New Year's Eve history

Since at least 1879, with Adam Ludy and other Harrington pioneers, three simple words, Happy New Year, have echoed through the locale. Some winters, the greeting was delayed when heavy winter snows prevented people from circulating. In 1889, a Harrington news item bemoaned the new year with “Christmas is now over and the New Year is here with its many adversities and prosperities.” Once the town of Harrington was established, well before its incorporation in 1902, people would meet and greet on the earthen streets or boarded sidewalks in town. The early towns generally celebrated New Year’s Ev...