PARSIPPANY — Mount Tabor’s Children’s Day parade steps off at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, August 8, carrying this year’s theme, “Big Top Tabor.”
Mount Tabor was founded in 1869 as New Jersey’s first permanent Methodist camp meeting ground. Its tight rows of Victorian cottages are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the community governed itself under a state charter until 1980, when it formally became part of Parsippany-Troy Hills.
Children’s Day traces its roots to the community’s earliest years, when it began as a Sunday School parade. Over time it has grown into a multiday celebration featuring the coronation of a king and queen chosen from Mount Tabor’s youth, homemade floats, decorated bicycles and wagons, a midway, and live music, and remains a highlight of summer for residents of what many call “the hill.”
The Denville String Band, a concert and marching band based in neighboring Denville, will be in the line of march, according to its public performance calendar.
The celebration continues past the parade. The Mount Tabor Historical Society will open the Richardson History House at 32 Trinity Place for free tours from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 4:00 p.m. Sunday, August 9. The society can be reached at (973) 975-0001 and asks visitors to check its website before heading over in case of last-minute schedule changes.
