Thanksgiving in Virginia
Pilgrims
We all know the story of the Pilgrims coming to Plymouth, Massachusetts and celebrating the first harvest with Squanto, a Patuxet Native American and the Wampanoag tribe in 1621. But did you know that there were other “Thanksgiving” celebrations before this event?
Squanto
The first documented thanksgiving feasts in the territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards in the 16th century. Spanish explorer Pedro Men’ndez arrived on the coast of Florida and founded the first North American city, St. Augustine. On September 8, 1565, the Spanish and the native Timucua celebrated with a feast of Thanksgiving. The Spanish most likely offered cocido, a rich stew made with pork, and the Timucua may have brought wild turkey, venison, or even alligator, along with corn, beans, and squash.
Spanish Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving services were routine in what was to become the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607, with the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia holding a thanksgiving in 1610.
Jamestown Settlement
On December 4, 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, which comprised about 8,000 acres on the north bank of the James River, near Herring Creek, in an area then known as Charles Cittie, about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony of Virginia had been established on May 14, 1607.
Berkeley Hundred
The group’s charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a “day of thanksgiving” to God. On that first day, Captain John Woodlief held the service of thanksgiving. As quoted from the section of the Charter of Berkeley Hundred specifying the thanksgiving service: “We ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”
Berkeley Thanksgiving
During the Indian massacre of 1622, nine of the settlers at Berkeley Hundreds were killed, as well as about a third of the entire population of the Virginia Colony. The Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned as the colonists withdrew to Jamestown and other more secure points.
Present Day Berkeley
After several years, the site became Berkeley Plantation, and was long the traditional home of the Harrison family, one of the First Families of Virginia. In 1634, it became part of the first eight shires of Virginia, as Charles City County, one of the oldest in the United States, and is located along Virginia State Route 5, which runs parallel to the river’s northern borders past sites of many of the James River plantations between the colonial capital city of Williamsburg (now the site of Colonial Williamsburg) and the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia at Richmond.
Michelle and Brett
In Chesapeake on Thanksgiving Day 2012
Happy Thanksgiving from Virginia!
Brett and Michelle
Visit Us on Facebook!
Such rich and fascinating history.
Thank you! I think so too!
that was fascinating information!!!
Thank you! It’s cool to know that Virginia was the first written holiday on record that celebrated a “Thanksgiving”
Thanks – it was so interesting. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving ;o)
Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
I have lived in Virginia for over 20 years and didn’t know half of this. Thank you for the history lesson. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving from Belle Grove Plantation and Virginia!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Happy Thanksgiving! You wrote such an interesting and beautiful article! I really enjoy reading your blog.
Karin
Thank you Karin! Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to you (dear History keeper) from Qui Entertainment Magazine.
Thank you! (haha) Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Thanks for the history of Thanksgiving, which was a lot more than I put in my post yesterday. 🙂 Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
You are welcome. It wasn’t much. Just a little history. Happy Thanksgiving!
You really do a nice job on your blog. I love that you keep us historically informed! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Thank you! I do love history so it seems I connect it to most everything we do. Happy Thanksgiving!
A blessed and calm Thanksgiving to you and your families!
Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving!
Great information!!
Thank you! It’s cool that Virginia was the first written annual Thanksgiving holiday.
Yes amazing info. Happy thanks giving to all of you wonderful readers.
Thank you! It is really cool to know about Virginia.
I knew you will give us a bit of a history, thank you! Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh you know me oh so well! Happy Thanksgiving!
May you have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you! And to you too!
Hey! We still praying 4 U….
I was amazed by this history…What is even more fascinating for me is the similarities between the Jamestown settlement and some homes, which I have seen around the world including this very continent. If the Jamestown settlement looked this way in the 1600s, and yet, we have some houses today, which look like those in the Jamestown settlement, it seems like we are 412 (2012-1600s) years behind the development time…
Thank you so much! Jamestown isn’t far from here. They have a reproduction of the settlement and an archeology dig of the original settlement. It is really cool to see.
That is great to hear…
Sometimes I wish I could live back then! Great Post! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
I think that would be fun in a way. Thank you!
Happy Thanksgiving to you all in Virginia. Cheers for the like on my little post! regards, Pete. (England)
You are so welcome! We look forward to seeing more of your blog in the future! We love our UK readers! Thank you!
Thanks for posting about all the rich history of Virginia. I’ve visited Berkeley Hundred (back when it was Martin’s Hundred and just rediscovered) and the new exhibits. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Thank you so much! We love the history that Virginia has to offer. It is so rich. We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
So lovely and appealing.
Thank you! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving. I know very little about the origins of that tradition of yours!
Thank you! It is a wonderful tradition. Over eating and hanging out with love ones! 😉
How interesting! As an Australian, I only knew the story of the pilgrims, so it was great to read the rest here.
Thank you! I know our readers are from all over the world so we wanted to show that there was more to the story than the Piligrams. They are only a small part of the story.
[…] Belle Grove’s Thanksgiving in Virginia […]
Thank you so much for sharing us with your readers! It really means a lot to us!
Marvelous post. I so enjoy your rambles through history.
Thank you! It is so much fun finding the lost stories of the past.
Thanks so very much for your informative blog. Also for mentioning the first Thanksgiving in St. Augustine. Most never acknowledge our early Florida history.
You are so welcome. I believe it is important to remember all of it, not just the normally told stories.
Happy Thanksgiving, Michelle. I hope that it was filled with much love and good food (I’m sure it was).
Thank you! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too! Did you have a bacon biscuit?
I did! I was still kind of recovering from a bad cold, so I couldn’t really taste much. But everything looked good!
Yum!
Sadly no bacon biscuits . . . 🙁
aw!
That was very interesting.
Thank you! It was so cool that Virginia was the first to have a written annual event for Thanksgiving.
I agree, next to Pennsylvania, Virginia is my favorite state.
Nice site you have here and how exciting to be starting a historic bed and breakfast! We wish you well in this adventure. Bed and breakfasts are one of my favorite places to stay when traveling and having a historic background is a huge bonus. Thank you for stopping by The Brass Rag. I hope you’ll come back and see us soon.
You are so welcome! We hope to see more of your blog in the future! Thank you so much! We look forward to opening and having many come and see this wonderful plantation!
Thanks so much, Michelle, for including the other recorded days of Thanksgiving. I had meant to include the Berkeley one in my article on Thanksgiving in The Citizen; wish I had remembered. I still believe American is “a land of Thanksgiving.” Appreciate all your blogs. God bless.
No problem! You know me… a huge history person. I just love the fact that Virginia was the first state to have a written annual event.