Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry shares stories of how past generations have celebrated Thanksgiving. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I look back on past Thanksgivings and how America celebrated in the true “Pilgrim Style.”
1939: The Feast of Thanksgiving
In 1939 Plymouth, Massachusetts, celebrated Thanksgiving as they do every year: like it’s 1621 again. The feast of Thanksgiving was a display of gratitude for the bounty in their New World and camaraderie with the Pokanokets, a group of Wampanoag people and the village governed by Massasoit.
The plaque on this statue reads:
Massasoit, Great Sachem of the Wampanoags, Protector and Preserver of the Pilgrims, 1621.
The Detroit News published an article about the Plymouth Thanksgiving celebration that year.
The photo caption for this next photo reads:
Miles Standish, 69, ninth lineal descendant of his famous namesake [Mayflower passenger Miles/Myles Standish] is among those who observe Thanksgiving on the historic soil where the first Thanksgiving became an American institution.
The photo caption for this next photo reads:
The Thanksgiving prayer came first with the Pilgrims. “Miles Standish” (second from left) knelt with the other devout settlers as “Elder Brewster” offered prayers. The actors in the pageant wear costumes as authentic as research in the early records of the Pilgrims can make them.
The photo caption for this next photo reads:
The Indians brought in the deer for the feast, and also corn, fruits and berries. Without the aid of the Indians the first Thanksgiving would have been none too plentiful and the Pilgrims were very thankful indeed for the help they received from the Redmen in the days before they were thoroughly established in the New World.
In his book The Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, Nathaniel Philbrick noted that the two different peoples with profound differences – the Pilgrims and the Pokanoket Indians – had more in common than generally appreciated today. When the two joined to eat and drink on that first Thanksgiving, they merged as human beings in kinship and spirit to celebrate a common purpose and give thanks.
Here is a special footage video of Plymouth dating back to the early 1920s on YouTube.
1954: Thanksgiving in Pilgrim Style
I could not resist these adorable half-pint Pilgrims! The photo caption for this next photo reads:
The first Thanksgiving in New England, 1621, was the scene on the William Lipscomb School stage Tuesday as fifth-grade pupils wore colorful Pilgrim and Indian costumes. They also collected fruit for another school’s pupils. The Pilgrim maid, left, is Barbara Brown, and the two Pilgrim fathers are Gary Hammer, center, and Jimmy May, right.
1959 Thanksgiving: Their Folks Made It Sacred at the Albany Colony Club
Below are two Thanksgiving photos from the Knickerbocker News in 1959.
The photo caption on the left reads:
In Pilgrim’s garb. Dressed in the costume Pilgrims wore when they landed in America, James Anderson, 11, son of Mr. and Mrs. Presco Anderson, 26 Niblock Ct., studies an authentic replica of the 18-ton Mayflower. The replica belongs to Mrs. Cornelius M. Edwards, 1123 State St., former recording secretary of the Albany Colony Club of Mayflower Descendants. [Mrs. Edwards (1901-1981) was born in Troy, Rensselaer, New York, as Madeline Hurd to Albert Clark and Mary F. (Easton) Hurd, and was a direct descendant of Governor William Bradford.]
The photo caption on the right reads:
Hamming it up. Mayflower descendants Mrs. Frederick White [a descendant of Mayflower passenger Elder William Brewster, who later became second deputy governor of the Society], left, and Mrs. Ernest Perkins [a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger George Soule, who served as regent of the Society], right, wait with empty plates while Frederick W. Frear, also a descendant of Mayflower passengers, prepares to carve a Thanksgiving ham at the annual dinner of the Albany Colony of Mayflower Descendants.
You can read more on “How One Mayflower Descendant Honored Pilgrim Ancestors on Thanksgiving.”
1961: Pilgrims at the First Landing Monument in Provincetown
The photo caption for this next photo reads:
Dressed in Pilgrim attire, standing at the Pilgrim Marker Monument in Provincetown. Arthur Snader, town crier of the village, and Josephine Alice Couch Del Deo, landscape artist and preservationist, pointing to the inscription on the marker to her daughter Giovanni.
Here is a photo of the plaque on the First Landing Monument, Provincetown, Massachusetts, in Barnstable County, at the intersection of Province Lands Road and Commercial Street.
The inscription on this plaque reads:
The first landing place of the Pilgrims, Nov. 11, 1620, O.S. The map in Mourt’s Relation shows that near this spot the Pilgrims first touched foot on American soil. Erected by the Research Club of Provincetown, 1917.
1964: ‘Jonathan’s Thanksgiving’ School Play, Pilgrim Style
The photo caption for this next photo reads:
Present Thanksgiving play. Depicting a scene from their Thanksgiving play are members of the fourth grade classes at East Ridge Elementary School. The play, “Jonathan’s Thanksgiving,” was directed by the fourth grade teachers: Mrs. Laura Clark, Miss Florence Costello and Mrs. Helen Denman. Music was directed by Mrs. Patricia Wodham. Paul Morris is principal of the school. Those in the cast shown in the picture are Gail Pierson, Danny Smithson, Ted Parks, Tommy Shields, Marilyn Grant, Terry McGoldrick, Greg Nobles, Laura Bare, Cindy Kreis, Randy Boyd, and Joy Slater.
The spinning wheel as shown in the above photo was essential in every home of the early colonies.
According to the John Howland Society, the Jabez Howland house, an original structure built in 1667, has several spinning wheels exhibited, reflecting the importance of textile production to the colonists. Presumably Jabez and his family grew flax in the back garden.
The inventory of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley’s home at Rocky Nook at John’s death in 1672 records they had on hand “17 yards of flax” among the textiles, and owned at least three wheels for spinning. (See: A Thread through History—Flax and the Pilgrims.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial
Note on the header image: “Thanksgiving at Plymouth,” by Jennie A. Brownscombe, 1925. Credit: National Museum of Women in the Arts; Wikimedia Commons.
Related Articles: