The Dying Of The Light: Massachusetts Beach Bonfires On July 3rd (Archives)

Duxbury Beach, MA

July 4th is a special day in America. On that date in 1776, our Founding Fathers signed a Declaration of Independence from their English colonial masters. This declaration led to a lengthy Revolution which chased those Limey Poofters back to their silly little island, and it led to the birth of the United States of America.

One thing those Founding Fathers did right was that whole America thing. They did it so well, we're still celebrating. This is Independence Day #239 (ed. note: This is a 2015 article), and we should get a few more in before the Chinese call in their markers.

Until that day comes, we shall celebrate July 4th. The basic plan for celebrating our national birthday was laid down in 1776, by John Adams.

" I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

The last sentence of that statement is still the basic blueprint we follow today. If you have a bonfire, watch some TV, play some horseshoes, catch a baseball game, hit the gun range, attend Mass, and then go to a fireworks show.... John Adams called that shot 238 years ago, most likely right off the top of his head, too.

Today, we are going to focus on that Bonfire aspect. If you went on Family Feud and Steve Harvey asked you to name ways we celebrate July 4th, "Fireworks" would be #1, "Parades" would be #2... and after that, although it's a close race with "Cookouts," #3 would be "Bonfires."

Bonfires precede America, and actually go back to Caveman times. The English we chased away do a Guy Fawkes fire, and that tradition came to America with the settlers. George Washington himself denounced the practice, calling it a "ridiculous and childish custom." They got away from George's admonitions by just shifting the fires to July 4th.

Now, you may wonder how this tradition was allowed. London, Chicago, San Francisco, Lisbon and many other cities had been destroyed by fire. You are forgetting how hardcore Americans are. In 1903, there were 400 deaths and 4000 injuries nationwide relating to July 4th celebrations, most from children shooting firearms off. It was bad enough that doctors at the time regularly offered a diagnosis of "patriotic tetanus" for early July injuries and deaths. Your second leading cause of Patriotic Tetanus were injuries inflicted by Remember-the-Maine era recreational gunpowder fireworks.

Compared to missing limbs and children with guns, the idea of pushing the local rowdies onto an isolated beach with no combustible vegetation for a bonfire seemed like a pretty good idea. Fireworks were prohibited in most states, and fireworks shows became the realm of the municipality... or the realm of the guy willing to drive to New Hampshire and maybe smuggle back a little somethin-somethin'.

Some towns even took over the running of the bonfires, or banned them altogether. Boston took over the bonfires in 1915, and other towns followed suit. This gave the towns authority over July FOURTH fires, a distinction we'll discuss in a moment.

Gradually, the practice of bonfires faded away, especially in the west and mid-west parts of the country, which were tinderboxy after the Dust Bowl droughts. However, one section of the country, and you can probably guess who it is, held on tightly to the tradition. New Englanders are good like that. John Adams didn't invent those celebrations we quoted him on before. He just described the typical New England celebration.

Salem, known for her witches and hunts, is also known as the town who got the most into it. Cathedral-sized bonfires were regularly assembled on Gallows Hill, as the leftover wooden trash of both the shipbuilding era and the industrial era was regularly stacked and ignited. You can see a ten story bonfire on Gallows Hill right here.

However, Salem's fires were on an inland hill, so- as large as they are- they don't really count. We're talking about beach fires, and July 3rd.

New England's coastal residents resisted the town's claims on bonfires. They didn't beat cops or secede from the towns, although that wasn't very far away in some situations. They just took over a different night. It makes pretty good sense. If the town is having an official fire on the 4th, why not have one on the 3rd? Sh*t, you have the 4th off, and you need that down time after the 3rd. Gradually, the date of New England citizen fires shifted almost entirely to July 3rd.

I grew up on Duxbury Beach, which has a tradition of bonfires stretching back to her very inhabitation by white folk. You can get stories from the Old School about bonfires 100 feet high in celebration of VE and VJ Day. I can kick it from the 70s (this is Steve, by the way... Jessica, who is from Fairhaven, is visiting family in Florida this week), and our fires were giant and annual. They even did some good.

Beach communities suffer from nor'easters. Nor'easters aren't as bad as hurricanes, but hurricanes don't hit 2 or 3 times a winter. Nor'easters tear down decks, carry away stairs, smash up wooden lobster pots, expel driftwood, and generally clutter up the beach. Beach communities also "suffer" from gentrification, where yuppies buy up old people's summer cottages and build larger, year-round homes.

Much like the people of Salem, Duxbury Beach folk would feast upon the bounty of a bygone era. All of that wood was gathered up, de-nailed, and stacked in a sort of tipi-like structure. We built tipis instinctively, with not a Wampanoag among us. We didn't even have a Hindu-style Indian. By doing so, we cleared the neighborhood of clutter.

I was in charge of bonfire construction by the time I was 10, although by the time I was 10, I was nearly 6 feet tall and was frequently mistaken for a youthful-looking and somewhat slow adult. By the time I was able to drive, I would take a truck around the neighborhood, gathering wood. I would frequently have all of the neighborhood's children following me and helping as best they could. The tallest piece of wood became the center beam of the tipi, and everything else was stacked. I then soaked it in gas (even at 10 years old, I was in charge of this... remember, this was the 1970s) and ignited it by firing a Roman Candle into it from 20 feet away.

I later learned that I was not trusted with this responsibility because of the strength of my character, but rather because I was too young to be tried as an adult.

The town barely interfered. A cop- usually the late, great "Dirty" Harry Levine, who was a teacher in town during the winter- would wander over as the huge pile of wood began to appear on the beach. He made a point of loudly appreciating that we had a crew removing nails from the wood. He also would state that bonfires were illegal, the charge would be Disorderly Conduct, and that he would arrest us in an instant if he saw us lighting it. Harry also had 6 miles of beach to patrol, and you could easily track his location if you gave a kid some binoculars. Once he was X miles away at low tide, we had X minutes to assemble and ignite the conflagration.

Throw in a wealthy neighborhood (the typical ritual was that every house kicked in a $100, and someone went to New Hampshire... although my Dad was a Dorchester kid, and got his fireworks the Old School way, in Chinatown), and placid Duxbury Beach for one night would resemble Fallujah. The wood supply was enough that a mile stretch of Duxbury Beach and Green Harbor might have a dozen 25 foot fires, and copious fireworks explosions completed the illusion.

Duxbury Beach on the 3rd of July is probably my favorite place on Earth. I'll be there tonight, good Lord willing. The Lord is going to weigh heavily in tonight's celebration, as a dry neighborhood of wooden houses and crisp vegetation will host a series of drunk-powered fires (the passing of the Baby Boom emptied the neighborhood of children, and we tend to have smaller fires in larger quantity) as a stiff wind blows the sparks at the houses. Only the grace of God will keep the sparks off of the roofs, although the sea breeze goes away if you wait until dark to light the fire.

The funny part of the drunks-building-bonfires dynamic is that there has never been a fire related to the July 4th celebrations. Duxbury (the town) had their own fires for a while, and nearly torched the elementary school once in the late 1980s. Yes, a bunch of children and drunkards have never neared causing damage with their fires, while the town's DPW and fire department nearly burned down a the school and the library.

Other towns are not as fun as Duxbury.  Marshfield nixes fires, although it's a big town with a lot of beach and the locals still blaze one up now and then. Hull, Cohasset, and Kingston also disallow them. Quincy is in the papers this morning, as the fire chief is weighing the possible outcomes of drunken Hough's Neck fires in high winds near a densely packed urban area. 

Plymouth still has fires, as Manomet bonfires go back to the 1800s, and White Horse Beach can claim a 1777 starting date. Plymouth tried a ban in the 1980s, and police were pelted with rocks and fireworks by locals who didn't get a say in the decision to ban. Civil disobedience acts like building a pallet structure and not igniting it as an homage to bygone days began to spring up.Scituate made the papers when they put the Whammy on bonfires, and Humarock almost seceded from the town over it after police roughed up a 70 year old man in a confrontation.

I never made it to the Cape for the 3rd as a kid, and thus am publishing South Shore stories in a Cape Cod paper with not a single idea of how Cape Cod gets down on the 3rd. I suppose I can call some police departments, and maybe I will, but I don't like to draw attention to myself.

OK, I called Bourne PD, got a befuddled dispatcher, and she said no fires, no permit for fires, and she wasn't sure if any neighborhoods frequently violate the law. I'd guess that Scusset Beach might try something. Monument Beach, Pocasset, Cataumet and Mashnee are also fine spots for a little civil disobedience.

I called Sandwich, and it went straight to voice mail. Same with Falmouth. Brewster had an operator who transferred me to a Captain (while on hold, BPD plays rock music over the phone to me), and I went straight to his voice mail. I wasn't going to call 911 over it, so you'll just have to take your chances, people.

Duxbury, in theory, allows a bonfire with a $25 permit. I don't live there now, and I'm not sure who builds the fires on Duxbury Beach these days. Maybe I'll get to see the cops beat down some 2015 version of me. I'll get a few laughs out of it, but I'll also feel a bit winsome, as I'll be watching a centuries-old tradition die in front of me.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."