Friday, November 25, 2005

I bet you think that the first Thanksgiving in America occured in Plymouth, MA, right?

Wrong:

The first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief led the newly arrived English colonists to a grassy slope along the James River and instructed them to drop to their knees and pray in thanks for a safe arrival to the New World.

On this day, Dec. 4, 1619, these 38 men from Berkeley Parish in England were given the instructions:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

This saying is now carved on a brick gazebo, where it is believed that Woodlief knelt down beside the James River.

Berkeley Plantation is not far from Jamestown, VA. Note the date; more than one year prior to the feast that we duplicate every November. The Massachusetts Thanksgiving that we commemmorate was actually a harvest feast that was given after years of near famine. The date of that celebration was 1621.