The First Thanksgiving and other Thanksgiving Facts and Trivia!

Create a FREE Military Tribute Website!

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621. The location was somewhere in the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. The first Thanksgiving was held sometime between September and November. The exact date is unknown. It was a harvest celebration. It was not repeated every year, and there were other thanksgiving feasts in some parts of other colonies. But the one by the Plymouth Colony is the one we think of. Some British settlers near Virginia are said to have given thanks for a successful voyage in 1619. Another one in 1623 was also celebrated after some hard times. They did not just last one afternoon. They normally lasted about three days!

For meat, poultry and fish, they may have had eel, clams, turkey, duck, goose, and partridge. Nobody really knows exactly what they served. Some even think they had lobster and swan! For fruits and vegetables, probably on the tables were corn, acorns, carrots, pumpkins, beans, peas, and grapes. The first Thanksgiving may have also had a few walnuts and chestnuts. Perhaps an onion tossed in for flavor. Again, we are only guessing.

William Bradford, the governor, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. The Plymouth colonists shared an autumn celebration with the local Wampanoag Indians. It was traditional for the settlers to have celebrated some sort of harvest each autumn. Because it is generally believed that the local Indians helped the Pilgrims out, they were naturally involved and invited to such a feast. That and the native Americans probably contributed quite a bit to the menu. Or at least the success of the Pilgrims harvest.

The foods listed below are pretty much known due to writings that have survived about the first settlers that came on the Mayflower. Corn to them probably was what we would call Indian corn. There is also a debate as to whether they had goats on the Mayflower. This would have made cheese and milk products a possibility. But since this is unsure, it is not listed.

Leeks
Lettuce
Carrots
Pumpkin
Corn
Squash
Beans
Walnuts
Chestnuts
Acorns
Strawberries
Raspberries
Cranberries
Fish
Lobster
Eels
Clams
Mussels
Cornbread
Wild turkey
Duck
Goose
Deer

They did not use forks and probably ate mostly with their hands. They did not dress up in those campy black and white outfits. Their clothes were probably in earth tones like brown and beige.
Forget the fancy hats, belt buckles, and shoe buckles.

There were no pies of any kind. Even pumpkin. The Pilgrims did not have everything needed to bake pies. The meats may have been dried, as that was the way of keeping meat. There was no big, fat turkey served. Wild turkeys, duck, and other fowl would have been scrawny to todays standards. In fact, meat made up most of their meals. Fruits and vegetables were not that common and plentiful. No big plates of steaming mashed potatoes and buttered sweet potatoes. Thay had no potatoes. As for sweets, if they had sweets it was sweetened and spiced meat, not pies.

Minnesota produces more turkeys than any other state.

Cranberries are only native to North America.

Many times during the Revolutionary War, there were suggestions of a day of thanksgiving. General George Washington had even observed it. When George Washington became president, he declared that November 26, 1789 was to a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

New York in 1821 was the first state to adopt such a custom as thanksgiving. Many other states followed. Abraham Lincoln in 1863 designated the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving. It is now tradition for every president every November to make an official proclamation of thanksgiving.

It was President Franklin Roosevelt who officially offered it as the 4th Thursday in November. This measure was approved by Congress in 1941. The rest, as they say, is history.

Read more United States Fun History! CLICK HERE!

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Have a question on cooking turkey, food safety, baking, cooking, general food tips:
(800) 535-4555

Elect Sarah Palin

Teachers Index for Teaching
Resources and Articles

College Students and
Money,  Jobs, Grants, Loans, and Student Loan Consolidation

Breastfeeding and New Baby
Resources

Tutoring Resources