Proclamation of Thanksgiving by the President of the United States of America [Lincoln]

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of [something is missing here].

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore.

Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

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, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/thnksref.htm

PRIMARY SOURCES FOR
THE "FIRST THANKSGIVING"

There are only two references to the fall or harvest celebration that we know today as the "First Thanksgiving." It is not known exactly when the event occurred, but it was between September 21or 22 when a group of Plymouth men returned from Massachusetts, and November 9, 1621, when the ship Fortune arrived. "Mourt" refers to the name "G. Mourt" who signed the dedication at the beginning of the book. It is thought that this was George Morton, who arrived on the Anne in 1623.

"Our Corne did proue well, & God be praysed, we had a good increase of Indian Corne, and our Barly indifferent good, but our Pease not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sowne, they came vp very well, and blossomed, but the Sunne parched them in the blossome; our harvest being gotten in, our Governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a more speciall manner reioyce together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst vs, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with some nintie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed fiue Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed upon our Governour, and upon the Captaine, and others. And although it be not alwayes so plentifull, as it was at this time with vs, yet by the goodneses of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

E.W., Plymouth, in New England, this 11th of December, 1621. in A RELATION OR Iournal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in NEW ENGLAND, by certaine English Aduenturers both Merchants and others. LONDON,Printed for Iohn Bellamie,..1622. pp. 60-61.

(modern version) Our corn did prove well, and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our pease not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown, They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom.

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, among 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 upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

Edward Winslow, Dec. 11, 1621, in A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Mourt’s Relation: A Relation or Journal of
the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by certain English
adventurers both merchants and others.) Dwight Heath, ed. New York:
Corinth Books, 1963, p. 82.

"They begane now to gather in ye small harvest they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings against winter, being well recovered in health & strenght, and had all things in good plenty; for some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, & other fish, of which yey tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer ther was no wante. And now begane to come in store of foule, as winter aproached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degree). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they took many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corne to yt proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not fained, but true reports."

William Bradford. "Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation." Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers... 1898. p. 127.

(modern version)They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwelling against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.

William Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation. Samuel Eliot Morison, ed. New York: Knopf, 1952. p.20

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/alternat.htm

CLAIMANTS FOR "THE FIRST THANKSGIVING"

April 3, 1513 - (Ponce de Leon)

"The very first Thanksgiving in what is now the United States took place when Juan Ponce De Leon landed in Florida during the Easter season of 1513"

Dr. Michael Gannon, Associate Dean, University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. UPI release 11/25/85

May 23, 1541 - (Coronado)

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado camped along the Palo Duro in Texas Panhandle, had service of Thanksgiving.

Feast of First
Thanksgiving-1541
__________________

Proclaimed by padre
Fray Juan De Padilla for Coronado
and his troops in Palo Duro Canyon
79 years before the Pilgrims
_____________________

Marker Placed by Texas Society
Daughters of the American Colonists
1959

June 30, 1564 - (de Laudonnière)

Rene de Laudonnière recorded: "On the morrow about the break of day, I commaunded a trumpet to be sounded, that being assembled we might give God thankes for our favourable and happie arrivall. Then wee sang a Psalme of thankesgiving unto God, beseeching him that it would please him of his grace to continue his accustomed goodnesse toward his poore servaunts, and ayde us in all our enterprises, that all might turne to his glory and the advancement of our King. The prayer ended, every man began to take courage." (Hakluyt, vol. IX, p. 16)
Marked at Fort Caroline Memorial on St. Johns River (wiped out by de Aviles 1565).

September 8, 1565 (Menendez De Aviles)

"I would be inclined to focus on September 8th when, 420 years ago, Pedro Menendez De Aviles held a service, attended by Indians, at which he gave thanks for the founding of St. Augustine, "Gannon said. "This was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land."

Dr. Michael Gannon, Assoc. Dean Univ. of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences UPI release 11/25/85

May 27, 1578 (Martin Frobisher)

Newfoundland, "in the last of his three unsuccessful attempts to find a northwest passage, celebrated the first thanksgiving North America on the shores of Newfoundland—and Rev. Wolfall conducted the service..." Mayflower Quarterly, November 1995, p. 282.

April 30, 1598 (Juan de Onate)

El Paso. Expedition of 1598, 400 conquistadors, 130 w. wives and children 7000 head livestock, 80 ox carts "A scouting troop went ahead of the party, heading north toward the Rio Grande River. According to an epic poem by poet Gaspar Perez de Villagra, who joined the scouting troop, they were soon beset by a lack of food and water. When they finally reached the river on April 30, 1598, they held a feast of thanksgiving, and some of the soldiers performed a play depicting their success, Hall said." Sheldon Hall, president of El Paso Mission Soc. in Kelley Griffin, "Turkey or Tacos?" May 7, 1990, Quincy Patriot Ledger p.1

April 29, 1607 (Rev. Robert Hunt)

Jamestown "When they first arrived in Virginia on April 29, 1607, they came ashore at Cape Henry, erected a wooden cross in the dunes, and a service was conducted by Reverend Robert Hunt." Jim Hollomon, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation 12/21/1982 letter to Carolyn Freeman Travers. (The actual record does not mention Hunt's alleged service: "The nine and twentieth day, we set up a Crosse at Chesupioc Bay, and named that place Cape Henry." (George Percy, "Observations ..." in Edward Arber Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, I: lxiii)

August 9, 1607 (Popham)

George Popham arrived on Kennebeck [now Phippsburg, ME], Rev. Richard Seymour had service of thanksgiving for safe voyage to Maine.

"Sondaye being the 9th of Auguste in the morninge the most pt of our holl company of both our shipes Landed on theis Illand the wch we call St. Georges Illand whear the Crosse standeth and thear we heard a Sermon delyvered unto us by our preacher gyvinge god thanks for our happy metinge & Saffe aryvall into the Contry & So retorned abord again." Charles H. Levermore, Forerunners and Competitors of the Pilgrims and Puritans (Brooklyn: The New England Society), I, 368

June 10, 1610 (Jamestown)

De La Warr arrives with saving provisions, meets Sir Thomas Gates & population heading for Newfoundland and turns them back ( Captain Brewster in longboat sent on ahead to do this) service of thanksgiving conducted by Rev. Richard Bucke..(again, the original records do not support the "thanksgiving" supposition as has been claimed...)

December 4, 1619 (Berkeley)

Captain John Woodleaf held service; "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god." perhaps in 1620, 21, wiped out 1622. It was a private event, limited to the Berkeley settlement.

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/firstT.htm

The "First Thanksgiving": Facts and Fancies

The event we now know as "the First Thanksgiving" was in fact neither the first occurrence of our modern American holiday, nor was it even a 'Thanksgiving" in the eyes of the Pilgrims who celebrated it. It was instead a traditional English harvest celebration to which the colonists invited Massasoit, the most important sachem among the Wamapanoag. It was only in the nineteenth century that this event became identified with the American Thanksgiving holiday.

The association of the Pilgrims with the Thanksgiving holiday has a complicated history. The holiday itself evolved out of a routine Puritan religious observation, irregularly declared and celebrated in response to God's favorable Providence, into an single, annual, quasi-secular New England autumnal celebration. The first national Thanksgiving was declared in 1777 by the Continental Congress, and others were declared from time to time until 1815. The holiday then reverted to being a regional observance until 1863, when two national days of Thanksgiving were declared, one celebrating the victory at Gettysburg on August 6, and the other the first of our last-Thursday-in-November annual Thanksgivings. Although the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest celebration had been identified as the first American Thanksgiving as early as 1841 by Alexander Young, the common Thanksgiving symbolic associations in the 19th century centered on turkeys, Yankee dinners and an annual family reunion, not Pilgrims. The now famous 1621 event had been in fact entirely forgotten until the 1820s, when the full text of Mourts Relation (1622) with the reference to the feast was rediscovered. Mention of the Pilgrims brought the Landings or Myles, Priscilla, and John to mind, not Thanksgiving.

Moreover, whenever a Pilgrim, or more accurately, a generic 17th-century puritan image appeared in popular art in connection with Thanksgiving during the nineteenth century, it was not the now familiar scene of English and Indians sitting down to an outdoor feast. On the contrary, the image almost always portrayed a violent confrontation between colonist and Native American. It was only after the turn of the century, when the western Indian wars were over and the "vanishing red man" was vanishing satisfactorily, that the romantic (and historically correct) idyllic image of the two cultures sitting down to an autumn feast became popular. By the First World War, popular art (especially postcards), schoolbooks and literature had linked the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving indivisibly together, so much so that the image of the Pilgrim and the familiar fall feast almost ousted the Landing and older patriotic images from the popular consciousness. This alliance also deflated Forefathers' Day, which sank in to insignificance even in Plymouth itself.

The Pilgrims and the "First Thanksgiving"

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Thanksgiving was more commonly symbolized by its New England origins and its chief dinner constituent, the turkey, than by the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest celebration. In addition to the rural New England theme, there were a diversity of contemporary and historical illustrations and stories, including Thanksgivings on the battlefield, down south with African-Americans and in the urban slums, as well as a few generic colonial New England (and Old England) Puritan images. It is surprising to note that when the colonists are represented, they are less likely to be sharing their feast with their Native American neighbors, than illustrating European and Native American conflict, indicated by a hail of arrows! Apparently the very real dangers of the Indian Wars in the West produced a sense of fear and guilt which was expressed in this fashion, in graphic contrast with the familiar peaceful autumn pastorals that we associate with the holiday today. It was only after the wars were over that a sentimental regard for the satisfactorily "vanishing Red Man" provoked a national change of heart in which Jennie Brownscombe could create her idyllic "First Thanksgiving" (1914). Even then the image of the Thanksgiving "Pilgrim-puritan" fleeing a shower of arrows retained a popular appeal.

The association between Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims had been suggested as early as 1841 when Alexander Young identified the 1621 harvest celebration as the "first Thanksgiving" in New England, but their importance among the holiday's symbols did not occur until after 1900. It was then that the familiar illustrations of Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down to dinner in peace and concord appeared widely in calendar art and on patriotic murals. The real New England Thanksgiving, as is shown in the 1777 proclamation, bore less of a resemblance to our modern holiday than the feasting and games of the Pilgrim harvest celebration. But when the Victorians were looking for the historical antecedent of the contemporary Thanksgiving holiday, the Pilgrim festival with its big dinner and charitable hospitality seemed the perfect match. The fact that the 1621 event had not been a Thanksgiving in the Pilgrims' own eyes was irrelevant. The Pilgrim harvest celebration quickly became the mythic "First Thanksgiving" and has remained the primary historical representation of the holiday ever since. The earlier Pilgrim holiday, Forefathers' Day (December 21st, the anniversary of the Landing on Plymouth Rock), which had been celebrated since 1769 faded in importance as the Pilgrims increasingly became the patron saints of the American Thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims were cast in their Forefathers role to provide an example of the close-knit, religiously inspired American community that people worried about the decline of basic values during the First World War period wished to instill in their descendants. While retaining their Victorian symbolic virtues, the Pilgrims became usable history for generations of school children, and played an important part in the Americanization of the Northern and Eastern immigrants entering the country. New elements and a new theme supporting this role were added to the Pilgrim Story as the Pilgrims acquired their most recent and important popular association: the Thanksgiving holiday. A modern image, the First Thanksgiving, showed Pilgrim families sitting down to a pastoral celebration with the Native Americans in eirenic harmony, thus symbolizing the potential for unity of different ethnic background.

Equally important at the turn of the century was the inspirational image of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans sharing their communal meal in harmony. The country was seriously concerned over immigration and the problems surrounding the integration of the new citizens into American culture. The Thanksgiving image of dissimilar ethnic communities co-existing amid peace and plenty was an irresistible symbol. The Pilgrims became the exemplary immigrants whose Protestant virtues made them the preferred model for all later arrivals. Americanization programs, which were intended to socialize the new immigrants by instilling in them the values and beliefs of "real" Americans, made good use of the symbols and ideals of Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims. By 1920, when the Pilgrims' 300th anniversary celebration elevated them to the pinnacle of their fame, their role as Thanksgiving icons and the "spiritual ancestors" of all Americans became permanently fixed in the American psyche.

Also, you might like to see Thanksgiving in American History for more information on this "Pilgrim Holiday."

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/th-bradp.htm

Governor Bradford’s Alleged First Thanksgiving Proclamation

For some years, a document (reproduced below) described as Governor Bradford’s first Thanksgiving proclamation has surfaced periodically. It is supposed to date from 1623, which is indeed the year of the first Day of Thanksgiving proclaimed in Plymouth Colony. However, there are a number of problems with this identification:

The date of celebration was given as November 29, while the 1623 event happened in the summer, most probably the end of July.
The 1623 event celebrated two events - the end of a drought, and the news that a ship carrying new colonists, feared sunk, was safe and in transit. It had nothing to do with the harvest, activities of Native Americans, pestilence or the establishment of the church.
Plymouth Colony had no pastor at this time; the religious leader was Elder William Brewster.
The proclamation included anachronistic terms such as vegetables, Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock..
Based on the internal evidence, the proclamation was probably created sometime in the early 20th century. We have yet to trace its origin with any more accuracy. If anyone knows or finds any datable printed source which would help us, please email us at this adddress: jimbaker@adelphia.net

"THE FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION"

"In 1623, William Bradford, the first Governor of the Colony, wrote a proclamation containing the spirit of the first Thanksgiving.

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and garden vegetables, and made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from the pestilence and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all his blessings.
William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/th1.htm

Thanksgiving in American History - Part 1

Our Thanksgiving holiday has its origin in the Puritan Thanksgivings of colonial New England. Both the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Boston Puritans were strict Calvinist protestants who rejected the religious calendar of holidays that the English people inherited from the Middle Ages. They believed that Christmas, Easter and the Saints' days were not part of a true Christian church, but man-made inventions which should be discarded. Instead, they observed only the three religious holidays for which they could find New Testament justification; the Sunday Sabbath, Days of Fasting and Humiliation and Days of Thanksgiving and Praise.

Re-creating Your Own Pilgrim Thanksgiving Worship Service

The Fast Day and the Thanksgiving Day holidays were essentially two sides of the same coin. Thanksgivings marked favorable ("mercies"), and Fast Days unfavorable ("judgements") circumstances in community life. They were declared in response to God's Providence, as the faithful believed that God's pleasure or displeasure with his people was signaled by worldly events. Both were scheduled on this contingent basis and were never assigned fixed positions in the calendar. However, Fast Days more often occurred in the spring (when there was nothing much to eat anyway), and Thanksgivings were usually declared after the harvest in the autumn. Thanksgivings or Fast Days could be declared at any time by individual churches, towns or the colonial governments. There could be more than one in a single year or none at all. Unlike the Catholic or Anglican Thanksgivings, they were never on Sunday to avoid conflict with the Sabbath. They usually fell on the weekday regularly set aside as "Lecture Day," which was Wednesday in Connecticut and Thursday in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Lecture Day was a mid-week church meeting (often coinciding with the market day) when topical sermons were enjoyed by the colonists.

Despite a number of claims for a chronological "First Thanksgiving" from other parts of the country such as Virginia, Florida and Texas, the holiday we know today evolved directly from this New England tradition. Strictly speaking, there never was a "First Thanksgiving" in the sense of a particular celebration that initiated the regular observance of the holiday we know today. The famous 1621 Pilgrim event, which was transformed into an archetypal First Thanksgiving in the late nineteenth century, was in fact not a true Thanksgiving at all. It was rather a secular harvest celebration which as far as we know was never repeated. The event had been entirely forgotten until a reference to it was rediscovered in the 1820s. The first real Calvinist Thanksgiving in New England was celebrated in Plymouth Colony, but it was during the summer of 1623 when the colonists declared a Thanksgiving holiday after their crops were saved by a providential shower.

When things were going well, or some special dispensation occurred such as the arrival of a crucial supply ship, a successful harvest or victory in war, New Englanders declared a day of Thanksgiving. Everyone gathered at the meetinghouse where they gave thanks to God for their blessings, and then went home to a celebratory dinner which might involve just the family, or be a community event including their friends and neighbors, as well. If things were going badly—there was not enough food to eat, the Native Americans showed signs of resistance, the crops were failing or disease caused a number of unexplained deaths—then a day of Fasting and Humiliation was called for. Again everyone went to church to ask God for His forgiveness and guidance. The people were reminded of their moral and religious responsibilities, and urged to control not only their own sinfulness but also that of other people in the community to avert God's displeasure. There was no big dinner to follow, although a modest meal could be taken in the evening.

The Puritans disputed whether only the unique or impressive acts of Providence could be acknowledged with Thanksgivings, or should the "generals," -- God's continuing care for His people in providing them with the necessities of life, be celebrated as well. While thanks were given on a regular basis at Sabbath services and in family prayers and graces, many people thought it suitable that the community as a whole set some time aside to thank God for these mundane considerations. It was in this spirit that the annually occurring autumn Thanksgiving evolved. Once the harvest was over and the year drawing to a close, the need to bring the community together in some sort of celebratory recognition of the year's blessings became crucial. In England or the other colonies, the Christmas holidays provided this important social function. In New England, where Christmas had briefly been illegal and not generally celebrated until the mid-nineteenth century, the annual autumn Thanksgiving took over the role Christmas played elsewhere in providing feasting and celebration at the onset of winter.

The custom of annually occurring autumnal Thanksgivings was established throughout New England by the mid-17th century. If Plymouth celebrated the first New England Thanksgiving and, with Boston, established Thursday as the standard day for the event, it was Connecticut which first made it an irregular yet annual holiday. A large part of the pleasurable anticipation associated with Thanksgiving occurred while everyone eagerly waited to hear when it would be scheduled. Once the authorities announced the date a few weeks before the event, each family happily began the process of preparation for the event, baking pies and arranging with relations for the dinner which marked the event. It would be fairest perhaps to say that all of New England shared in the creation of the Thanksgiving holiday. (continued)

Thanksgiving in American History - Part 2

In 1777, the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the providential victory at Saratoga. The 1777 Thanksgiving proclamation reveals its New England Puritan roots. The day was still officially a religious observance in recognition of God's Providence, and, as on the Sabbath, both work and amusements were forbidden. It does not resemble our idea of a Thanksgiving, with its emphasis on family dinners and popular recreation. Yet beneath these stern sentiments, the old Puritan fervor had declined to the extent that Thanksgiving was beginning to be less of a religious and more of a secular celebration. The focus was shifting from the religious service to the family gathering. Communities still dutifully went to church each Thanksgiving Day but the social and culinary attractions were increasing in importance.

A contemporary account of a wartime Thanksgiving provides us alternative testimony to the austere official proclamation. Juliana Smith's 1779 Massachusetts' Thanksgiving description, written in a letter to her friend Betsey Smith (and recorded in her diary as well) provides a good example of what the late 18th century celebration meant to the participants.

National Thanksgivings were proclaimed annually by Congress from 1777 to 1783 which, except for 1782, were all celebrated in December. After a five year hiatus, the practice was revived by President Washington in 1789 and 1795. John Adams declared Thanksgivings in 1798 and 1799, while James Madison declared the holiday twice in 1815; none of these were celebrated in the autumn. After 1815, there were no further national Thanksgivings until the Civil War. As sectional differences widened in the Antebellum period, it was impossible achieve the consensus to have a national Thanksgiving. The southern states were generally unreceptive to a "Yankee" custom being pressed on them by the federal government. If the federal government neglected the tradition, however, the individual states did not. The New England states continued to declare annual Thanksgivings (usually in November, although not always on the same day), and eventually most of the other states also had independent observations of the holiday. New Englanders were born proselyters and wherever they went during the great westward migration they introduced their favorite holiday. Thanksgiving was adopted first in the Northeast and in the Northwest Territory, then by the middle and western states. At mid-century even the southern states were celebrating their own Thanksgivings.

By the 1840s when the Puritan holy day had largely given way to the Yankee holiday, Thanksgiving was usually depicted in a family setting with dinner as the central event. The archetypal tradition of harvest celebration had weathered Puritan disapproval and quietly reasserted its influence. Newspapers and magazines helped popularize the holiday in its new guise as a secular autumn celebration featuring feasting, family reunions and charity to the poor. Thanksgiving became an important symbol of the new emphasis on home life and the necessity of enforcing family virtues against the coarse masculine style and cutthroat business practices of the day. This "cult of domesticity" found Thanksgiving a valuable element for promulgating the feminist goals of social reform and the role of the (extended) family as a bastion against the callous workaday world. The holiday focused on the home and hearth where it was hoped a revolution in manners would begin to restore the civilized virtues which had been lost in the new commercial and industrial society.

It is interesting that the same person who was a leading figure in the domesticity movement, Sarah Josepha Hale, also labored for decades to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. A New England author and editor of the influential Godey's Ladies Book, Hale lobbied for a return to the morality and simplicity of days gone by. Each November from 1846 until 1863 Mrs. Hale printed an editorial urging the federal government to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. She was finally gratified when Abraham Lincoln declared the first of our modern series of annual Thanksgiving holidays for the last Thursday in November, 1863. Lincoln had previously declared national Thanksgivings for April, 1862, and again for August 6, 1863, after the northern victory at Gettysburg. The southern states had independently declared Thanksgivings of their own, unsullied by Yankee influences, but would later resent the new national Thanksgiving holiday after the war.

Lincoln went on to declare a similar Thanksgiving observance in 1864, establishing a precedent that was followed by Andrew Johnson in 1865 and by every subsequent president. After a few deviations (December 7th in 1865, November 18th in 1869), the holiday came to rest on the last Thursday in November. However, Thanksgiving remained a custom unsanctified by law until 1941! In 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt departed from tradition by declaring November 23, the next to the last Thursday that year, as Thanksgiving. Considerable controversy (mostly following political lines) arose around this outrage to custom, so that some Americans celebrated Thanksgiving on the 23rd and others on the 30th (including Plymouth, MA). In 1940, the country was once again divided over "Franksgiving" as the Thanksgiving declared for November 21st was called. Thanksgiving was declared for the earlier Thursday again in 1941, but Roosevelt admitted that the earlier date (which had not proven useful to the commercial interests) was a mistake. On November 26, 1941, he signed a bill that established the fourth Thursday in November as the national Thanksgiving holiday, which it has been ever since.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
The following is a collection of recent statements from freeper "WhiskeyPapa" aka "Walt" on FR that accurately demonstrate his far left political leanings. Each statement is verifiable at the link accompanying it. It has also been said that, in addition to voting for Bill Clinton, this same individual has admitted on FR to have bragged of never supporting a Republican presidential candidate. Among his candidates of choice, it is said, were Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and most recently Al Gore, this in addition to Clinton. In addition to the following statements, WhiskeyPapa is known most famously for his obsessive anti-southern tirades, support of PC censorship against the south, and for throwing racial mccarthyist style accusations of bigotry at other freepers in a manner not unlike the tactics practiced by the radical left.

"All these deaths of U.S. citizens --the death of EVERY U.S. citizen killed by Arab terror in the United States, can be laid directly at the feet of George Bush I." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?page=452#448

"I'll say again that based on what I knew in 1992, I would vote for Bill Clinton ten times out of ten before I would vote for George Bush Sr." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?q=1&&page=401#420

"As you doubtless know, the separation of powers in that Pact with the Devil we call our Constitution, gives only Congress the right to raise and spend money." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?page=432#432

"Nationalism and socialism are opposites." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?page=570#516

"First of all, the AJC [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] is -not- an "ultra-leftist" newspaper, and you know it." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/13/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/784464/posts?page=70#70

"I feel that admiration for Reagan has rightly diminished over time, and rightly so." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02
SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?page=432#432

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