Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1897 — FOUNDED ON GRATITUDE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FOUNDED ON GRATITUDE.

We Follow the Customs of Pilgrim Fathers in Observing the Day.

E have every reason for believing that our forefathers celebrated their first Thanksgiving Dar with heaven's blue dome for a roof and the brown earth for a floor. They had been successful in their efforts to found homes for themselve in the wilderness, and their

hearts were full of gratitude. In the mercies they remembered they forgot the fearful hardships they bad endured, and when the mellow Indian summer of 1621 came they felt themselves moved by a fervent desire to thank God publicly in a general way for their improved position and the measure of comfort granted. “Our harvests being gotten in,” says the record of Edward Winslow, “our Governor sent four men fowling, so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together. The four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside,

served thp company nearly q week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our qrms, many qf the {ndians coming among us, among thp rest their greatest king, Massasoyt, with some ninety men, who fpr three days we entertained and feasted, Rnd they (the Indians) went out and killed five deer, which th§y brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor and on the Captain (Myles Btandish) and others, And although it be not always so plentiful with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” Being such a sternly religious people, probably the Pilgrims aimed at repeating in this somewhat prolonged open-air festival the Biblical Feast of the Tabernacles, which includes the Feast of the “Harvest of the Ingathering.” It was evidently a hearty, healthy public playspell, a few days of much-needed rejoicing and good cheer. We moderns, with our luxurious taste, would not have much gratitude for the short commons they cajled “good cheer,” but even wp might have approved of thp wi)d turkeys, which tradition tells us sometimes weighed sixty pounds. There wpre also wilfl geese in their season, and as one writpr assures ns, “over 200 varieties of fish, including shellfish.” Love fqr the latter seems almost a gift of heredity with New Englanders. The relish fop oysters is undying, and as for clams, the rule sti)l prevails at the annual clambakes on the seashore that a feaster must eat til) the pile of emptipd shells in front of him screens him entirely from view. For several years there were occasional appointments of especial days to return thanks fop epptain mercies, such as “a refreshing rain which had fallen iq time to revive the crops perishing from drought.’ l In 1668 colonial records of Qpt. 28 say: “The Courf, taking noticp of the goodness of God in thp continuance of oup civil and religious liberty, tlpe geqepa) hpalth we have enjoyed—dop conpeivp thqt these and othep favors dpe call upon us fop returns of thankfulness. 1 ’ Then, peiqembpriqg op)y the mercies and fopgettiqg the horrors and sorrows which have beset them and the famine that almost came, thp propose) is made that aU unite to keep the 25th of November as “A Sojemne day of Thanksgiving, with respect to God's goodness In the particulars above mentioned,” There are uo more records of Thanksgiving days till 1680, Then another lapse till 1600, when Nov. 26 was appointed. All these celebrations were in Plymouth Colony, aud probably the bitter experiences that visited the struggling settlers made fasting take the place of feasting and prayers of agonized entreaty for the safety of lives and homes seem more appropriate than praise and rejoicing.