Thanksgiving Day

John White, writing in 1630, about "the great migration" to the Bay Colony in Massachusetts:

"Necessity may press some, novelty draw on others, hopes of gain in time to come may prevail with a third sort; but that the most and most sincere and godly part have the advancement of the Gospel for their main scope I am confident."

David Hackett Fischer, writing about the social origins of the Puritan Migration in 'Albion's Seed':

"Other English plantations eagerly welcomed any two-legged animal (!) who could be dragged on board an emigrant ship. But Massachusetts chose its colonists with care. Not everyone was allowed to settle there. In doubtful cases, the founders of the colony actually demanded written proof of good character."

The environment was important:

"This cold climate proved a blessing. It created an exceptionally healthy environment for settlers from Northern Europe. Insect-born diseases such as malaria and yellow fever were less dangerous...Water-borne infections including typhoid fever and dysentery were much diminished by the cold temperatures of Massachusetts Bay."

"Cool temperatures and a variable climate created an immensely stimulating environment for an active population. European travelers repeatedly observed with astonishment the energy of the inhabitants. One visitor noted that New England children seem normally to move at a full run. Another remarked that their elders invented the rocking chair so they could keep moving even while sitting still."

"The Yankee twang (example: an added e so 'now' became a nasal neouw) did not develop in a perfectly uniform way...in Boston it was spoken at a speed which made it incomprehensible even to others of the same region."

"The ritual Thanksgiving dinner came mainly from the oven - baked Turkey, baked squash, baked beans, baked bread and baked pies in vast profusion. The pie, in particular, became a Yankee folk art."

"A fourth Puritan festival was Thanksgiving, which by 1676 had become an annual event, held on a Thursday in November...the first Thanksgiving in the Bay Colony happened on 22 February 1630 after provision ships arrived just in time to prevent starvation...by the late 1670s this event had become an autumn ritual, in which a fast was followed by a family dinner and another fast."

Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press, 1989