Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!
Gentle mistresses and most distinguished gentlemen:
Whereas the people of Alexandria, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in these United States of America, are generally obsessed with their city’s long history; and
Whereas Alexandria, founded in 1749, celebrates its heritage like there is no tomorrow; and
Whereas a bellowing bell-ringer in a tricorn hat, breeches, jabot and waistcoat almost always gets the party started right, or at least with a Colonial flair;
Now, therefore, the Office of Historic Alexandria does declare that the time is nigh to name a new town crier.
And so it was that on Wednesday night, in the historic Lloyd House on historic Washington Street in historic Old Town, a dozen wannabe Founding Father types — most in period clothing, some holding scrolls, one even wearing proper period spectacles — proffered their best oyezes at an open tryout for the unpaid position of Alexandria town crier.
The turnout was . . . historic.
“The last time we did this, in 2005, five people tried out,” marveled Lance Mallamo, director of the city’s Historic Alexandria operation. “I’m amazed we got 12 — and at the high quality of talent we have here.”
Though strictly ceremonial, the position, he said, is significant for a city “that likes to recall its heritage and historic traditions. ”
In the 18th and 19th centuries, town criers in Alexandria and elsewhere were used to relay news to their communities. City officials reclaimed the anachronistic position from history’s dumpster in the 1990s to infuse city council meetings, parades and civic anniversaries with a ceremonial sense of the old.
Enough other cities and towns have done the same that there is now a national guild for town criers. (New Jersey is apparently a hotbed.) There is even a town crier world championship.
There have been three town criers in modern Alexandria. The last, William North-Rudin, moved to North Carolina in 2010, leaving Mallamo — apparently a man of many tricorn hats — to serve as the stand-in while his agency worked on the Civil War sesquicentennial and other more pressing initiatives.
Mallamo thought there should be an open competition to replace North-Rudin, like a Colonial American Idol.
And so 12 men — young and old, black and white, most of them history buffs, all of them loud — appeared before a six-person judging panel at Lloyd House. They rang their hand bells and shouted ye ole interjection “Oyez!” (“oh yay” or “oh yes”) in triplicate, as is done at the Supreme Court before every session. Each applicant read a cry provided by the city and another that they were to have written themselves.
“Let it be known that on this day, September the seventh, in the year of our Lord two-thousand and eleven, his excellency Gen. George Washington, from his seat at Mount Vernon, has given his patronage and support to Mr. Andrew Mills of Stratford Landing in his bid to become the new town crier in the city of Alexandria,” Andrew Mills of Stratford Landing intoned, reading his original cry.
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