Thanks for Our Thanksgiving Tradition
Setting aside days for thanks began early in the history of America.
By Dan Graves
When my extended family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner, we often go around the table and each express thanks for one or two blessings we especially appreciate. Usually friends and family get mentioned quickly, as does the feast spread before us. Some of the nephews and nieces turn awkward and mumble favors that no one else can hear, or say, “the same as him” or “she took what I was going to say.” This year I will give thanks for the founding fathers who gave us the Thanksgiving tradition.
Setting aside days for thanks began early in the history of America. Settlers designated such days in various parts of the country, taking to heart biblical commands such as “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
One of the most famous thanksgiving gatherings took place in 1621 when the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians feasted together for three days. However, settlers in Viriginia observed annual days of thanks even earlier. In one of the best known instances, thirty-eight gathered at Berkeley Hundred, on 4 December 1619, to lift prayers of gratitude.
After the colonies became the United States, individual states held days of thanks as they saw fit. Although Congress called for a day of thanks in 1777 and George Washington in 1789, neither day became a permanent holiday.
Thanksgiving as a national observance began near the end of a terrible war and was largely owing to one woman. Sarah Hale was a novelist and the editor of women’s magazines. For seventeen years she appealed to mayors, pastors, governors, missionaries, and presidents for a set day of thanksgiving in all the states and wherever United States citizens resided.
Every president ignored her. Every president until Abraham Lincoln, that is. In the midst of the Civil War, he read the appeal of the seventy-four-year-old woman and agreed. On October 3, 1863—one hundred and fifty years ago this year—he issued a proclamation calling all Americans to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving. Among the reasons he gave for thanks was the fact that no foreign nation had entered the war.
“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.”
Our nation has held Thanksgiving ever since on the fourth Thursday of November. Although one could argue that every day should be a day of thanks, a special day is worth observing, both to enjoy a communal celebration of God’s goodness and to remind ourselves to express appreciation to the giver of our blessings. As we share Thanksgiving this year, let us “solemnly, reverently, and gratefully” thank God for his benefits and mercies—and for those ancestors who paved this pathway of gratitude for us.
—DG