Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1877 — “ THANKSGIVING” HISTORY. [ARTICLE]

“ THANKSGIVING” HISTORY.

The New England origin of Thanksgiving Day is disputed in Brodhoad’s “ History of New York,” which cites several Thanksgiving proclamations of Dutch Colonial Governors, who were not likely to follow Connecticut or Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth. In truth, two lines of traditional observance may be traced in the Colonies of New England and New Netherlands, and it is possible that both streams havo their source in the low countries of Holland. Probably the original idea is given in the Hebrew “feast of tabernacles,” or “feast of ingathering at the close of the year.” The earliest Thanksgiving Day in America which has been put on record is, without doubt, that namecNtp Elder Brewster’s well-known letter, when, after the first harvest at Plymouth, in 1621, Gov. Bradford sent four men out fowling, that they “ might after a more special manner reioice together.” The appointment of the fowlers seems to have been official, and the Thanksgiving turkey has this ancient and honorable ancestry, but whether there was a formal appointment of the day does not appear so plainly. It may have been evolved by a natural process from the jpy at% good harvest from that rugged virgin soil. The earliest-recorded appointment of a Thanksgiving Day was two years later. In July, 1628, there had been an unfavorable season, and a long drought threatened famine; so a day of fasting and praver was appointed, and, in the midst of its sad ami prayerful observ - ance, the rain came, and came abundantly, so that Massasoit and other Indians, who were present, were amazed, and the Governor appointed a day of thanksgiving for the answer to prayer. Then those praying men gathered in the Fort Church, and Elder Brewster preachcil a sermon, which, whatever other faults it had, was certainly not short. There was a like change of Fast Day into Thanksgiving, in Charlestown, in 1631, when the blessing was not rain, but the arrival of a ship with supplies. In 1633 there was a joint observance of a day in Boston and Plymouth, upon the recommendation of Gov. Winthrop to his own Colony, and his invitation to the neighbor Colony. Then the Colonial records show official appointments of such days in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, in 1634, 1637, 1638 and 1639; and in the Plymouth Colony in 1651, 1668, 1680, 1689 and 1690; and the form of the proclamation in 1680 shows that the custom had then become annual, instead of the special occasional Thanksgiving of the beginning, and from an uncertain place all around the year, had settled down to a fixed home in the late autumn or early winter. That custom, once fixed in New Enf;lahd, held on with such honor, that _hc adoption and preservation of the institution, if not its invention, may justly be claimed by the land of pump-kin-pie. The Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam appointed occasional Days of Thanksgiving in 1644, 1645, 1655 and 1664; and the English Governors followed their example in 1755 and 1760; and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, in its prayer-book, ratified in 1789, recommends for Thanksgiving Day the first Thursday in November, unless some other day be appointed by the civil authorities. There were also occasional recommendations by other religious bodies, but no regular annual recommendation by the Governor of New York before 1817. From that time the observance gradually crept southward and westward, and in 1855 Gov. Johnson, of Virginia, adopted it; and though in 1857 Gov. Wise, of Virginia, rejected it, saying that he was unauthorized to interfere in religious matters, in 1868 a Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed in eight of the Southern States. The Western States had long before followed the lead of New England. The day had thus naturally grown to be a National institution, of almost universal observance, when the civil war brought to sudden ripeness this, along with many other tendencies, and President Lincoln put upon it the seal of his official proclamation. In this he onl]* returned to the custom of the Revolution, during which great struggle the day was annually recommended ny the Continental Congress, which also ordered a general thanksgiving for peace, in 1784. Washington issued two thanksgiving proclamations, in 1789 and in 1795; and Madison issued one upon the declaration of peace in 1815. President Lincoln’s first proclamation was in 1862, on account of tne first important victory of the National arms. He issued a similar recommendation in 1863, and in that year began the Presidential proclamation of the annual Thanksgiving Day in November.— Rev. Franklin Noble, in N. Y. Observer.