The First Thanksgiving Likely Occurred Here, & Not at Plymouth . . .
Thursday, November 26, 1998
Ross Mackenzie, Richmond Times-Dispatch
It is altogether fitting and proper to conclude that the first Thanksgiving was held here.
Berkeley Hundred
[snip]
ON SEPTEMBER 16, 1619, a group of 38 English colonists headed by Captain John Woodlief sailed from England aboard the Margaret. They landed at Berkeley Hundred 10 weeks later. The settlers were sent by the London Company; it owned thousands of acres in the area, and settled and supported Berkeley Plantation.
Exhibit A in the Virginia claim to firstness is this sentence in the company's instructions to the settlers -- instructions to be opened upon reaching Virginia:
We ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.
These settlers held that Thanksgiving at Berkeley Hundred on December 4, 1619 -- a year before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth.