Posted by Wayne G. Barber
Starting in 1870, Henry C. Bowen, a businessman, hosted the country’s largest Fourth of July party in Woodstock, Conn., at his Roseland Cottage. The event featured many, many, many speeches; so many, that Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes tried to get out of going in 1877. Bowen didn’t drink, and President Ulysses S. Grant had to sneak a cocktail on the porch at the first party in 1870.
