Origin of Thanksgiving
President Abraham Lincoln is sometimes credited with the origin of Thanksgiving. It is true that our national Thanksgiving Day is a good time to remember the president who had more to do with the institution of Thanksgiving and the actual practice of thanking God than any other, and to recall his last public speech.
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. Read the entire text of President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation.
When Really Was the First Thanksgiving?
The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of some contention. Some history scholars have declared that the first Thanksgiving celebration was held on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.
The traditional "first Thanksgiving" is more popularly believed have occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. Some other signigicant dates and early origins of Thanksgiving include:
- Texans claim the first Thanksgiving in America actually took place in little San Elizario, a community near El Paso, in 1598 -- twenty-three years before the Pilgrims' festival.
- At the Berkeley Plantation on the James River they claim the first Thanksgiving in America was held there on December 4th, 1619....two years before the Pilgrims' festival....and every year since 1958 they have reenacted the event.
- During the American Revolution (late 1770's) a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress.
- In a 1789 presidentail proclamation, George Washington declared the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving.
- In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. By the middle of the 19th century many other states also celebrated a Thanksgiving Day.
- In 1941, a United States Congressional declaration officially designated the fourth Thursday of November as the date of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Early Official Origin of Thanksgiving
First Thanksgiving Proclamation-June 20, 1676
"The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present Warr with the Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgements he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins....Read the entire First Thanksgiving Proclamation.
From Origin of Thanksgiving to
What is Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving History
The First Thanksgiving
Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving
From Origen of Thanksgiving to
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