On This Day In Alabama History: Joe Cain Was Born In Mobile

By Graydon Rust
Alabama 200

October 10, 1832

Joseph Stillwell Cain was born in Mobile. In 1866, Cain and six members of the Tea Drinkers Society, dressed in exaggerated Indian costumes, paraded through downtown Mobile in a decorated charcoal wagon while playing horns and drums. The parade was Mobile’s first Carnival celebration since before the Civil War and the first to move festivities from New Year’s Eve to the more traditional pre-Lenten period in February. Each year, Mobile honors Cain with Joe Cain Day, which is held the Sunday before Fat Tuesday and features “The People’s Parade” and Cain’s Merry Widows, who visit his burial site in mourning to lay a wreath and lament his loss.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.

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