WATERLOO, N.Y. — For many, Memorial Day means a long weekend, a good barbeque, and the start of summer. But when you trace the holiday’s roots, it started as a day of remembrance for those who died serving our country.

And by at least one account, the holiday started in the Finger Lakes region, in Seneca County. Waterloo is considered the birthplace of Memorial Day commemorations.

Cecily Park-Shiels, executive director of the National Memorial Day Museum in Waterloo, said Memorial Day started there in 1865, after the Civil War. It was the idea of a local pharmacist, Henry C. Wells.

Park-Shiels says Wells noticed a trend: “There was always parades for those that had returned but nothing really to honor those that had died.”

So with the help of a local general, Wells changed that. And that summer, the town shut down, lined the streets with black, and marched to the graves of those who had died.

Then, 101 years later, a congressman from Waterloo petitioned the president to find the origin of the holiday. “They did a lot of research and really it was our continuous year after year after year and kind of intentional memorialization that set us apart in the record books,” says Park-Shiels.

But some argue, despite President Lyndon Johnson’s proclamation, Waterloo wasn’t the first.

“In a tight-knit community, you know, back then those tight little communities – if you didn’t go to war, one of your neighbors went to war so this was on everybody’s mind,” says Susan Evans, a volunteer with the Boalsburg Heritage Museum in central Pennsylvania.

That’s another town that lays claim to the title, based on letters from a teenage girl named Sophie. When she went with a friend to her father’s grave, they came across another mourner.

“They exchanged niceties, and both being there for the same purpose also decided to offer flowers for each other’s loved ones’ graves,” says Bob Cameron, a Boalsburg history buff.

That was on paper for 1864, one year before Waterloo. But with so much loss, the act of decorating graves was recorded all across the nation.

“You had to find a way to deal with all of the death that was around — I mean, people just had to find a way to come together acknowledge their loved ones that were lost. And I mean, that’s the most critical thing,” says Evans.

Historians in both Waterloo and Boalsburg say it doesn’t really matter who was first. They say what does matter is remembering those who served.

“Remembering that ultimate sacrifice that people have made over the history of our country (and that) have given us these incredible freedoms that we get to enjoy,” says Cameron.

Folks from both towns tell News10NBC that celebrations always feel a little extra special and a little more serious in their towns than they do anywhere else.

In Waterloo, it got so serious that the town got a Guinness World Record title for the most flags in a small town — nearly 25,600 flags — a title it held until 2019.

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