The History of Thanksgiving, Or What in the World Did the Miners Do?

By Sarah Lunsford

Every fourth Thursday of November people all over the United States gather to celebrate
Thanksgiving Day. A day marked by having fun with family and friends, overeating, the
Macy’s Parade and football.
Days of thanksgiving have been a part of the human experience throughout history with
the ancient Hebrews, Romans and other cultures celebrating harvest festivals to give
thanks.
Although the traditional first Thanksgiving in the harvest festival tradition took place in
1621 at the Plymouth Plantation with a joint harvest feast between the Pilgrims and the
Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans, there are two other thanksgiving day celebrations
that can lay claim to the title of first thanksgiving in the Unites States.
The first recorded celebration of thanksgiving in the New World was on September 8,
1565 when Spanish settlers landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida and immediately
held a Thanksgiving Mass for their safe delivery.
Another Mass that can lay claim to the title of first thanksgiving in the U.S. was on April
30, 1598 when a group of Spanish explorers gave thanks for their safe deliverance
through Texas.
With the beginning of colonization on the East coast, thanksgiving celebrations were a
part of the fabric of colonist’s lives often by the settlements charter.
The Colony of Virginia was chartered to observe the day of its arrival at the colony to be
annually observed as a day of thanksgiving to God.
Thanksgiving was a day steeped in Christian religious observance with many colonies
choosing to fast and pray during their days of thanksgiving observance.
The Plymouth Plantations observance of Thanksgiving in 1621 looked far more like a
harvest celebration and more closely resembled the traditional Thanksgiving Day
celebrations in the modern day than some of the other colonies.
Harvest festivals were present in both the English settler’s culture and that of the
Wapanoag tribe. The festival was celebrated after the settler’s first harvest and a
particularly difficult winter.
The help of Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who knew English because of his own
past life experience, was the key to the settler’s survival. As a youth, he was taken from
his home by English explorers with the intent to sell him and others into slavery. He
ended up residing with friars from the Catholic Church who took him and others native
Americans in order to teach them the Christian faith.
In the process of living with the friars and ending up living in London, Squanto learned
English and was the key to survival for the Pilgrims because he was able to communicate
with them, act as an interpreter between the tribe and the settlers and teach them about
gathering food in the New World.
Although many colonies celebrated an annual day of thanks, it was far from a cohesive
and annual day of celebration until many years later.
After the Revolutionary War there were many times that presidents would proclaim a
certain day as thanksgiving for military victory or especially bountiful years, but it wasn’t
until the 20th century that there was an actual annual day set aside for a day of
thanksgiving.
This lack of an actual annual day set aside for thanksgiving, made the observance of the
day in the country and in the Mother Lode inconsistent, with many states choosing their
own days of celebration with annul declarations by their governors.
Even though there was nothing official to place Thanksgiving Day, the tradition of the
holiday was beginning to take shape as being observed as the third or fourth Thursday of
November, something the miners during the Gold Rush would have tried to remember if
only to take a day off from their work.
“December 1, 1850 – Although there was nothing to show it, we observed Thursday as
Thanksgiving, as that was the legal day in the States. All we did was lay off and eat quail
stew and dried apple pie. I thought a lot about the old folks and would have lied to have
been home with them, I guess I will be next year.” The Diary of a Forty-Niner, written by
Alfred T. Jackson
The miners worked so hard that most would take any opportunity to lay off their
backbreaking work for a day. It was typically a low key day for them.
“The concept of giving thanks was there,” said Bonnie Miller, Mother Lode historian.
Any holiday would give the reason for taking the day off Fourth of July, Christmas,
birthdays and Thanksgiving, if they could only figure out what was the actual day these
things happened on.
Because they literally lived of the grid, miners, and others out West, relied heavily on
newspapers to determine what day it was and it was these periodicals that told them what
date it was and in this way they could determine which days to take off for holidays.
There’s not a lot of evidence that miners observed Sabbath, if they did give thanks on
Thanksgiving it may have been a prayer of thank before the typical meal of quail stew.
Although Spanish beef was readily available in California because of the Mexican
settlements and their emphasis on cattle ranching, according to Miller most miners would
have liked to have eaten anything but beef.
Presumably miners, like us today, got tired of eating the same thing and wanted variety in
their diet.
Most historians agree that the mail dominated society of the mining camps led to the
reality that miners couldn’t cook with their efforts on getting fed focusing on throwing
whatever they could into a cook pot over the fire and letting it boil until it was done,
because of this lack of skill those entrepreneurs who could cook saw an economic
opportunity.
Those who opened cookhouses were the ones who truly struck economic gold during the
gold rush, providing meals for miners who routinely paid anywhere from 50 cents to 2
dollars for a plate depending on the establishment.
A plate of food could vary from a meal of bacon and eggs, to soups and stews along with
roast beef and other fare.
It wasn’t until after the Gold Rush that a national day of thanksgiving was proclaimed.
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that a national day of thanksgiving was
to be observed on the final Thursday of November.
This proclamation was the direct result of the efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale, a columnist
and editor of Godey's Lady's Book.
Starting in 1846, Hale spent 17 years writing in support of a national day of thanksgiving
before it was successful. She wrote columns along with countless letters to congressmen
and presidents to promote the idea that there should be a national day of thanksgiving set
aside for just that purpose.
“If every state would join in Union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not
be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?” Hale
wrote in an editorial penned in 1859.
Although from that time the day had a national day of observance, it wasn’t until 1941
that the day was declared an annual observance taking place on the fourth Thursday of
November by Congress. From 1863 until that time, presidents would make an annual
declaration announcing when Thanksgiving Day was to be celebrated.
Although the holiday has a history that goes beyond that of the United States, the
adopting of the holiday and making it our own has given us the opportunity to give
thanks to God for the bounty of the United States.

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, deserves recognition as the Mother
of the American Thanksgiving.
She spent years lobbying for a national day of thanksgiving.
The following editor's column was part of the long campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale to
get Thanksgiving accepted as a national holiday in the United States.
From Sarah Josepha Hale, "Editor's Table," Godey's Lady's Book
OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING
"All the blessings of the fields,
All the stores the garden yields,
All the plenty summer pours,
Autumn's rich, o'erflowing stores,
Peace, prosperity and health,
Private bliss and public wealth,
Knowledge with its gladdening streams,
Pure religion's holier beams --
Lord, for these our souls shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise."
We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different
States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope,
will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be
the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people. Let this day, from
this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness
may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion,
and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart. This truly American Festival falls, this
year on the twenty fifth day of this month.
Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and
doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place
of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the
popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of
feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of
fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all
our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace
and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day
of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world.