Video: Norwalk Celebrates July 4

Norwalk's Independence Day celebration Monday on and around the Town Green included brief remarks on the history of Norwalk, remarks by the first African American member of the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution, and bell-ringing from the Congregational Church.

Town Clerk Andrew S. Garfunkel, dressed in the Revolutionary War-era garb of Samuel Grumman, who was town clerk during the Revolution , read the Declaration of Independence to the crowd.

Edward Eckert, co-chair of the July 4th Committee of the Norwalk Historical Society and a local historian, told the crowd of about 100 that thanks to Grumman's work in hiding the town records, Norwalk today has some of the oldest intact land records in Connecticut.

Autier Allen Craft, the first African American member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Connecticut, both spoke a bit about discovering that her ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and read out the names of the original states of the union as the church bells tolled, one ring for each of the 13 states.

Afterward, a rendition of Yankee Doodle was part of the day's events at nearby Mill Hill Historic Park.