Thanksgiving Day banquet of the American Society in London : Hotel Cecil, London. November 26th, 1896.

  • American Society in London.
Date:
[1896]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thanksgiving Day banquet of the American Society in London : Hotel Cecil, London. November 26th, 1896. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Origin of Thanksgiving Day. (Specially written tor the Thanksgiving Feast of the American Society in London/ November 27th, 1896, by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., L.L.D.) South Congregational Church, Boston, November 17th, 1896. Mv Dear Stevens, If you will believe me, by far the most important addition made to American history by the discovery at Fulham Palace of Governor Bradford's manuscript History of the Voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers in the ' Mayflower' and the Foundation of the Plimoth Plantation, was the great truth, before unknown, that the Pilgrims ate ROAST TURKEYS at their first Thanksgiving Dinner!! We knew before that they had a Thanksgiving Feast, buttill this happy discovery we did not know that they had TURKEYS ! You know that they had Massasoit and a lot of his braves to dine with them. I feel sure that they had cranberry sauce from their own cranberries. Let us trust that Samoset had taught them how to make maple sugar. For, if he did not, I am afraid the cranberry sauce was very sour. The word Thanksgiving for a religious ceremony was at least as old as the destruction of the Spanish Armada. But I think there is no doubt that Thanksgiving Day as a festival begins with the Pilgrims' Feast Day —literally, a feast day appointed by Gov. Bradford after they had got in the harvest of 1621. There were between forty and fifty of the whites at the feast, and, I suppose, as many of the Indians. Please remind your friends in London that we know from Josselyn, a very accurate authority, that they had turkeys which weighed sixty pounds each. Imagine eight or ten such turkeys, ten or a dozen haunches of venison, four or five saddles of venison, pumpkin and squash pies AD LIBITUM, cranberry sauce, as I say, and all the partridges, quail, woodcock, ducks, and wild geese they could roast, with the forests of North America almost uncut for fuel, and you will guess that they did not need, as they did not have, the Roast Beef of Old England. They had no tea nor coffee, no beer, no cider, no potatoes, no apple pies, and no mince pies made with apples. The Festival itself was
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