This is the house (image 1) of Daniel W. Gooch (image 2), who had been elected Congressman from Melrose in 1858. On July 18th, 1860, Gooch convened a meeting here where the Melrose Wide Awake club was organized (image 3). The Wide Awakes were a paramilitary group formed in 1860 by the Republican Party to recruit and educate young men in the abolitionist cause.
Melrose would have two Wide Awake units: the Melrose Lincoln guard, infantry, and a horse guard, each with about 45 men. No photo of the Melrose group survives, but they were described once as wearing “black caps with red stripes and black capes” with a silk banner that read “Protection to Industry—Free Homesteads and Free Men.” Like all Wide Awake groups, they would have carried whale oil lanterns and banners bearing images of wide open eyes.
On the evening of October 4th, 1860, Wide Awake units from throughout the area were invited to gather in what is today Bowden Park (image 4), just across from Gooch’s house and next door to the Melrose train depot. The Wide Awakes lit hundreds of lanterns and paraded through the neighborhood to the sound of drums. Gooch’s home, along with others in the neighborhood, were “brilliantly illuminated,” and fireworks were lit. Governor Nathaniel Banks and others gave speeches. At the end of the night, Gooch invited over 1200 people to file through his house to partake in a feast.
If that number is correct, this was the largest political event in Melrose history until Saturday, June 7, 2020, when a similar number of people gathered for a standout in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Some Melrosians were wide awake in 1860, and some were woke in 2020; the question of whether Black lives mattered was the common thread.
As for the Melrose youth who marched with the Wide Awakes in 1860, within five years about a quarter of them would be dead. The cause of death in all cases was white supremacy.
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