Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511220111
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: STEVE ROAF SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE FIRST RECORDED THANKSGIVING occurred in Virginia, a little over a year before the Pilgrims landed.
Sept. 16, 1619. The place is not Plymouth, England, but Gloucestershire, England. A ship sails for the New World.
The ship - not the Mayflower, but the Margaret - lands not at Plymouth, Mass., but on the James River between Richmond and Williamsburg. Capt. John Woodlief is the commander.
The ship's log reads, "Wee ordained that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
But no story of a feast is recorded. So tells the account of Berkeley Plantation, according to a recent article in Rural Living magazine.
I have stood on the dock at Plymouth, England, from which the other colony departed. Engraved on a plaque on the side of a weather-beaten building are the names of all those who left on the first voyage of the Mayflower in 1620. (The Mayflower made three trips to the New World between 1620 and 1622. On a later voyage - the second, we think - were two passengers from England named Bennett. They were the distant uncles of Mary Edwina Bennett, born 1900, who married Chester Warren Roaf, born 1896. They were my grandparents.)
On this side of the Atlantic, the Mayflower landed first on the point of the peninsula known today as Cape Cod, at what is now Provincetown, Mass. It sailed across the bay, not knowing if the first landing had been on an island or the mainland, and touched shore at what is now Plymouth on Dec. 21, 1620. (The famous Plymouth Rock, which I have seen and can tell you is a disappointment, is not much larger than a boulder on a rocky shore.)
It was an arduous crossing - nearly 90 days - for the Mayflower. Only about half of the original group survived the first winter. In September 1621, Gov. William Bradford, in charge of the colony at Plymouth Plantation, sent men to trade with the Indians. They had a good harvest that year. There were 20 acres of Indian corn, barley and plenty of venison.
The men returned with waterfowl and wild turkeys. Fishermen brought back cod and bass.
There is no record of the date, but it must have been prior to Dec. 11, because the feast was described in a letter by Edward Winslow. There also is no record that it was a "Thanksgiving."
It was customary in Puritan times to appoint certain days of the year for giving thanks. There were sermons, songs of praise, and the colonists feasted - with the Indians invited - for three days.
Two years later, in 1623, the first recorded Thanksgiving was "a day set apart for giving thanks for the rain that ended a terrible drought." Thanksgiving was observed by other colonies as years passed, but on different days. The Dutch celebrated in New Netherlands, what is now parts of New York, Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey, beginning in 1644. Connecticut held an annual Thanksgiving celebration after 1647, and Massachusetts made it an annual event after 1680.
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress set aside several days for prayer and Thanksgiving. In 1789, George Washington proclaimed Nov. 26 as a day of Thanksgiving for the adoption of the Constitution. President James Madison proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving and Peace at the end of the War of 1812.
In 1846, Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of a popular woman's magazine, campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Finally, on Oct. 3, 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed Nov. 26, and from then on the last Thursday in November, to be Thanksgiving Day.
With few exceptions, every year and each succeeding president observed the day as Lincoln had proclaimed. However, claiming the holiday fell too close to Christmas, Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the third Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day beginning in 1939. Not all of the states complied, and in December 1941, a joint resolution of Congress specified that the fourth Thursday in November - which is not always the final Thursday - would be Thanksgiving.
\ Steve Roaf, a human resource specialist with Blue Ridge Community Services, served in England with the U.S. Air Force. A couple of magazine articles spurred the Massachusetts native's interest in the first Thanksgiving.
by CNB