When the Old Whaling Church’s bell rings five times in a row next Thursday July 4, Edgartown’s Independence Day Parade will step off from the Edgartown School and start their march.
“We step off, even if everyone isn’t ready,” said Joseph Sollitto, organizer of the parade for the past decade.
Starting the parade promptly at 5 pm was the only thing that Sollitto promised his predecessor, Fred B. “Ted” Morgan Jr., — a veteran that fought during the storming of Normandy — that he would do every year as organizer.
Sollitto will honor Morgan’s memory in another way next week. This year’s parade is specially dedicated to Morgan and all other D-Day veterans in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Morgan, who died at age 97 in 2019, served during World War II as a member of the 82nd Airborne’s 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and was a veteran of combat jumps and fought in Sicily, Holland, the Battle of the Bulge, and Normandy. He also served for 30 years on the Edgartown select board and was the longtime parade organizer.
“He was the town in a lot of ways,” Sollitto said. “He was very important to the community and very important to the country.”
This is the second time the town has dedicated the parade to Morgan; the first parade after he passed away also honored him.
Towards the end of his life, Morgan rode in a golf cart during the parade. This year, his uniform will be placed in the golf cart seat, which leads the parade and the rest of the Island’s veterans.
Sollitto, who served in the Marine Corps from 1965 to 1967 and started helping Morgan with the parade in 2001, took over as organizer after Morgan retired about a decade ago.
“I took over officially in 2014, but he always helped organize it. It’s still Colonel Morgan’s parade,” Sollitto said.
The parade is a joint operation between the American Legion Post 186, located next to the Katama General Store in Edgartown, and the Edgartown select board. In fact, Kristy Rose, administrative assistant to the select board, is known as “Sergeant Major” to Sollitto because she handles all letters, emails, and registrations about the parade.
Sollitto has held many positions on the Island. He served for over 40 years as the clerk of the Dukes County Superior Court, served on the police force, is a former Oak Bluffs town selectman, worked as an attorney in Edgartown, and even drove an Island tour bus. He came out of retirement in 2020 and is now counsel for the law firm of Brush, Flanders & Moriarty in West Tisbury.
The parade normally has 1,500 people in the march and about 25,000 people that watch from various points around Edgartown, Sollitto said.
Sollitto hopes for good weather at this year’s parade. Last year, James Hagerty, Edgartown town administrator, and Sollitto kept checking weather reports that said it wasn’t supposed to start raining until a little after 7 pm.
At 5 pm, the parade started on their way from the school.
“By the time we got a little past the jail, it started pouring,” Sollitto said.
“So far, so good,” Sollitto added about weather predictions for next week.
