Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1916 — DATES FROM 1865 [ARTICLE]

DATES FROM 1865

National Thanksgiving Day Is Comparatively New in Country’s History. IT is just 51 years since the last Thursday in November was adopted by the president of the United States as the day set apart from all others of the year to be observed by the people of the nation as Thanksgiving day. It was the first Thanksgiving celebrated after the close of the Civil war, and the proclamation by President Johnson a few weeks prior, appointing such a date, was issued because it was a generally understood fact that Lincoln had planned, during the dark days at the end of the struggle, to have some one day In November reserved yearly by all states In the Union. Throughout the war the celebration had occurred only here and there in scattered communities. And always before, In the various states which did celebrate the day, it was purely a sectional affair, for which the governor issued a proclamation upon his own initiative. November, 1865, witnessed the beginning of the holiday as a national Institution. Since that date the governors of all states and territories, upon receiving the president’s proclamation, publish their own, naming the day in formal fashion. It Is an American festival day, unique in more than one respect, but most perhaps because it is the only religious festival celebrated in this country upon the recommendation of the government. Idea Borrowed From the Dutch.

It had a tangled beginning. A score of origins are claimed. And one is rather at sea in selecting his particular belief. In the congressional library it was a happy chance which discovered these various sources and their grave and gay histories outlined in a chain of sketches. In the middle states the day is observed more as a religious matter than as a holiday, but in New England it is a festival, a domestic feast day and the chief of all holidays. Americans like to believe that Thanksgiving day is purely and simply American, and it is, but as instituted in New England the idea was borrowed from the Dutch, among whom the Pilgrims had dwelt for ten years after leaving British soil and before emigrating to America. The Hollanders had been accustomed to celebrating October 3 both religiously and socially, in honor of their deliverance from the Spaniards, and when the first harvest in the new home of the English emigrants had yielded well it seemed the natural thing to rejoice in a period of public thanksgiving. Some deserted Indian huts stored with corn had furnished the nucleus of that harvest, and an Indian chief who had once been in England and consequently trusted Englishmen gave the Pilgrims Instruction as to the planting of the grain and the procuring of game as well. Upon this first harvest rested the wellbeing of the little colony, so many of whose members had perished In that first fierce winter which followed the landing of the Mayflower in December, 1620. The hardiest, who survived, were humbly grateful for the rich harvest in October, which followed the neighborly native’s suggestions and Governor Bradford ordered a three-day feast and celebration as recognition of such plenitude. The Indians who had first extended the hand of. welcome to the pale faces there

were invited to attend and bring their friends. New Thanksgiving Foods.*, In Holland the settlers had partaken of Spanish stew as the common dish of the Thanksgiving day, bat In a new country, with new foods to use, geese, turkeys, water fowl and docks were eaten. Bread made of barley and corn took the place of wheat bread, as a necessity, and codfish had its first inning as a matter of both history and gastronomy among white people. The guests of the forest brought deer as a friendly contribution toward the feast. And this is presumed by many persons to be the first real Thanksgiving day in America. Yet, since there was no special religious service upon this occasion, recognised authorities disclaim this theory of the origin.

Rather, they point to July 30, 1623, when Miles Standish returned from a voyage with sadly needed provisions and the glad tidings that a ship was nearing the shore. When this ship, the Anne, had anchored, and relatives and friends necessarily left behind in Holland because the Mayflower could not accommodate all those seeking religious freedom in the new world, had joined the little colony at Plymouth, the colonists were so overjoyed that a public service of prayer and thanksgiving was considered meet This, holding both religious and social elements, is in the minds of New Englanders, the basis of the national celebration today. Long Time Between Celebrations. But two centuries and a half elapsed before the nation as a unit followed the early example. Local celebrations throughout Massachusetts became common meanwhile, and in 1630 a public Thanksgiving day was held in Boston by the Bay colony, though the first written record of such a day still remaining in the colonial records of the Bay state credits February 22, 1631. This had been appointed as a fast day by Governor Winthrop on account of the severe reverses with which the colony had met. The weather had been unusually cold the entire winter, game was scarce and the Lyon, which had been dispatched to England for food, was given up as lost on the high seas. The children had come to digging mussels out of the frozen ground as help in sustaining life, and finally five kernels of corn were given out as the daily ration of each colonist. The fast day appointed then was not merely for abstinence from food, for that was practically imperative anyway, but it was to be a special day of supplication for food and greater comfort A day or two before the appointed time the long-looked-for Lyon came sailing into the harbor laden with provisions and the fast day became a feast day instead.