Considering the Cannon

     It’s not everywhere that a wedding can be celebrated with cannon fire, but in Oysterville such an event is possible – especially if the mother of the bride is one of the founding members of The Honorary Oysterville Militia.  So, when the groom asked that the cannon be used to begin festivities following last Saturday’s wedding… BOOM!  A done deal!
     Oysterville has a long history of celebrations marked by cannon fire.  According to my esteemed late Uncle Willard Espy’s account in Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa’s Village, in the 1870s R.H. Espy would don special black broadcloth pants, a maroon and black brocaded vest, a light linen duster, a stiff shirt with boiled bosom, a stiff collar, a bow tie, and a beaver hat and would discharge the cannon to begin festivities such as the annual regatta.
     There are accounts that Oysterville’s original cannon was blown to bits by a rowdy group of midnight revelers, so for several generations we had to make do with only the stories about it.  Hardly satisfactory thought Nyel.  We happened to be in Gettysburg a few years before Oysterville was to observe the sesquicentennial year of its founding, and all those cannons on display prompted Nyel to make inquiries.  He learned that for a mere ten or twelve thousand dollars Oysterville, too, could once again have a cannon.
     We pondered…  and on the long road trip back home we conceived the idea of forming The Honorary Oysterville Militia.  We would sell commissions to our friends and relatives and buy the cannon with the proceeds.  General Nyel was the first to invest.  The plan was successful beyond our wildest expectations and in early 2003 a replica 1841 mountain howitzer was ordered from Cannon Ltd. in Coolville, Ohio. It arrived in the spring of 2004, just in time for Oysterville’s 150^th celebration.  We’ve been celebrating ever since!