Thanksgiving Proclamations
Today, we gather with family and friends to celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving! While there are records of days or occasions of Thanksgiving in America held as far back as 1541, our modern observance is based on that held by the Pilgrims in 1621.
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We are blessed that many historical accounts of this Pilgrim Thanksgiving celebration have been preserved. For example, historian Benson Lossing recounted:
[T]he Pilgrims at Plymouth rejoiced in an abundance of food in the autumn of 1621, the first year of their settlement. Thereby their hearts were filled with gratitude, and after the fruits of their labors had all been gathered, the governor sent out huntsmen to bring |
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in supplies for a general and common thanksgiving. That was the first celebration of the great New England festival of Thanksgiving, now annually held in almost every State and Territory of the Union in the month of November. Great quantities of wild turkeys and deer were gathered at Plymouth, and for three days the Pilgrims indulged in rejoicing, firing of guns, and feasting – entertaining, at the same time, King Massasoit and ninety of his dusky followers, who contributed five deer to the banquets. Seven substantial houses had been built during the summer; the inhabitants were in good health; a few emigrants from England had come in a second ship, and there were happy homes in the wilderness the ensuing winter.
As mentioned by Lossing, many states held annual Thanksgiving festivals, and issued thousands of official Thanksgiving proclamations across the centuries.
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One of the many we have in our WallBuilders' collection is an 1778 handwritten Thanksgiving proclamation by New Hampshire Speaker of the House John Langdon (later to become a signer of the US Constitution and governor of the state). This proclamation acknowledges our firm reliance on God:
The mercies which, notwithstanding our great unworthiness, we are constantly receiving at the hands of Almighty God, ought ever to remind us of our obligations to Him; and it becomes our especial duty at the close of a year, to unite together in rendering thanks to the Divine Disposer of all good for the bounties of His providence conferred on us in the course thereof.
After America won her independence, the federal government also began observing Days of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day was officially recognized as an annual holiday on |
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The goodness and the mercy of God, which have followed the American people during all the days of the past year claim our grateful recognition and humble acknowledgment. By His omnipotent power He has protected us from war and pestilence and from every national calamity; by His gracious favor the earth has yielded a generous return to the labor of the husbandman, and every path of honest toil has led to comfort and contentment; by His loving kindness the hearts of our people have been replenished with fraternal sentiment and patriotic endeavor, and
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by His Fatherly guidance we have been directed in the way of national prosperity.
As you celebrate Thanksgiving today, take time to honor God in your festivities, and read one of the many early Thanksgiving proclamations that remind us of His continued goodness to us yesterday and today. From all of us at WallBuilders, Happy Thanksgiving!
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