A vintage, rare, and quirky item.

This is a fob / key chain from Town Line, New York - a small town who seceded from the Union in 1861; and rejoined in 1946. As part of the rejoining festivities, Hollywood stars Cesar Romero and Martha Stewart went to Town Line - and Romero helped count the final votes to rejoin.

Town Line is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 2,367 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The community is located on the boundary between the towns of Lancaster and Alden. Town Line is notable for having held a nonbinding vote to secede from the United States in 1861, and for having held a ceremonial vote to rejoin the United States in 1946.

I'm unsure of the material type, it has a hard plastic like feel to it. Other examples exist if you do an internet search, although this is the only white colored fob I have been able to find.

Any questions just ask. Will ship with extra care.

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Courtesy History:

Sometime before the end of 1861, the men of a small New York hamlet gathered inside the village schoolhouse and voted 85 to 40 to sever ties with the United States. Seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union, but few could have imagined that this community 250 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line would also choose to leave the United States in one of the quirkiest episodes of the Civil War.

Although Town Line seceded from the Union, it never sought admission into the Confederate States of America, and Karen Muchow, archivist of the Alden Historical Society, says there is no documentary evidence that any of Town Line’s young men fought with the South in the Civil War.

Historians’ best theory rests on Town Line’s Civil War demographics. Many of its citizens at the time were poor farmers who had fled the violence and revolutionary unrest of Germany in the late 1840s. The war-weary refugees feared a prolonged Civil War could result in a draft that would force them onto the battlefields of their adopted homeland. “They wanted to be left alone to farm. They didn’t want the government interfering, and they certainly didn’t want to send their kids off to war and not have a choice about it,” Wang says. “These farmers got together in late 1861 understanding conscription is a real possibility and that people can vote to leave the Union, so they went ahead and did it.”

Then there is a possibility that the entire episode could have been a lark. An article in the February 11, 1861, edition of the Buffalo Commercial reported that Town Liners planned a vote for March 4, the date of Lincoln’s swearing-in, to form their own independent republic with their own president, cabinet members and foreign ministers. The following day, the Buffalo Courier reported the planned vote was a “very large” joke.

No matter the motive, the resolution carried no legal weight as Town Line was an unincorporated entity that straddled the towns of Alden and Lancaster. For decades to come, residents continued to pay taxes and ship their boys off to war. In fact, Wang says, Town Line, Alden and Lancaster all met their conscription goals during the Civil War.

The entire episode seemed to have been forgotten until a Buffalo newspaper reporter salvaged the story from the dustbin of history in 1945. Surprising to some, Town Line’s rebellious streak stubbornly persisted more than eight decades later. When a preliminary ballot was taken to rejoin the Union, 29 of the 30 voters opposed a reunion.

Town Line now had its own civil war, but residents agreed to consult a higher power—President Harry Truman. “Town Line still is outside the Union and is in turmoil over factional differences,” a group of citizens wrote to the president. “Both sides have agreed to abide by your decision.” In response, Truman seemed to imply that a blood sacrifice was in order. “I would suggest the possibilities of roast veal as a vehicle of peace,” the president wrote. “Why don’t you run down the fattest calf in Erie County, barbecue it and serve it with fixin’s in the old blacksmith shop where the ruckus started?”

Heeding the presidential advice, the community slaughtered a 190-pound fatted calf and declared January 24, 1946, a public holiday and the date for a vote on whether to return to the United States. As a frosty wind lashed a Confederate battle flag waving overhead, Town Liners gathered inside a sagging, wooden blacksmith shop decorated in red, white and blue bunting to lunch on barbecue veal sandwiches and coffee.

Following the dedication of the hamlet’s principal intersection as Truman Square, the crowd paraded to the volunteer fire house as the Lancaster High School band played “Swanee River” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” There they watched the world premiere of the 20th Century Fox film “Colonel Effingham’s Raid” in which a retired Army officer fights to save his Southern town’s Confederate monument. The movie studio dispatched stars Cesar Romero and Martha Stewart to Town Line for the festivities even though they didn’t appear in the film. “It just added a little glamour to the whole thing,” Muchow says.

Returning to the blacksmith shop, which was once the schoolhouse in which their forefathers severed ties with the Union, Town Line residents cast their votes on whether to reverse the decision. After 113 residents deposited their secret ballots into a wooden box on top of the same desk on which the articles of secession reportedly were signed, the ballot box was handed to Romero. The actor best known for playing the Joker on the 1960s TV show “Batman” counted the ballots and announced the results.

The North had won again.