The Pilgrims didn’t celebrate the first Thanksgiving – Euro-Americans had been doing that for a century before they came along, and even in English America, Virginians beat them by almost 20 years.

From time to time George Washington issued a Thanksgiving proclamation, and governors of some states, including New York, got in the habit of doing so annually. Here in the northeast custom coalesced around celebrating on a Thursday in November, though WHICH Thursday varied. Some presidents, such as Jefferson, flat-out refused to proclaim Thanksgiving.

In 1816, “the year without a summer,” there would have been little rejoicing, and nothing to eat in celebration. Southern Tier folks would have had NO reason for thanks when the Erie Canal opened in 1825, destroying our local economy. But 1826 (when slavery ended in New York) and 1851 (when the Erie Railroad revived our financial fortunes) would have been good occasions for joy.

Abraham Lincoln called for a day of Thanksgiving to take place on the last Thursday of November, in 1863. The midst of the Civil War might not seem like an opportune moment. But Meade smashed Lee at Gettysburg in 1863, sending him fleeing back to Virginia, never to regain the offensive. Grant slashed the Confederacy in two and reopened the Mississippi. Union victories were enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in tens of thousands, and America was finally enlisting African American soldiers in THEIR tens of thousands. Americans had cause to be thankful.

Since 1863, the November-Thursday Thanksgiving has been an annual event, and in the late 1800s, turkeys became irrevocably (and involuntarily) committed to the celebration.

The 1865 celebration would have seen fervent thanks for victory in the Civil War, along with sorrow for the dead and disabled.

In 1918, Americans would have been giving thanks that the Great War had ended, just two weeks earlier. But the war’s deaths were still immediate. They were also still reeling from the devastating death toll of the Spanish Influenza, which had not yet fully died out. War jobs were ending, and the Curtiss Hammondsport plant laid off about 600 workers. Prohibition was coming in, ruining vintners, grape growers, and all their support industry. Farmers had bought equipment to replace the young men going into uniform, and now owed years of time payments even as farm prices crashed. So 1918’s would have been a very uneasy Thanksgiving.

Depression-era Thanksgivings would have had an undertone, or even an overtone, of desperation and fear, even as President Roosevelt experimented with date changes in hopes of stimulating Christmas shopping.

In 1935, thanks would have been tempered because of the catastrophic July flood that stole 44 lives.

In 1941 we’d have been thankful we were not in the Second World War, worried about Axis victories, and feeling guilty that other people’s suffering was lifting us out of the Depression. We still had a week or two of peace to enjoy, but silver linings would have been hard to find for the ’42 and ’43 celebrations.

In 1945 we’d still be missing our recent dead, and transition from the wartime economy was still shaky, but overall we’d have found it a very good year since the war’s end in August.

The Baby Boom Thanksgivings were mostly upbeat, and kids spent those mornings watching Captain Kangaroo host the Macy’s Parade on TV. In 1963 the holiday had a somber edge, with President Kennedy’s murder just six days earlier.

Thousands of local folks celebrated Thanksgiving of 1972 in trailers trucked in by the federal government, their homes uninhabitable, or gone forever, in the Hurricane Agnes flood.

Since 1942, by Congressional action, we’ve celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. I hope that for you, this year’s holiday is one of those good ones.