Thanksgiving began as a three-day harvest feast at Plymouth Colony in the fall of 1621, shared by English colonists and roughly 90 Wampanoag people. It took another 242 years for a president to proclaim a national Thanksgiving, and until 1941 for Congress to fix the date for good. In between came earlier thanksgiving services in Spanish Florida and Virginia, a magazine editor’s decades-long letter campaign, and a date change so unpopular people called it “Franksgiving.”
And one detail most versions of the story leave out: there was no honey on that first table.
Thanksgiving History at a Glance
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1565 | Spanish settlers hold a Mass of Thanksgiving and shared meal in St. Augustine, Florida |
| 1619 | English settlers at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia, declare a yearly day of thanksgiving |
| 1621 | Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag share a three-day harvest feast |
| 1622 | The first recorded honey bee hives reach the Virginia Colony |
| 1841 | Editor Alexander Young labels the 1621 feast “the first Thanksgiving” |
| 1863 | Abraham Lincoln proclaims a national day of Thanksgiving |
| 1939 | Franklin D. Roosevelt moves the holiday up a week |
| 1941 | The fourth Thursday of November becomes federal law |
The 1621 Harvest Feast at Plymouth
The story most of us learned begins in the fall of 1621, when the colonists of Plymouth Colony celebrated their first successful harvest. Their first winter had been brutal. Roughly half of the Mayflower’s 102 passengers died, leaving about 50 colonists to see the spring.
Those survivors owed their harvest to the Wampanoag people, who had lived on that land for thousands of years. Tisquantum, remembered today as Squanto, taught the colonists how to grow corn in unfamiliar soil. By autumn the colony had food to spare.
The celebration lasted three days. Roughly 90 Wampanoag people, including their leader Massasoit, joined the colonists. The menu featured venison brought by Wampanoag hunters, along with wildfowl, corn, and shellfish. No honey pumpkin pie, no cranberry relish, no honey pecan pie. The colonists had no ovens for baking pies, and their sugar was nearly gone.
Was There Honey at the First Thanksgiving?
No. Honey bees are not native to North America. The first recorded hives crossed the Atlantic in 1622 and reached the Virginia Colony a few months after the Plymouth feast. Within a few decades, honey had become a common colonial sweetener, used for mead and for baking with honey.
Early colonists kept their bees in woven straw skeps, harvesting honey and beeswax while the bees went about their real work of pollination. The skep held on until 1852, when Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth introduced the movable frame hive, the basic design most beekeepers still use. Honey’s story is far older than colonial America, of course. People were keeping bees in ancient Egypt thousands of years earlier.
Thanksgiving Celebrations Before 1621
The 1621 Plymouth feast gets called “the first Thanksgiving,” but nobody called it that at the time. The label first appeared in 1841, when editor Alexander Young used it in a footnote. Documented thanksgiving observances in North America go back decades earlier.
St. Augustine, Florida, 1565
The earliest recorded thanksgiving meal in what is now the United States took place on September 8, 1565, in St. Augustine, Florida. Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and roughly 800 settlers marked their safe arrival with a Mass of Thanksgiving, then shared a meal with the local Timucua people. That was 56 years before Plymouth.
Berkeley Hundred, Virginia, 1619
English settlers in Virginia held thanksgiving services in the colony’s early years. The best documented came on December 4, 1619, when 38 settlers landed at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City, Virginia. Their charter required them to keep the day of their arrival as “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God” every year going forward.
New England Days of Thanksgiving
In New England, days of thanksgiving became a Puritan practice, proclaimed by religious leaders and marked with church services, prayer, and shared meals. Over generations, those days picked up the food we now tie to the holiday: turkey, stuffing, squash, whatever the harvest gave.
How Thanksgiving Became a National Holiday
Sarah Josepha Hale’s Campaign
The move from scattered regional celebrations to a national holiday owes a great deal to one stubborn woman. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, saw Thanksgiving as a patriotic tradition built on family, gratitude, and rural American values.
Through her magazine, Hale promoted a Thanksgiving table built around turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie, the foods that now define the holiday. She wrote editorial after editorial and sent letters to five presidents before one acted.
Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Proclamation
The one who acted was Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War. On October 3, 1863, he issued a proclamation, drafted by Secretary of State William H. Seward, setting aside the last Thursday of November as “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” The aim was to ask a divided country to pause and give thanks in spite of the war.
Franksgiving and the 1941 Law
Even after Lincoln, the date was set each year by presidential proclamation. In 1939, during the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. The change was so unpopular and confusing that critics called it “Franksgiving,” and some states refused to go along.
Congress settled it with a joint resolution fixing Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, which Roosevelt signed into law on December 26, 1941. That is the date we still keep.
Native American Perspectives on Thanksgiving
The version of Thanksgiving many of us learned in school stops at the feast. The full history includes what came after.
The 1621 gathering was a moment of cooperation between the Wampanoag and the Plymouth colonists, and the peace did not last. The Pequot War broke out in 1637. In 1675, Massasoit’s son Metacom led the Wampanoag and allied nations against the colonists in King Philip’s War. Over the following centuries, colonization displaced or killed millions of Native Americans through violence and introduced disease.
Since 1970, many Native Americans have gathered in Plymouth on Thanksgiving Day for a National Day of Mourning, marking the loss of Indigenous lands, cultures, and lives. Knowing that history sits alongside the gratitude and togetherness of the modern holiday. It does not have to replace it.
Modern Thanksgiving Traditions
Today’s Thanksgiving looks very little like that harvest feast. Shaped by Hale and Lincoln, the holiday now centers on family, a full table, and saying thanks out loud.
The Thanksgiving Meal
The modern Thanksgiving feast centers on turkey, with millions of birds roasted across the country in a single day. The sides are just as fixed: stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. Plenty of cooks reach for honey, from honey-glazed butternut squash to cranberry relish made with our limited-edition Cranberry Honey, gathered during the short summer bloom of New England cranberry bogs. Here’s what makes cranberry blossom honey different. If you’re a guest this year rather than the host, the Gratitude Gift is a fitting hostess present for a holiday that is literally about giving thanks.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was first held in 1924. Floats, giant balloons, and marching bands draw millions of people to the streets of New York and to their televisions, and the parade has become the unofficial start of the holiday season.
Football and Family Traditions
Thanksgiving football dates back to 1876, when Yale played Princeton. Today the game is as much a part of the day as the meal. Many families also run a Turkey Trot, volunteer at a food bank, or watch the parade together, the same way every year.
A Holiday That Keeps Changing
From a harvest feast at Plymouth to a Civil War proclamation to a date fixed by Congress, Thanksgiving has never stopped changing. Its history holds survival, gratitude, community, and the hard relationships that shaped early America.
When you sit down to an Eastern Shore Thanksgiving feast or a table of fall desserts this year, you’re keeping a tradition with four centuries behind it. If you’re baking, the honey for that pie can come from our Eastern Shore Honey collection. And if origin stories are your thing, the history of Valentine’s Day is every bit as surprising.
FAQs About the History of Thanksgiving
When was the first Thanksgiving?
The feast commonly called the first Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621 at Plymouth Colony. Earlier thanksgiving observances were held in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565 and at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia, in 1619.
Why is Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November?
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November in 1863. After Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the date in 1939, Congress fixed the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November, and Roosevelt signed it into law in December 1941.
What did they eat at the first Thanksgiving?
The 1621 menu included venison, wildfowl such as goose and duck, corn, and shellfish. Pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes came later. The colonists had little sugar, no ovens for baking, and no honey bees.
Did the Pilgrims eat turkey at the first Thanksgiving?
Possibly. A colonist’s account of the feast mentions wildfowl, and Plymouth’s governor William Bradford wrote of wild turkeys in the colony that fall. Ducks and geese are more likely to have been the main birds.
Who made Thanksgiving a national holiday?
Magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for a national Thanksgiving for years, writing to five presidents. Abraham Lincoln made it official with his proclamation of October 3, 1863.
Was there honey at the first Thanksgiving?
No. Honey bees are not native to North America. The first recorded hives reached the Virginia Colony in 1622, and honey became a common colonial sweetener in the decades that followed.
FAQs About The Complete History of Thanksgiving: From 1621 to Modern Traditions
When was the first Thanksgiving?
The feast commonly called the first Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621 at Plymouth Colony. Earlier thanksgiving observances were held in St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and in the Virginia Colony beginning in 1607.
Why is Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November?
President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November in 1863. After a confusing date change in 1939, Congress fixed the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941, and it has stayed there ever since.
What did they eat at the first Thanksgiving?
The 1621 menu included venison, wildfowl such as goose and duck, corn, and shellfish. Pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes came later; the colonists had little sugar, no ovens, and no honey bees.
Who made Thanksgiving a national holiday?
Magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for a national Thanksgiving for years, writing to five presidents. Abraham Lincoln made it official with his proclamation of October 3, 1863.
Was there honey at the first Thanksgiving?
No. Honey bees are not native to North America and only arrived in 1622, when the first recorded hives reached the Virginia Colony. Honey became a common colonial sweetener in the decades that followed.
