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THE HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING

The first day of thanks in America was celebrated in Virginia at Cape Henry in 1607.
The First Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation, Va. 1619
History records that the first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief - a veteran of Jamestown who had survived its "starving time" of 1608 and 1609 - led his crew and passengers from their ship to a grassy slope along the James River for the New World's first Thanksgiving service on Dec. 4, 1619. There, the English colonists dropped to their knees and prayed as the British company expedition sponsor had instructed. Today, on the site where Woodlief knelt, a brick gazebo contains the following inscribed words: "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 kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God." Each year, visitors to Berkeley on Nov. 1 can witness the reading of a proclamation - commemorating Berkeley's first Thanksgiving 379 years ago - at 2 p.m. In addition, a traditional Thanksgiving meal will be served to patrons at the Coach House Tavern.

Pilgrim Thanksgiving of 1621
The Pilgrims' three-day feast celebrated in early November of 1621, which we now popularly regard as the "First Thanksgiving." The first real Calvinist Thanksgiving to God in the Plymouth Colony was actually celebrated during the summer of 1623 when the colonists declared a Thanksgiving holiday after their crops were saved by much needed rainfall. The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620. They sailed for a new world with the promise of both civil and religious liberty. For almost three months, 102 seafarers braved harsh elements to arrive off the coast of what is now Massachusetts, in late November of 1620. On December 11, prior to disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they signed the "Mayflower Compact," America's original document of civil government and the
first to introduce self-government.
The Puritan Separatists, America's Calvinist Protestants, rejected the institutional Church of England. They believed that the worship of God must originate in the inner man, and that corporate forms of worship prescribed by man interfered with the establishment of a true relationship with God. The Separatists used the term "church" to refer to the people, the Body of Christ, not to a building or institution. As their Pastor John Robinson said, "[When two or three are] gathered in the name of Christ by a covenant made to walk in all the way of God known unto them as a church."
Most of what we know about the Pilgrim Thanksgiving of 1621 comes from original accounts of the young colony's leaders, Governor William Bradford and Master Edward Winslow, in their own hand:

"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."

-W.B. (William Bradford)

-----

"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. (Edward Winslow) Plymouth, in New England,
This 11th of December, 1621.


The feast included foods suitable for a head table of honored guests, such as the chief men of the colony and Native leaders Massasoit ("Great Leader" also known as Ousamequin "Yellow Feather"), the sachem (chief) of Pokanoket (Pokanoket is the area at the head of Narragansett Bay). Venison, wild fowl, turkeys and Indian corn were the staples of the meal. It likely included other food items known to have been aboard the Mayflower or available in Plymouth such as spices, Dutch cheese, wild grapes, lobster, cod, native melons, pumpkin (pompion) and rabbit."
By the mid-17th century the custom of autumnal Thanksgivings was established throughout New England. One hundred and eighty years after the first day of Thanksgiving, the Founding Fathers thought it important that this tradition be recognized by proclamation. Soon after approving the Bill of Rights, a motion in Congress to initiate the proclamation of a national day of Thanksgiving was approved.
Mr. [Elias] Boudinot (who was the President of Congress during the American Revolution) said he could not think of letting the congressional session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them. With this view, therefore, he would propose the following resolution:

"Resolved, that a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon
the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the
people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be
observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of
Almighty God..."

"Mr. [Roger] Sherman (a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution) justified the practice of thanksgiving on any signal event
not only as a laudable one in itself, but as warranted by a number of
precedents in Holy Writ...This example he thought worthy of a Christian
imitation on the present occasion; and he would agree with the gentleman who
moved the resolution...The question was put on the resolution and it was
carried in the affirmative."

This resolution was delivered to President George Washington who readily agreed with its suggestion and put forth the following proclamation by his signature:

"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 to implore His protection and favor;
and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their
joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the
people of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by
acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and
signal favors of Almighty God, especially by
affording them an opportunity peaceably to
establish a form of government for their safety
and happiness."

"Now, therefore, 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 all
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; for the
great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty
which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and
rational manner in which we have been enabled to
establish constitutions of government for our safety
and happiness, and particularly the national one now
lately instituted; for the civil and religious
liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we
have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;
and, in general, for all the great and various
favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly
offering our prayers and supplication to the great
Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon
our national and other transgressions; to enable us
all, whether in public or private stations, to
perform our several and relative duties properly
and punctually; to render our national government
a blessing to all the people by constantly being
a government of wise, just and constitutional laws,
discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to
protect and guide all sovereigns and nations
(especially such as have shown kindness to us),
and to bless them with good governments, peace,
and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice
of true religion and virtue, and the increase of
science among them and us; and, generally, to
grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal
prosperity as He alone knows to be best."

-Given under my hand, at the city of New York,
The 3rd day of October, AD 1789
George Washington


After 1815, prophetically, there were no further annual proclamations of Thanksgiving until the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln declared November 26, 1863, the last Thursday in November, a Day of Thanksgiving:

"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... I do, therefore,
invite my fellow citizens in every part of the
United States, 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...[it is] announced in the Holy
Scriptures and proven by all history, that those
nations are blessed whose God is the Lord...It has
seemed to me fit and proper that God should be
solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged,
as with one heart and one voice, by the whole
American people."

On October 3, 1863, Lincoln's proclamation passed by an Act of Congress. That proclamation was repeated by every subsequent president until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day up one week earlier than had been tradition, to appease merchants who wanted more time to feed
the growing pre-Christmas consumer frenzy. Folding to Congressional pressure two years later however, Roosevelt signed a resolution returning Thanksgiving to the last Thursday of November.
Roosevelt's inclination to manipulate Thanksgiving for commercial interests, foretold much of the secular nature of "thanksgiving" to come. But, amid all the oppression of secular materialism in advance of that day in December when we give thanks for the birth of Christ, oppression vastly different but somehow remarkably similar to that of our Pilgrim forefathers, we are still at our core, a nation eternally thankful to God.

On this Day of Thanksgiving, may God rest your heart and mind, may
He bless and keep you and your family, and may He extend His blessing upon
our great nation, guiding us one and all by His calling. Amid the haste, we
remember His words, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure
in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they
shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew
5:3-10)


THE GIPPER

"While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get to their knees before God. When catastrophe threatened, they turned to God for deliverance. When the harvest was bountiful, the first thought, was thanksgiving to God. Prayer is today as powerful a force in our nation as it has ever been. We as a nation should never forget this source of strength. ... Through the storms of Revolution, Civil War, and the great World Wars, as well as during times of disillusionment and disarray, the nation has turned to God in prayer for deliverance. We thank Him for answering our call, for, surely, He has. As a nation, we have been richly blessed with His love and generosity." --Ronald Reagan