Photo by Ellen Ferrera
Christmas Parade veterans Mary Ellison (shepherd) and Nancy Vail on parade day.

•December 7, 2016•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

Were you along the Sullivan parade route Saturday, Dec. 3 catching candy, listening to the bands and waving to people on the floats?

Now for me, the word “float” usually follows the words root beer so how did it come to be applied to these mobile creations?

They were so named because the first “floats” were decorated barges floating on the Thames for the Lord Mayor’s show.

Floats were first introduced in the Middle Ages when churches used pageant wagons as movable scenery for passion plays. The wagons were pulled through towns, mostly during Corpus Christi when up to 48 wagons were used, one for each play in the Corpus Christi cycle.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.