What's A Sestercentennial?

Sestercentennial is a word I've never come across before. My guess is that famous sesquipedalian William F. Buckley Jr. managed to work it into a conversation over the years, but I only gathered from the context of the story about The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere that appeared in the NYT on April 21, 2025 that it means the celebration, or acknowledgment of something from 250 years ago.  

And that is how long ago it was that Mr. Revere (born with a French name Rivoire, anglicized by his father) went galloping through the Massachusetts countryside announcing an impending invasion by the British. The American Revolution had begun.

The 16-mile ride was made after nightfall on April 18, 1775, but leave it to the NYT to acknowledge the 250th anniversary three days later. To their credit though they started the story on the first page of the first section below the fold, and jumped it further into the paper with four full color pages about the route and what Paul would have discovered today if people still traveled by horse through Massachusetts towns. Answer: diners, restaurants, a laundromat, pizza, and an Islamic Cultural Center. (The publication on April 21, 2025 did coincide with Patriots' Day in Boston, so there is that connection.)

As a youngster in the 1960s I collected stamps. Commemorative stamps were then and are still issued to acknowledge a milestone event, like 100 years, (a centennial); 150 years (sesquincentennial). Since the United States was not yet 200 years old in the 1960s, anything bicentennial was something for the future. And certainly sestercentennial was even further off.

Will there be a commemorative stamp for the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's ride? Turns out there will be. Can't seem to find it yet, but the U.S.P.S. did one for Betty White, so I guess Paul's is in the works.

A few years ago I attended a book singing at the Union Square Barnes and Noble overlooking the park,  where Caroline Kennedy and the artist Jon J. Muth were going to discuss and sign their collaboration "Poems to Learn by Heart." It was 2013 and Caroline entered wearing an orange caftan to a nice round of applause.

At that time Ms. Kennedy was doing work for the NYC public schools and became interested in poetry groups with the students. She and the artist and students put together a gorgeous book of 100 poems with watercolor illustrations by Mr. Muth.

"Casey at the Bat" is there; "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is there; even a couplet by Ogden Nash gets a page with an illustration. And of course "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" is there. 

Caroline recounted a story of being a kid at a family gathering when her Uncle Ted (Ted Kennedy, her father Jack's brother) would launch into a recitation of the Longfellow poem. The NYT story made me look at the book again and I was taken by how long "The Midnight Ride" is. Uncle Ted could not have possibly gotten much past the first stanza. Perhaps appropriately, there are 13 stanzas.

Now that there is a new grandchild in the family, I'm going to be giving the book to my daughter Susan and Matthew so that he too can learn of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."

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