November 12, 1909 was a momentous day for the city of Middletown, as thousands of cheering, flag-waving residents lined the streets to enjoy a day full of pomp and circumstance and an evening full of dancing and fireworks.  The Hartford Courant covered every detail of the day’s festivities in a breathless, three-page spread under the subheading, “Middletown Sees the Greatest Day in its History.” Officials later estimated that the crowd was the largest ever assembled in Middletown in a single day.

The special occasion?  President William Howard Taft was coming to town.  Taft had been selected as the guest of honor and plenary speaker for the inauguration of the new president of Wesleyan University, William Shanklin, and his visit marked the first visit to Middletown by a sitting President of the United States in over 75 years.  (The city’s last presidential visitor had been Andrew Jackson in 1832.)

Not long after sunrise on November 12, President Taft and Vice-President James Sherman pulled into Middletown station via train, where they climbed into an open-top automobile and proceeded to Wesleyan University along a parade route crammed with cheering citizens.  The parade route had been opulently decorated with “forty triumphal arches of flags, hundreds of pictures and paintings of Taft and great streamers from house tops of the American colors” which, according to the Courant, “gave the city an appearance such as it never assumed before.”  President Taft’s motorcade was escorted by seventy-five Civil War veterans (all members of the Grand Army of the Republic veteran’s group) and was followed by the Governor’s Foot Guard, several fife and drum corps, and other patriotic organizations.

After Taft delivered an address lauding the contributions made by college graduates toward American society, he was presented with an honorary doctorate and joined his fellow dignitaries — along with plenty of Wesleyan alumni — for an evening banquet before being escorted back to the train station.  The festivities culminated in a grand fireworks display over the Connecticut River, marking the end to what was certainly one of Middletown’s most patriotic occasions, today in Connecticut history.

Further Reading

Steven Devoto, “From 1909: Taft at Wesleyan; Shanklin Installed,” The Middletown Eye news blog

Deborah Shapiro, “President Taft Day in Middletown,” Middlesex County Historical Society