In short
The mayor writes that Independence Day is a chance to honor both the nation’s founders and the families who settled Syracuse. The column recounts the city’s farming origins and notes that Syracuse residents have served in every major conflict since World War I. It closes with a call to vote in every election and to learn who the candidates are, since the city is now far larger than it was when nearly every voter knew them.
Everything else
- The mayor writes that Syracuse residents focus in July on the freedom secured by veterans serving past and present, and on the pioneers who built the city’s foundation.
- The column connects the Homestead Act of 1862 to the city’s start: a 14-year-old David Cook walked here in 1876 and plowed the first furrow and sowed the first seeds of what became Syracuse.
- It describes the city’s early residents as farmers, tradesmen, blacksmiths, and later merchants who built homes, farms, and businesses.
- The mayor writes that the early patriots fought so families could worship freely, speak openly, gather without fear, and elect their own leaders, and cites Vermont’s Green Mountain Boys defending settlers’ rights and local control of land ownership and law.
- Syracuse has had residents serve in every major conflict the nation has entered since World War I.
- Thomas J. Thurgood was the first president of the Town Board in 1935, when the population was 837. Syracuse is now approaching 40,000 residents.
- The mayor writes that voters today are unlikely to know every candidate, that who gets elected has a significant effect on residents’ lives, and that everyone should get to know how they will be led and cast an informed ballot in every election.
- Mayor Dave Maughan’s contact information is listed: [email protected], 801-927-7752.
Unofficial digest of a city newsletter. The official version is linked below.
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