Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1897-11-25
History of Thanksgiving.

Each year teachers are giving great
er recognition to the anniversaries of
special events in the teaching of les
sons of moral value in the school-room,
and in number of schools, exercises
will be held today in celebration Of
our peculiarly American holiday
Thanksgiving Day. The history of
the origin of the day Will be central
feature of the exercises, and this story
is related in an extremely interesting
fashion by Professor Franklin S. Ed
monds, in the new monthly of the Ed
ucational Club, The Teacher, the ini-
tial number of which Is now being well
coined in educational circles. The
traditions of our history, writes Pro-
fessor Edmonds, have developed Sc
ries of special feast days, such as
| Washington Birthday Fourth of July,
Decoration Day and Labor Day, yet
more than a century and half before
the earliest of these comes the great
Puritan holiday, Thanksgiving Day,
first celebrated in the autumn of 1921.
Whether it was then suggested by the
innumerable feast days of the English
! (srch as the thanksgiving over the de-
feat of the Spanish Armada in 1889,
or whether the Autumnal Harvest
Home of the early Germans Of the
Feast of Tabernacles established by
Moses prompted it, or, as Douglass
Campbell would probably claim,
whether the soiourn of the Pilgrim
flock had impressed upon their minds
the memory of the magnificent thanks
giving in Leyden upon the anniver-
.ary Of its deliverance from the Span
lard October 8, 1879, OF whether, as
is most probable, the early Puritans
felt the necessity Of some holiday to
take the place OF the ecclesiastical
| Christmas, from the friyolities Of which
their stern and rational souls turned
in loathing, are questions for, the his
torian to examine and settle. But
whatever its origin, two contemporary
accounts leave no doubt az to Its first
celebration in the Plymouth colony.
It was held at a time when there was
need of relaxation and recreation
among the little band. Disease and
privation had thinned the Mayfower 8
gallant company, so that out Of the
1Ol original colonists, 46 had died in
ten months. Let the quaint words Of
Governor Bradford paint the picture
Of the Puritan life.
"They now began to gather in the
small harvest they had, and to fit up
their houses and dwellings against
winter, being all well recovered in
health and strength, and had all things
in good, plenty for as some were thus
employed in affairs abroad, others were
exercised in fishing about cod and basE
and other fish, of which they took
good store. of which every family had
their portion. All the summer there
was no want And now began to
come in store of fowls, as winter ap-
preached, of which this place did
abound when they came first. =
And beside water fowl, there was great
store of wild turkeys, Of which they
took many, beside venison, etc.
Edward Winslow has left US an ae-
count Of their first Thanksgiving Day,
held probably in October, 1921:
"our harvest being gotten in, our
Governor sent four men on fowling, SO
that we might, after special manner,
rejoice together after We had gathered
the fruit Of our labors- They four in
one day killed az much fowl as, with
! little help beside. served the cOmpa-