The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-11-22
DATES FROM 1865
National Thanksgiving Day Is
Comparatively New in Coun-
try's History.

7 is just IL years since the last
4 Thursday in November was adopt
/ ed by the president of the United
< States as the day set apart from
all others of the year to be observed
by the people of the nation as Thanks
giving day 1t was the first Thanks
giving celebrated after the close of the
Civil war, and the proclamation by
President Johnson a few weeks prior,
appointing such date, was issued be-
cause it was a generally understood
fact that Lincoln had planned, during
the dark days at the end of the Strug-
gle, to have some one day in November
reserved yearly by all states IN the
Union.
Throughout the war the celebration
had occurred only here and there in
scattered communities. And always be-
fore, in the various states which did
celebrate the day, it was purely sec
tiOnal affair, for which the governor is
sued a proclamation upon his own in
itiative. November 1865, witnessed the
beginning of the holiday as a national
institution. Since that date the COVER
nors of all states and territories, upon
receiving the presidents proclamation,
publish their own, naming the day in
formal fashion. 1t is an American feS-
tival day, unique in more than one re-
spect, but most perhaps because it is
the only religious festival celebrated
in this country upon the recommends
ton of the government.
Idea Borrowed From the Dutch.
1t had a tangled beginning. A score
of origins are claimed. And one is
rather at sea in selecting his particu-
lar belief. In the congressional Ii
brary it was a happy chance which
discovered these various sources and
their grave and gay histories outlined
in chain Of sketches.
In the middle states the day is OBJ
served more as a religious matter than
as holiday, but in New England it is
a festival, a domestic feast day and the
chief of all holidays. Americans like
to believe that Thanksgiving day is
purely and simply American, and 1t is,
but as instituted in New England the
idea was borrowed from the Dutch,
among whom the Pilgrims had dwelt
for ten years after leaving British soil
and before emigrating to America. The
HollanderS had been accustomed TO
celebrating October both religiOusly
and socially, in honor of their deliver
ance from the Spaniards, and when the
first harvest in the new home of the
English emigrants had yielded well it
seemed the natural thing to rejoice in
a period of public thanksgiving.
Some deserted Indian huts stored
with corn had furnished the nucleus of
that harvest, and an Indian chief who
had once been in England and conse-
auently trusted Englishmen gave the
Pilgrims instruction as to the planting
of the grain and the procuring of game
as well. Upon this first harvest rested
the wellbeing of the little colony, so
many of whose members had persisted
in that first fierce winter which follow
ed the landing of the Mayflower in De
cember, 1920 The hardest, who sur
vived, were humbly grateful for the
rich harvest in October, which followed
the neighborly natives suggestions
and Governor Bradford ordered a
three-day feast and celebration as rec
IGNITION of such plenitude. The In
dams who had first extended the hand