reads in part as follows: “Resolved that the Congress of the United States, in recognition of the patriotic tradition set in motion one hundred years ago in the Village of Waterloo, NY, does hereby officially recognize Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day …” On May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed a Presidential Proclamation recognizing Waterloo as the Birthplace of Memorial Day.

Nonetheless, dozens of other places still lay claim, based on a variety of criteria, to being the true birthplace of the modern Memorial Day, and more recent historical studies have concluded that all of those claims (including Waterloo’s) are apocryphal:

According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly two dozen places claim to be the primary source of the holiday, an assertionfound on plaques, on Web sites and in the dogged avowals of local historians across the country. Yet each town seems to have different criteria: whether its ceremony was in fact the earliest to honor Civil War dead, or the first one that General Logan heard about, or the first one that conceived of a national, recurring day. Women in Boalsburg, Pa., which has a claim as the holiday’s birthplace, began decorating graves each year as early as October 1864. In and around Carbondale, Ill., according to the Jackson County Historical Society, there are two markers making such an assertion in two different cemeteries. James H. Ryan, a retired Army colonel, has descended into the Logan archives and come out with a strong case for the town where