Ben Franklin & The True Story of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has not always been a but-gusting, stuffing eating soiree of football and food. In the early days, our forefathers sought to appease God and highlight the suffering of early colonial life by fasting and being miserable.

Ben Franklin comes along years later and tells the story of how one farmer stood out from among the orthdoxy of the day and suggested we celebrate the blessings and bounty we have through a joyous feast.

Mrs. Cubbison, the Butterball folks and the planners of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade remain forever grateful.

The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving
By Benjamin Franklin (1785)

“There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.

“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.

“He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”

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Ben Franklin wanted the turkey, not the bald eagle to be our national symbol. Read why in Ben's own words at MS2.