The NTSA Advisor wishes its readers a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for your support! The NTSA Advisor will not be appearing on Thursday, Nov. 26; however, it will be back to business as usual on Tuesday, Dec. 1.
The most iconic account of the start of American Thanksgiving celebrations is, or course, that in Plymouth when it was a fledgling British colony clinging to the coast of Massachusetts. But that was not the only early American Thanksgiving celebration — nor was it the first.
Following is a look at other early American Thanksgiving celebrations.
The Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led 1,500 men north from Mexico City in 1540 in search of gold. They held a thanksgiving celebration in May 1541 at the Palo Duro Canyon, TX.
French Calvinists, or Huguenots came to a site near the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, FL in June 1564 to establish a haven where they could worship freely. They promptly held a service of thanksgiving.
In 1565, the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé invited members of the local Timucuas to a dinner in St. Augustine, FL after holding a Catholic Mass to thank God for his crew’s safe arrival.
On Aug. 9, 1607 English settlers led by Captain George Popham joined Abnaki Indians along the Kennebec River in what is now Maine for a harvest feast and prayer meeting. The colonists established Fort St. George around the same time as the founding of Virginia's Jamestown colony, this site was abandoned a year later.
The winter of 1609-1610, which became known as “the starving time” cut the population of the Jamestown, VA colony that had been established in 1607 from 490 to 60. The colonists held a thanksgiving prayer service in the spring of 1610 after English supply ships arrived with food.
On Dec. 4, 1619, 38 British settlers reached a site known as Berkeley Hundred on the banks of Virginia’s James River near Jamestown, and read a proclamation designating the date as “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
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