The History of Thanksgiving
by Dr. Paul Jehle

            When the Pilgrims and Native Americans had their three day Feast, probably in October of 1621, there were approximately 140 people, yet only four adult Pilgrim women were still alive after the first winter to host the meal! Over 90 men, with Massasoit, chief of the Womponoags, joined the feast and brought much of the food. It was a Thanksgiving meal that included fowl, deer, sea bass, wild turkeys and maybe popcorn!

            Of course, Plymouth is not the first place, nor are the Pilgrims the first people, who gave thanks on these shores. St. Augustine claims it fifty years before the Pilgrims, and Berkeley Hundred plantation says it had a Thanksgiving day two years before the Pilgrims arrived. Of course, the Wompanoags themselves gave thanks to the Great Spirit for hundreds of years before the Pilgrims or any European ever arrived. So how did Thanksgiving become so popular as an American holiday?

            What makes Thanksgiving in Plymouth unique are its English roots and the fact that it was held in racial harmony with the natives. Prayers of thanksgiving were offered for a good harvest. Among the Pilgrims, fast days were called for special prayers during a crisis, and when answered, Thanksgiving days were called. The Pilgrim Thanksgiving of 1621 was patterned more after the harvest festival in England, however. It was a time of giving thanks to God, with the Native Americans, and included a feast for three days along with athletic games and contests. We are truly the first place where Thanksgiving was held with these characteristics. Edward Winslow’s description is as follows.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.”

            From 1621 to 1800, more than 300 days of prayer and/or thanksgiving were called in New England; averaging more than two a year. They weren’t always called in November, however, and were not identical to the original harvest festival celebrated by the Pilgrims. The first national days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed during the American Revolution. In fact, a national Thanksgiving was proclaimed each year during our fight for independence. These days were much like the original thanksgiving days of Pilgrim times, thanking God for specifically answered prayers, but did not include a feast or harvest festival.

            George Washington, in response to a request by the first Congress, proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving in November of 1789 as one of his first acts under our new Constitution. He stated in part:

"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor...
I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war..."

            But it was Abraham Lincoln whose proclamation during the Civil War for Thanksgiving gave rise to an annual Thanksgiving day in November. His proclamation for November 26, 1863 states, in part:

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."

            For 75 consecutive years, Presidents proclaimed annual Thanksgiving Days in November. They took on the characteristics of both a harvest festival as well as answered prayers for the many blessings we have received as a nation. In 1939 FDR changed the holiday to the third Thursday in November to satisfy merchants who wanted more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but this was officially changed by the Congress in 1941 back to the fourth Thursday in November. In 1956, the Congress officially established our national motto as “in God we trust”, put “under God” in our pledge, and established the National Day of Prayer in May.

            The committee for America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Celebration, along with its parent organization, Plymouth Rock Foundation, want to wish each one who participates and visits us the weekend before Thanksgiving, in the tradition of our nation, thank God for His manifold blessings to us as Americans.