Fort Ligonier Days parade: 'Family tradition' for generations

Ligonier native Debbie Castellan was watching the Fort Ligonier Days parade Saturday with her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson, while reminiscing what the parade was like growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.

“It was, like, 15 minutes long. We’d walk down the street and come back home,” said Castellan, a Crafton resident.

She renewed the family tradition this year, stationed along East Main Street with her daughter, Dawn Castellan of Crafton, her granddaughter, Alexis Donaldson of Crafton, and Donaldson’s son, 15-month-old Jaxson Laing.

In the almost 70-some years since then, the parade has grown to an hourlong affair.

It attracts thousands of people who cram themselves along the parade route stretching along East and West Main streets in downtown Ligonier. Fire companies from around the region participated, as well as high school bands from Ligonier to Hempfield Area to Morgantown, W.Va.

What makes the Fort Ligonier Days parade so popular, attracting visitors, bands and performers from a distance?

“It really shows the flavor of the region,” said J. Paul McCracken of Ligonier, one of the parade announcers. “They spend a year in planning. It is so well-organized and well-planned.”

Like the Castellans, it’s been a family tradition for Ligonier area native Elizabeth Murray, now of Latrobe, and her father, Randy Wissinger of Ligonier Township.

“We’ve been going for 35 years,” said Wissinger, recalling how years ago when he took his daughter, the parade would last two hours.

“It’s a yearly tradition,” one that Murray is introducing to her young daughters, Clara, 2, and Lacie, 7 months.

The thousands of people included not only those browsing the stores, but also buying merchandise.

For business owners like Cindy Purnell, of the Post and Rail Men’s Shop on the town’s Diamond, the crowds translated into sales.

“It’s a good day for business. A lot of people are coming in,” some regular customers and others for the first time, said Purnell, whose husband opened the business 51 years ago.

It was a good day not only for store owners, but the food booths operated by non-profit community groups.

It’s one of the biggest fundraisers for the Darlington Volunteer Fire Department, said Darlington Capt. Patrick McDowell.

“It’s been great — yesterday (Friday) and today,” McDowell said.

Joe Merenda of Ligonier Township was one of the many re-enactors at Fort Ligonier. He said he does it because he loves history.

“I live in the ‘Crucible of War,’” Merenda said, referencing Fred Anderson’s book, “Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766.” Covering the French & Indian War, the book includes the battle between British forces and French and Native Americans at Fort Ligonier on Oct. 12, 1758.

As a re-enactor, Merenda portrays a half-French half-Seneca Native American. In his daily life, he lives history in his 220-year-old house, built by one of the early settlers in the Ligonier Valley.

Re-enactment is a family affair — his wife, Beth Kennedy, portrays a white woman, Mary Ice, who was captured by the Senecas and who chose to remain with the Native Americans the remainder of her life.