Tercentennial Rooster Rally Ready To Start Crowing On Main Street

The planning has begun for Tercentennial Rooster Rally to be held in June along Main Street. The exact time and date is yet to be set while the committee works to organize the event.

The Rooster Rally will showcase Newtown’s love of the rooster. The community will have the opportunity to share rooster paraphernalia and artifacts, paintings, drawings, etchings, sculptures, all sorts of renditions of Newtown’s favorite feathered friend.

Perhaps second only to the Newtown Flagpole, the rooster on top of the Newtown Meeting House is one of the most famous symbols of Newtown. History says that at least 30 years after the Meeting House was built, a “bell free” (as spelled in the meeting journals) was added to the 50-by-36 by-20-foot- high meeting house and 20 years later a bell was added for convening citizens to town meetings and church assembly. Up until then, citizens were called to participate at meetings by a paid drummer. There is no indication when the rooster arrived on its perch but it is known that he was there well before the Revolutionary War. Local accounts claim that the French soldiers took potshots at the weathervane.

What is well known, however, is that in 1955 when Newtown was celebrating its 250th anniversary, Robert Hallock, one of the town’s artists, designed an official town seal for the town and he used the rooster as the centerpiece of the round seal. The town seal was duly adopted and used and is still in existence and in important use on a daily basis in the town clerk’s office, the Board of Selectmen’s office as well as on most Newtown documents and publications.

Tom Catalina and Mae Schmidle, vice chairman of the Tercentennial, are coordinators of the Rooster Rally. They have already been contacted by a number of community organizations and citizens who want to participate.

The Newtown’s Woman’s Club is interested in showing its rooster quilt project and offering for sale rooster pins; The Rocking Roosters, a square dance group, would like to perform; the Parent Connection has ordered ceramic roosters for decorating and also for auction as benefit for the tercentennial; the Children’s Adventure Center will hold a rooster poster contest for elementary and middle school students; the Park and Recreation famous yellow rooster will pay a key role in the festivities; several requests have been received from youngsters and adults who would like to bring and show their family pet roosters; a couple of artists have offered to paint and display rooster paintings; local photographers are also interested; coordinators are talking to the student government at Newtown High School about designing a poster to advertise the event; the Newtown Chamber of Commerce will be participating; and, rumor has it, a six-foot perambulating yellow rooster will be in sight to behold on Main Street.

Mr Catalina and Ms Schmidle urge any groups or individuals (age is no barrier) who want to join the rooster festivity fun to drop a short letter or note to Tercentennial Rooster Rally, Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470.