Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1893 — THANKSGIVING DAY. [ARTICLE]

THANKSGIVING DAY.

IT ORIGINATED WITH THE PILGRIM FATHERS. The New England Origin of the Festival and How It Has Enlarged Its Significance —The Colonial Meeting-House—Sermons, Mince l’le and Turkeys. From Fasting to Feasting. Of all our national holidays none is inore universally or more joyously celebrated than that of Thanksgiving Day. Though of New England origin and for many years confined almost exclusively to that section, it has slowly but surely extended itself all over our great oountry. We are indebted for it to the Pilgrim Fathers, who may be said to have celebrated it for the first time upon the completion of their first harvest at Plymouth in 162 J, when Gov. Bradford sent out four fowlers in search of game, that they “might after a more special manner rejoice together.” But fasts were much more common among tho. e hardy Puritans than feasts, and though they occasionally observed a general thanksgiving day for s;me specially propitious occurrence, such as some action favorable to them on the part of the mother country or tho arrival of a shipload of provisions, they devoted much more time to deploring their miseries than they did _to rejoicing over their blessings. It is said that their adoption of the custom of annually appointing a Thanksgiving Day was due to a sensible old farmer —whose name tradition has unfortunately failed to preserve—who rose up when it was proposed in tho Assembly to proclaim another fast, and plainly told them that ho believed God was weary of their complaints, in view of the fact that He was causing the earth to reward their labors; that He had filled the seas and rivers with fish, had made the air sweet and the climate healthful, and was permitting them the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. The speaker therefore proposed that instead of a fast a day of feasting and thanksgiving should thereafter be annually proclaimed, which sensible suggestion was unanimously adopted. Whether or not this is a true account of the origin of that practice, it is a thoroughly established fact that by tho year 1680 it had become a fixed custom for the Governors of the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay to appoint a Thanksgiving Day late in the autumn of each year—a usage that soon extended to all other New England colonies.

The adoption of this custom outside of Now England was very slow. How slow will be readily understood from the fact that as recently as 1855 it was considered a remarkable event in Virginia when Gov. Johnson recommended the observance of a Thanksgiving Day, and that Gov. Wise rofused to appoint one in 1857 on the ground that he had no authority to interfere in religious matters. Thanksgiving Dav was not regularly appointed by the Governors of New York until 1817. During tho revolutionary war Congress annually recommended a general Thanksgiving Day. Washington proclaimed one in 1789, on tho adoption of the Constitution, and another in 1795 for tho suppression of the whisky insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, while Madison proclaimed one for peace with England in 1815. After Madison, Abraham Lincoln was tho first President to proclaim a Thanksgiving Day, and he did it in 1862 and 1863 for war

victories. In 1861 he proclaimed a Thanksgiving Day in November for general blessings, and his example of that year has since been annually followed by every one of his successors and by nearly every State Governor down to the present time. But popular as Thanksgiving Day now is throughout the length and breadth of this land, it is in New England that it still continues to be what it has boen for more than two centuries—the greatest and most eagerly anticipated holiday of the entire year. The old Puritans and their descendants, who so long frowned sevoroly upon Christmas—which, indeed, many of the latter still continue to do, refusing to give it any recognition whatever—found an excellent substitute for its cheerful hilarity, peace and good-will in Thanksgiving Day. For at least a week before the important occasion all was activity in an old-fashioned rural New England household. A bushel or more of the best wheat was sent to the mill to be converted into flour. Great rounds of beef were chopped up into mincemeat. Cartloads of yellow pumpkins, with an abundance of milk, spices, ginger, molasses and sugar, were made up into pumpkin pies. An abundance of turkeys, chickens and geese were killed and made ready for roasting. A pair of immense plum puddings were baked in the largest sized earthen pots, with Indian puddings and custard puddings to match, while there was baking of pound cake, plum cake and sponge cake from morning till night. For the following quaint account of an old colonial Thanksgiving church service and dinner I am indebted says Geoffrey Christine, to, a letter written in the year 1714 by an ancestor of mine, the Rov. Lawrence Conant, of the old South Parish in Danvers, Mass,, and still preserved as a most precious heirloom in my family:

Ye Governor was in ye house, and her Majesty's Commissioners of ye Customs, and they sat together in a high seat by ye pulpit stairs. Ye Governor appears very devout and attentive, although he favors Episcopacy and tolerates ye Quakers and baptists. Ho was dressed in a black velvet coat, bordered with gold lace, and buff breeches with gold -buckles at ye knees, and white silk stockings. There was a disturbance in ye galleries, where it was filled with divers negroes, mnlattoos and Indians, and a negro call’d Pomp Shorter, belonging to Mr. Gardner, was called forth and put in ye broad aisle, where ho was reproved with great carefulness and solemnity, He was then put in ye deacons’ seat between two deacons, in ■view of ye whole congregation; but ye sexton was ordered by Mr. Prescott to take him out, because of his levity and strange contortion of countenance (giving grave scandal to ye graye deacons), and put him in ye lobby Under ye stairs; some children and a mulatto woman were repremanded for laughing at Pomp Shorter. When ye services at ye meeting house were ended ye council and other dignitaries were entertained at ye house of Mr. Epes, on ye hill near by, and we had a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner, with bear's meat and venison, the last of which w as a fine buck, shot In yo woods near by. Yo bear was killed in Lynn woods, near Reading. After ye blessing was craved by Mr. Garrish, of Wrentham, word came that ye buck was Bhot on the Lord’s day, by Peqnot, an Indian, who came to Mr. Epes with a lye in his mouth, like Ananias of old. Ye council, therefore, refu-ed to eat ye venison, hut it was afterward agreed that Pequot Bhonid receive forty stripes, save one, for a lveing and profaning ye Lord’s Day, restore Mr. Epes ye cost of ye deer; and considering this a just and righteous sentence on ye sinful heathen and that a blessiug had been craved on ye meat, ye council all partook of it but Mr. Shepard, whose conscience was tender on ye point of venison.