New York first recognized Memorial Day as an official state holiday in 1873.
The recognition came five years after the Grand Army of the Republic issued its national Decoration Day order in 1868. Early observances were held under the name Decoration Day and centered on decorating the graves of Civil War dead with flowers and flags.
State recognition helped turn a collection of local commemorations into a more consistent public holiday. New York’s action still preceded federal standardization by nearly a century. The federal government later adopted the last-Monday-in-May schedule through the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, effective in 1971.
The date is sometimes confused with 1868, the year of the first national Decoration Day observance, or with 1971, when the modern federal Monday schedule took effect. Those dates mark different stages in the holiday’s development.