“A Day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise”:

How Americans Around 1776 Actually Celebrated Thanksgiving

When Americans sat down to give thanks in the years around 1776, there was no fixed “fourth Thursday in November,” no football on in the background, and in many cases…not much food to go around at all.

Yet the people fighting for independence—and the families holding things together at home—still paused for days of thanksgiving that look both strangely familiar and deeply foreign to us today.

This article explores how the states and the Continental Army observed Thanksgiving in the Revolutionary era, based on original proclamations, diaries, journals, and sermons from the time.

Thanksgiving Before It Was a National Holiday

Long before the Revolution, New Englanders were used to special days set aside as either:

• Days of humiliation and fasting – for repentance during hardship
• Days of thanksgiving – declared when God’s favor seemed especially visible

Puritan communities had rejected the old European church calendar but embraced these special civic-religious days. Civil leaders proclaimed them, and people treated them like an extra Sabbath: worship, no “servile labor,” solemn conduct—and, afterward, a substantial meal.

By the mid-1600s, most New England colonies were holding an annual autumn thanksgiving, usually in November. Other colonies issued occasional fasts or thanksgivings, but the yearly late-fall observance was largely a New England tradition.

The Revolution Changes the Meaning

Congress Begins National Thanksgiving Proclamations

When rebellion erupted, these old habits didn’t fade—they intensified.

The Continental Congress soon used thanksgiving proclamations to unite the colonies around shared victories and shared faith.

Boston, March 1776

After the British evacuated Boston, Washington asked Rev. Andrew Eliot to preach a thanksgiving sermon marking the liberation of the city.

The First “National” Thanksgiving – December 18, 1777

Following the American victory over General Burgoyne at Saratoga, Congress issued a proclamation calling for a day of “solemn thanksgiving and praise.” The proclamation urged citizens to:

• Thank God for sustaining the war for independence
• Confess national sins
• Pray for virtue and public morality
• Support the new state governments
• Seek the blessings of “INDEPENDENCE and PEACE”

Between 1777 and 1784, Congress recommended several such days, laying early groundwork for a national tradition.

Thanksgiving in the Continental Army

Valley Forge, 1777

When Congress set the date, General George Washington instructed the army to observe it.

On December 17, 1777, camped near Valley Forge, he issued general orders calling the next day a public thanksgiving and instructing chaplains to hold services.

On paper, the day sounded triumphant.

The soldiers’ diaries tell a harsher story.

“We Have Very Little to Keep It With”

• Lt. Col. Henry Dearborn wrote that although it was Thanksgiving “through the whole Continent,” his men had gone days without bread and ate only poor beef fried in an old pan.
• Surgeon Albigence Waldo noted “Universal Thanksgiving – a roasted pig at night” but also severe supply shortages.
• Sgt. Ebenezer Wild recorded “a poor Thanksgiving, nothing but fresh beef and flour to eat, without any salt.”
• Private Joseph Plumb Martin recalled sarcastically that each soldier received only “half a gill of rice and a tablespoonful of vinegar.”
• Lt. Samuel Armstrong wrote that his unit managed to acquire a few fowls and potatoes to supplement meager rations.

For the Army, Thanksgiving 1777 was a day of worship—but also hunger, cold, and grim humor.

Thanksgiving Back Home

State Proclamations

• Massachusetts set November 23, 1777 as a public thanksgiving.
• Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island issued similar proclamations.
• Even outside New England, wartime assemblies declared occasional fasts or thanksgivings tied to military events.

These proclamations usually forbade “servile labor,” urged attendance at divine services, and echoed Congress’s call for national repentance and unity.

Meetinghouse & Meal

A typical New England Thanksgiving in the 1770s:

1. Morning worship at the meetinghouse
2. Long sermons of gratitude and moral exhortation
3. Psalms and hymns
4. A festive meal at home afterward

Though religious in tone, Thanksgiving was also a cherished family occasion.

What Was on the Table?

Menus varied, but many items would be recognizable today:

• Roast turkey, goose, duck, or chicken
• Chicken pie (a New England staple)
• Pumpkin, apple, and mince pies
• Squash, potatoes, onions
• Cranberries, often stewed or mashed
• Plum pudding and other desserts

The idealized meal—heavy on pies—was most common in established New England towns. Frontier families, enslaved households, and poorer families often celebrated with much simpler fare.

Outside New England: Not Yet a National Custom

In 1776, a regular annual Thanksgiving was mostly a Yankee observance. Elsewhere:

• The mid-Atlantic region declared occasional thanksgivings tied to specific events.
• The South, influenced by Anglican tradition, tended to follow the church calendar but still issued fasts or thanksgivings in moments of crisis.

Only after Washington’s 1789 Presidential Thanksgiving and the later advocacy of Sarah Josepha Hale did Thanksgiving become a more unified, nationwide holiday.

What Thanksgiving Meant in a Time of Revolution

For Revolutionary Americans, Thanksgiving was not just a harvest feast. It carried deeply political and spiritual weight:

• A belief that God was active in the affairs of nations
• A sense that independence was tied to divine favor
• A call for moral renewal, public virtue, and civic unity

Congress’s soaring proclamations spoke of liberty and peace. Soldiers’ diaries talked of thin rations and cold nights. Together, they reveal a holiday that blended hardship, hope, and a stubborn commitment to gratitude.

From 1776 to Today

For families gathering in Utah’s Cedar Valley or anywhere in the nation, Thanksgiving may look very different today—but the spirit remains:

• Communal – bringing people together
• Reflective – a chance to reassess blessings and responsibilities
• Resilient – meaningful even in hard seasons

Whether your table resembles a historic New England feast or something far simpler, early Americans would remind us that the greatest blessings worth giving thanks for are still independence, peace, family, and community.