Posted on 11/18/2007 10:03:38 PM PST by STARWISE
Some Virginians are giving thanks early this Thanksgiving.
It's because President Bush is set to bring recognition to a little-known thanksgiving site in Virginia between Williamsburg and Richmond. On Monday, the president plans to stop by Berkeley Plantation, where English settlers held a thanksgiving service almost two years before the Pilgrims' feast in Massachusetts.
(Excerpt) Read more at koin.com ...
The First Thanksgiving was Celebrated in Virginia
http://www.virginia.org/site/features.asp?FeatureID=50
Berkeley Plantation
http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?AttrID=11653&MGrp=1&MCat=2
Looks like a lovely spot to tour.
The “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated in St Augustine on 8 September 1565. The Spaniards gave thanks for their arrival and asked God’s blessing on the new colony. The meal consisted of ships bread, salt pork, garbonzo beans and wine. They also invited the Salloy tribe.
Apparently so ~~ too bad there isn’t more recognition of
this fact nationally:
~~~~~
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/getaways/08/06/st.augustine.ap/index.html
But St. Augustine is the nation’s oldest city, and its 442nd birthday celebration is scheduled for August 28-September 1, including historical re-enactments, entertainment, and yes, a Thanksgiving feast.
But this one will commemorate a feast held in September of 1565 by the Spaniards and native Timucuan Indians, when the menu likely included wild turkey, venison and salted pork stew.
Historians and officials here can’t help but wonder what all the Jamestown brouhaha is about. St. Augustine was founded September 8, 1565, by Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his expedition of 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 farmers and craftsmen.
Some brought their wives and children. They, not the Pilgrims, celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the New World. The first schools, hospitals and banks in what is now the United States were built here.
I visited there when I was vacationing nearby and met the present owner at the time who was born and raised in Long Island, kind of ironic.
Amen.
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