COMMENTARY
By Paul D. Peery, Editor
From the Editor's Desk
NOVEMBER 1999
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving Day Song - Over the River
The Pilgrims' 1621 Thanksgiving
The First
Thanksgiving Mayflower Home Page
The tradition of the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving is steeped in myth and
legend. Few people realize that the Pilgrims did not celebrate
Thanksgiving the next year, or any year thereafter, though some of their
descendants later made a "Forefather's Day" that usually occurred on
December 21 or 22. Several Presidents, including George Washington,
made one-time Thanksgiving holidays. In 1827, Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale
began lobbying several Presidents for the instatement of Thanksgiving as a
national holiday, but her lobbying was unsuccessful until 1863 when
Abraham Lincoln finally made it a national holiday with his 1863
Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Today, our Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November. This was set
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 (approved by Congress in
1941), who changed it from Abraham Lincoln's designation as the
last Thursday in November (which could occasionally end up being
the fifth Thursday and hence too close to Christmas for business). But
the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving began at some unknown date between
September 21 and November 9, most likely in very early October. The date
of Thanksgiving was probably set by Lincoln to somewhat correlate with the
anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, which occurred on November
21, 1620 (by our modern Gregorian calendar--it was November 11 to the
Pilgrims who used the Julian calendar).
There are only two contemporary accounts of the 1621 Thanksgiving: First
is Edward Winslow's account, which he wrote in a letter dated December 12,
1621. The complete letter was first published in 1622, and is chapter 6
of Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.
The second description was written about twenty years after the fact by
William Bradford in his History Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford's
History was rediscovered in 1854 after having been taken by British
looters during the Revolutionary War. Its discovery prompted a greater
American interest in the history of the Pilgrims, which eventually led to
Lincoln's decision to make Thanksgiving a holiday. It is also in this
account that the Thanksgiving turkey tradition is founded.
Editor - Peery Family
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