The Chronicles Of Grant County:
The First Thanksgiving

November 27, 2019

(This image was provided courtesy of Ms. Jill Wellington from Pixabay.)

Thanksgiving today is considered a truly American holiday that is celebrated by almost everyone within the country, including people throughout Grant County and New Mexico.

While the initial Thanksgivings by European settlers within the borders of what is now the United States likely took place in 1619 in Virginia and in 1621 in Massachusetts, the first national day of Thanksgiving – one set by a Congress of the United States – took place in Gulph Mills on December 18, 1777.

Most Thanksgiving celebrations were based on harvests, cultural traditions, and religious celebrations. Today, the date set aside for Thanksgiving – the fourth Thursday of November – was based on business considerations.

For decades in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Thanksgiving was the last Thursday in November. In some years, that meant the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a week longer than in other years. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving so as to lengthen the shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Details about the first official Thanksgiving in the United States were reported in the Vermont Union Whig of Rutland, Vermont, in a news article dated December 6, 1848. This newspaper re-printed a news article from the Cleveland Herald:

“During the troublesome days of the Revolution, our patriot fathers found cause for thanksgiving, and the ‘Continental Congress,’ at least twice, appointed by proclamation, a day for thanksgiving and praise. One of them was the 18th of December, 1777. The army was then at Valley Forge [actually, in Gulph Mills], and the Orderly Book of December 17, contains the following:

‘To-morrow being the day set apart by the honorable Congress for public thanksgiving and praise, and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General [George Washington] directs that the Army retire to its private quarters, and that the chaplains perform divine service with their several corps and brigades; and earnestly exhorts all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not absolutely necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day.’”

The grave situation in Gulph Mills was described in a news article dated June 14, 1903, in the New-York Tribune: “For details of their suffering one can look here and there into the old diaries of the brave men who spent the winter there. Surgeon [Albigence] Waldo, of the 11th Connecticut Militia, wrote: ‘December 18 – Universal thanksgiving – a roasted pig to-night. The army are poorly supplied with provisions, owing it is said, to the neglect of the commissary of purchases. The Congress have not made their commissions valuable enough. Heaven avert the bad consequences of these things.’”

For all its difficulties, the First Thanksgiving showcased a willingness to preserver even in circumstances exceedingly poor.

The Tampa Tribune reported in a news article dated November 22, 1907, that “In those early days the founders of the republic were wont to bestow much more attention upon the observance of Thanksgiving than was accorded Christmas, particularly in the matter of the feast. It was during the Revolutionary War that the custom of setting apart days of thanksgiving which had previously been confined largely to New England spread to other parts of the country, for during the struggle for independence the Continental Congress recommended no less than eight days of thanksgiving.”

While celebrating Thanksgiving in New Mexico in 2019, please do not forget the men and women who
have been and are serving our country in Afghanistan, Syria, South Korea, Germany, and many other locales
throughout the world. Ten years ago, military personnel of the United States gathered “for a Thanksgiving
meal at an undisclosed base in Southwest Asia [on] November 26, 2009,” according to the United States
Air Force. “Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Department of Defense personnel celebrated Thanksgiving
together while deployed in support of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.” (This photograph
was produced by Staff Sgt. Robert Barney and was provided courtesy by the United States Air Force.)

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 Contact Richard McDonough at chroniclesofgrantcounty@gmail.com.

© 2019 Richard McDonough