th centuries march
without a downtown? Past farmers’ fields? No, the people of Hillsborough enjoyed the parades in
Somerville, Bound Brook, and Manville.

After World War II, things changed. The Honor Roll at the old municipal building gave the Township
Committee a place to hold a memorial service each year. The first mention of a parade in the
newspapers is in 1955. The Neshanic Lions Club sponsored the event, which began in Neshanic Station
and ended at the Hillsborough municipal building.For the rest of the 1950s and 60s, the pattern was the same – a parade march through Neshanic Station
ending with wreath-laying in Hillsborough.

The May 29, 1972, parade was indeed the first to be held entirely in Hillsborough. And while the parade
route may have changed over the years, and the event expanded with the addition of the veterans'
breakfast, the sentiment remains the same. In Hillsborough, we reserve the last Monday in May to
humbly honor our fallen heroes.

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Gregory Gillette has been writing about local history for 20 years, starting with his Courier News column
“Gillette on Hillsborough” and continuing today with a Facebook page of the same name. A recipient of
the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission History Award for Education/Leadership in
2018, he was named as Hillsborough’s first Local Historian in 2025.