Since we’ve decided to stay in our lovely little carriage house, it’s only appropriate that I share this with you.

Apparently, New York City used to have a city-wide “Moving Day” every May 1 at 9am. All leases ended on this day and everyone moved. Davy Crocket witnessed it in 1834:

By the time we returned down Broadway, it seemed to me that the city was flying before some awful calamity. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘Colonel, what under heaven is the matter? Everyone appears to be pitching out their furniture, and packing it off.’ He laughed, and said this was the general ‘moving day.’ Such a sight nobody ever saw unless it was in this same city. It seemed a kind of frolic, as if they were changing houses just for fun. Every street was crowded with carts, drays, and people. So the world goes. It would take a good deal to get me out of my log-house; but here, I understand, many persons ‘move’ every year.

Apparently, this tradition continued until World War 2 when there weren’t enough men around to move everyone at once.

Luckily, we’ve got another year or so in our little, inconvenient, heavenly house.