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Let Us Give Thanks…For These Thanksgiving Facts

  • The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, for the new world on Sept. 6, 1620, and arrived after a 66-day voyage on Nov. 11. One child (Oceanus Hopkins) was born and one person died during the voyage.
  • 101 people arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. Only 52 survived to celebrate Thanksgiving a year later.
  • With stormy seas, low supplies and winter fast approaching, the Mayflower decided to land at Cape Cod instead of their original destination between 38 and 41 degrees north latitude (Cape Cod is just north of 42 degrees). Water was an unreliable drink in those days. Beer, which had been boiled in the brewing process, was much safer, hence this entry in the Mayflower log: “So in the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution — to go presently ashore again and to take a better view of the two places which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take much time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer.”
  • “We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th of December.” (Mourt’s Relation, 1622, commonly attributed to colonists William Bradford and Edward Winslow).
  • The Wampanoag, who had lived for thousands of generations in the area the Pilgrims landed, called the place Patuxet.
  • The word Wampanoag means “People of the Light.”
  • When we think of Pilgrims we see them in black clothing and big buckles everywhere – on their hats, shoes and belts. Guess what? That is not how Pilgrims dressed. According to Mayflower cargo documents and burial records, the Pilgrims wore clothes of many colors. Those big hats they wore are called capotains, which were popular from the 1590s well into the mid-17th century. Capotains did not sport buckles on their fronts. The Pilgrims – religious separatists – probably did not even have belt buckles, but more likely held their trousers up with leather laces. How did the image of the black-garbed, buckled Pilgrims make its way down to us? Some have suggested that it comes from portraits done of some the separatist leaders, who would have worn their Sunday, go-to-meeting clothes for the sitting.
  • The date of what is typically recognized as the first Thanksgiving is not precisely known though it occurred between September 21 and November 9, 1621.
  • Held every year on the island of Alcatraz since 1975, The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony (also known as “Unthanksgiving Day”) commemorates the survival of Native Americans following the arrival and settlement of Europeans in the Americas.
  • Every Thanksgiving since 1970, a group of Native Americans and their supporters gather on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning.
  • Now a Thanksgiving dinner staple, cranberries were actually used by Native Americans to treat arrow wounds and to dye clothes.
  • Not all states were eager to adopt Thanksgiving because some thought the national government was exercising too much power in declaring a national holiday. Additionally, southern states were hesitant to observe what was largely a New England practice.
  • Thanksgiving football games began with Yale versus Princeton in 1876.
  • In 1920, Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia held a parade with about 50 people and Santa Claus bringing up the rear. The parade is now known as the 6ABC Dunkin’ Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade and is the nation’s oldest Thanksgiving Day parade.
  • Established in 1924, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ties for second as the oldest Thanksgiving parade. The Snoopy balloon has appeared in the parade more often than any other character. More than 44 million people watch the parade on TV each year and 3 million attend in person.
  • Thanksgiving Day is actually the busiest travel day, even more so than the day before Thanksgiving, as most people believe.
  • The people of the Virgin Islands, a United States territory in the Caribbean Sea, celebrate two thanksgivings, the national holiday and Hurricane Thanksgiving Day. Every Oct 19, if there have been no hurricanes, Hurricane Day is held and the islanders give thanks that they have been spared.
  • Thanksgiving can occur as early as November 22 and as late as November 28.
  • Black Friday is the busiest day of the year for plumbers, according to Roto-Rooter, the nation’s largest plumbing service. After all, someone has to clean up after household guests who “overwhelm the system.”
  • There are four places in the United States named Turkey. Louisiana’s Turkey Creek is the most populous, with a whopping 435 residents. There’s also Turkey, Texas; Turkey, North Carolina; and Turkey Creek, Arizona. Oh, let’s not forget the two townships in Pennsylvania: Upper Turkeyfoot and Lower Turkeyfoot.
  • When Abe Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it was thanks to the tireless efforts of a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale. She also wrote the nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
  • If Ben Franklin had his way, the turkey would be our national bird. An eagle, he wrote in a letter to his daughter, had “bad moral character.” A turkey, on the other hand, was a “much more respectable bird.”
  • Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday. Canadians celebrate it too. Except they do it the second Monday in October.
  • Why is it called a turkey? Back in the day, the Europeans took a liking to the guinea fowls imported to the continent. Since the birds were imported by Turkish merchants, the English called them turkeys. Later, when the Spaniards came to America, they found a bird that tasted like those guinea fowls. When they were sent to Europe, the English called these birds “turkeys” as well.
  • Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented a live turkey and two dressed turkeys to the President. The President does not eat the live turkey. He “pardons” it and allows it to live out its days on a historical farm.
  • No one is certain if wild turkey was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving meal back in 1621, although there certainly was wild fowl, venison, corn mush porridge, berries and indigenous vegetables and seafood. Since they had no ovens or wheat to bake crusts, pumpkin pie was not on the original menu, but they might have had a pumpkin custard, made by filling a pumpkin with milk, honey and spices and then roasting the gourd in hot ashes.

 

Sources: 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving; Smithsonian.com; plimoth.org; National Turkey Federation; rotorooter.com

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