Who is credited with first proposing a community Decoration Day in Waterloo, New York?

Henry C. Welles is credited with first proposing a community Decoration Day in Waterloo, New York.

Welles, a Waterloo druggist and village clerk, reportedly suggested in 1866 that local residents close businesses and decorate the graves of Civil War soldiers with flowers. Waterloo held an organized observance on May 5, 1866, and repeated it in later years.

The Waterloo tradition became nationally important after President Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the village as the birthplace of Memorial Day in a 1966 proclamation. That designation does not mean Waterloo was the only place honoring war dead; similar decoration ceremonies developed in many communities after the Civil War.

The Grand Army of the Republic later helped promote a nationwide Decoration Day. Its national observance began in 1868, giving the custom a broader and more formal identity.