The New Student's Reference Work/Thanksgiving Day

Thanks′giving Day, a religious festival peculiar to the United States, resembling the Hebrew feast of ingathering. The Plymouth colony celebrated the first thanksgiving day after the harvest in 1621, four young men being sent out hunting to make provision for the feast. Such days were appointed after this at different intervals and for various objects in New England and New York. Congress recommended a thanksgiving day yearly during the Revolutionary War, but from 1784 to 1789 there was no national appointment of the festival. In 1784 a day of thanksgiving for the adoption of the Constitution was recommended, and one in 1796 because of the suppression of a riot. For years the festival was almost exclusively a New England institution, celebrated by religious services in the churches, the sermon being often a political address, and by the gathering at the old home of the scattered members of the family. The day gradually became a custom in the western and some of the southern states, each appointing its own day. During the Civil War proclamations for public thanksgiving were issued in 1862, 1863 and 1864, and since that time the day has been regularly appointed by the president of the United States. It usually is observed on the last Thursday in November.