Volume 17 , Issue 42

Walking With Sadie

Well! Thanksgiving is just a few days away, around the corner. What did your pioneer ancestors give thanks for on that alleged first Thanksgiving in 1621, Plymouth?

It is in The Daily Chronicle, dated 26 November 1975, Wednesday, page 6, that we find this "The First Thanksgiving" story of how it was and what they supposedly ate on that mid-October day.

Found on Newspapers.com

The First Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims first thanksgiving date has been lost to history, but it may have been in mid-October with the Indian summer coming in a blaze of glory, and time to bring in the crops. The year was 1621. The first harvest was a disappointment, though. The Pilgrims 20 acres of corn, thanks to the help and advice of Squanto, a sub chief of the Wampanoag indian tribe, had done well enough. But the Pilgrims had failed with their more familiar crops. Their six or seven acres of English wheat, barley and peas had come to nothing.

William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth, attributed the failure of the familiar crops to "ye badness of ye seed, or lateness of ye season, or both, or some other defects."

Yet when the crops were harvested, it was possible to make a substantial increase in the individual weekly food ration which for months had consisted merely of a peck of meal from the stores brought on the Mayflower. This was not doubled by adding speck of maize a week. Then this was done the Plymouth company decreed a holiday so that all might, "After a more special manner, rejoice together." Thus occurred the first Thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims had more than an increase in their rations, however, to celebrate on that first Thanksgiving. They were thankful that they had made peace with the Indians and that they walked "as peaceably and safely in the woods as in the highways of England." They had made a start in the beaver trade. And there had been on serious sickness for months.

On that first Thanksgiving 11 houses lined the streets of Plymouth - seven private dwellings and four buildings for common use.

As the day of the harvest festival approached, four men with their blunder busters were sent out to shoot waterfowl. They returned with enough to supply the company for a week.

The governor, Bradford, invited Massasoit (Yellow Feather), chief of the Wampanoags, to attend the festival as the guest of the company. He had been helpful to the Pilgrims since their arrival in the new land a year earlier. It was on the morning of December 11, 1620, that the Mayflower had dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor with 164 men, women and children aboard.

When Chief Massasoit arrived to participate in the festivities, he brought with him 90 ravenous braves. The strain on the larder was somewhat eased when some of them went out and bagged five deer.

In honor of the occasion, Capt. Myles Standish, the short and stocky soldier, staged a military review. There were also games of skill and chance. For three days the Pilgrims and their guests gorged themselves on venision, roast duck, roast goose, clams and other shellfish, eels, white bread, corn bread, leeks, wild plums and dried berries. It was all washed down with wine made from wild grape. Although they may have eaten Turkey at that first Thanksgiving, there is no record of it. They probably did because there is mention at other times of how the Pilgrims were amazed at the long-legged Turkey whose speed of foot in the woods constantly astounded them. Nor was there pumpkin pie at that first Thanksgiving. It came much later.

The celebration, according to the record, was a great success. It lasted for three days. The Pilgrims held another the next year, repeating it more or less regularly for generations.

In time it became traditional throughout New England to enjoy the harvest feast, a tradition carried to other parts of the country as Americans moved westward. But it remained a regional or local holiday until 1863 when President Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, proclaimed the first National Thanksgiving, setting aside the last Thursday in November for the purpose, disregarding the centuries Old Pilgrim custom of holding it somewhat earlier, usually in October as on the first occasion.

That, then, is how it all began. So have a happy Thanksgiving, and take a moment to give thanks for all those things with which we as Americans are blessed. Also, be respectful of others cultures and religious beliefs.

Woof! Woof! Happy Thanksgiving!
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