Historic Documents

Proclamations

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• President George Washington, Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 26, 1789

• Governor Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, Thanksgiving Proclamation, December 9, 1779

• Proclamation for a Public Thanksgiving, New Hampshire, December 10, 1778

• Proclamation for Thanksgiving Day, Continental Congress, December 18, 1777

• The Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents Reveal Their Christian Faith Pt. 1

• CORRESPONDENCE AND OTHER WRITINGS OF SIX MAJOR SHAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES:
  George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Over 176,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.

Issued during the American Revolutionary War by the Continental Congress, this was the first national Thanksgiving Day in America. The explanation of the proclamation is from W. DeLoss Love, The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England (1895). Love lists over 1400 days of prayer and fasting and prayer and thanksgiving observed by civil governments (colonial, state, and national) from 1620-1815.

•  Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, Massachusetts, June 29, 1676

On June 20, 1676, the Council of Massachusetts appointed June 29 as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, in response to the colonists’ victory in King Philip’s War. The broadside of this proclamation is the earliest printed thanksgiving broadside known. At the top is the seal of Massachusetts, which shows an Indian speaking the words, “Come Over and Help Us.”