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Message:: [QUOTE="TheNickelGuy, post: 8297584, member: 20201"]1971 ThanksgivingHeraldic Art Medal [ATTACH=full]1467450[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1467451[/ATTACH] Plymouth’s Thanksgiving began with a 3-day event in Plymouth in the fall of 1621. A few colonists going out “fowling,” possibly for turkeys, but more probably for the easier prey of geese and ducks, since they “in one day killed as much as…served the company almost a week.”Then 90 or so Wampanoag Indians made a surprise appearance at the settlement’s gate, doubtlessly unnerving the 50 or so colonists. Over the next few days the two groups socialized without incident.The Wampanoag contributed venison to the feast, which included the fowl and probably fish, eels, shellfish, stews, vegetables, and beer.Since Plymouth had few buildings and manufactured goods, most people ate outside while sitting on the ground or on barrels with plates on their laps.A treaty between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag lasted 54 years until King Philip’s War when hundreds of colonists and thousands of Native Americans lost their lives. [ATTACH=full]1467452[/ATTACH] The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “Thanksgivings,” days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.Thanksgiving Day did not become an official holiday until Northerners dominated the federal government. On October 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.The holiday was annually proclaimed by every president thereafter, and the date chosen, with few exceptions, was the last Thursday in November.[/QUOTE]

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