Happy Thanksgiving to our sailnet community, enjoy the holiday!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
First Thanksgiving at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia
1619 Thanksgiving at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia.
On
December 4,
1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at
Berkeley Hundred, comprised of about eight thousand acres (32 km²) on the north bank of the
James River near Herring Creek in an area then known as
Charles Cittie (sic) about 20 miles upstream from
Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the
Colony of Virginia was established on
May 14,
1607.
The group's charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a "day of thanksgiving" to God. On that first day, Captain John Woodleaf held the service of thanksgiving. Here is the section of the Charter of Berkeley Hundred which specifies the thanksgiving service:
"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god." [10]
During the
Indian Massacre of 1622, nine of the settlers at Berkeley Hundred were killed, as well as about a third of the entire population of the Virginia Colony. The Berkeley Hundred site and other other outlying locations were abandoned as the colonists withdrew to Jamestown and other more secure point.
After several years, the site became
Berkeley Plantation, and was long the traditional home of the Harrison family, one of the
First Families of Virginia. In 1634, it became part of the first eight
shires of Virginia, as
Charles City County, one of the oldest in the
United States, and is located along
Virginia State Route 5, which runs parallel to the river's northern borders past sites of many of the
James River Plantations between the colonial capital city of
Williamsburg (now the site of
Colonial Williamsburg) and the the capital of the
Commonwealth of Virginia at
Richmond.
Berkeley Plantation has long been the site of an annual Thanksgiving event; President
George W. Bush will visit Berekeley to give a Thanksgiving address this year.
The Pilgrims, Massachusetts
The early settlers of
Plymouth Colony in
Massachusetts were particularly grateful to
Squanto, the Native American and former British slave who taught them how to both catch eel and grow corn and also served as their native interpreter. Without Squanto's assistance, the settlers might not have survived in the New World.
The
Plymouth settlers (who came to be called "
Pilgrims") set apart a holiday immediately after their first harvest in
1621. They held an autumn celebration of food, feasting, and praising God. The Governor of Plymouth invited Grand Sachem Massasoit and the Wampanoag people to join them in the feast. Evidence to support that claim came from diaries of Plymouth. The settlers fed and entertained the Native Americans for three days, at which point some of the Native Americans went into the forest, killed 5 deer, and gave them to the Governor as a gift.
The National Thanksgiving Proclamations
National Thanksgiving Proclamations proclaim thanks for God’s providence in the events of the nation and, as President Washington explained in his
Thanksgiving Proclamation, "for the many signal favors of Almighty God" in the lives of the people.
As congress recognized the importance of Thanksgiving observance, President George Washington issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. He wrote, "Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country...for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed...and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually...To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best."
In
1789 Washington designated a national thanksgiving holiday for the newly ratified
Constitution, specifically so that the people may thank
God for "affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness" and for having "been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed... "
The first official Thanksgiving Proclamation made in America was issued by the Continental Congress in 1777. Six national Proclamations of Thanksgiving were issued in the first thirty years after the founding of the United States of America as an independent federation of States. President
George Washington issued two, President
John Adams issued two, President
Thomas Jefferson made none and President
James Madison issued two. After 1815 there were no more Thanksgiving Proclamations until the Presidency of
Lincoln, who made two during the
Civil War.
President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a Federal holiday as a "prayerful day of Thanksgiving" on the last Thursday in November. Since then every U.S. President has always made an official Thanksgiving Proclamation on behalf of the nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941).
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Goo, most of your friends in America will be with family and friends enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday; will you be ok all alone in your basement without us? We will be back after the holiday, I promise.
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Happy Thanksgiving
