Before Thanksgiving, There Was Forefather’s Day

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12/20/2017

On one of the shortest days of the year, a group of Plymouth citizens will continue a 248-year-
old tradition by celebrating Forefathers Day.

They will rise before dawn, don top hats and march
to the top of Cole's Hill next to Massasoit's statue.
They will listen to a reading of a proclamation
honoring the forefathers, and they’ll fire an old
cannon. Then they will adjourn for a breakfast of
succotash made the Pilgrims’ way: with broth and
pieces of fowl.

Before Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a

national holiday, people around the country
celebrated Forefathers Day. They did it to honor the
Pilgrims and the values they brought to the new
country. Back before the Civil War, few people even
knew about the Pilgrims’ big meal with the Indians. In
fact, they didn’t even call them the Pilgrims.
Statue of Massasoit in Plymouth
But then Thanksgiving came along. The holiday
tamed the parades, improved the dinner fare and
spread the mythology of the Pilgrim fathers eating in thankfulness with Massasoit and his tribe.

You could say, however, that Forefathers Day was Thanksgiving before there was a
Thanksgiving.

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 The Pilgrims land.

Forefathers Day History

In 1769, seven Mayflower descendants formed the Old Colony Club to commemorate the day
the Pilgrims landed. They ignored the Pilgrims’ landing in Provincetown or Clark Island in
Plymouth Harbor.

The Old Colony Club had another reason for forming. They wanted to avoid intermixing with
the hoi polloi in Plymouth’s taverns. The Club claimed Revolutionary War hero Alexander
Scammell as a member.

In a history of New England by Jedidiah Morse and Elijah Parish, they describe the early
Forefathers Day as a religious festival. "After public worship, more forcibly to impress their
minds with the circumstances of their meritorious forefathers, clams, fish, ground nuts, and
victims from the forest, constitute a part of their grateful repast.”

But then came the Revolution, and the Old Colony Club split into Loyalists and Patriots. They
had to abandon Forefathers Day from 1776-1790.

When Forefathers Day resumed, Boston Federalists eagerly took it up to celebrate the
traditions of old New England – including resistance to English tyranny.

They celebrated the first 50 or so years ignorant of many of the details about the Pilgrims’
ordeal. Mourt’s Relation went undiscovered until 1823 and Of Plymouth Plantation until 1853.
That meant few people knew the story of the harvest festival with Massasoit – the ostensible
first Thanksgiving.

That didn’t stop Daniel Webster from giving a two-hour speech about New England’s
importance on Forefathers Day in 1819.

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How It Spread
Forefathers Day was a day to march in parades, hold formal dinners and listen to sermons.
(Perhaps that’s why it didn’t stick.) As late as 1890 and as far away as New York City, Dr.
William Everett gave a Forefather’s Day speech.

The members of the New England Society of New York adopted Forefathers Day in 1805. As
New Englanders migrated west and south, expatriate New Englanders founded New England
Clubs all over the country -- in Charleston, August, New Orleans, Louisville, Detroit,
Cincinnati, Springfield, Ill., and San Francisco.

The New England clubs did charitable work among the poor and socialized. Each adopted
Dec. 22, Forefathers Day, to celebrate their New England heritage. Over and over again, they
told the Pilgrim story.

Calling the Shots

Orations and sermons praised the
Pilgrims for their tolerance, their
reverence for law and for liberty, their
commitment to public education and their
religious faith. And as New England
published most of the new nation’s history
books before the Civil War, New England
got to call the shots about what
happened.

Virginia fought back and created its own

Forefathers day. The Old Dominion Daniel Webster

commemorated Jamestown as 'chosen

ground.' But in 1802 at a Forefathers Day in Plymouth, celebrants gave a toast: "Our Sister
Virginia:--When she changes three-fifths of her Ethiopian Skin, we will respect her as the head
of our white family."

But Forefathers Day began to fade away after the Civil War. Thanksgiving celebrants coopted
the Pilgrim story. By 1900 Forefathers Day had faded into obscurity, everywhere but in
Plymouth.

Plymouth
Only in Plymouth will people get up early four days before Christmas and march up a hill in the
cold, wrote Old Colony Club member Richmond Talbot.

“Thanksgiving belongs to America, but Forefathers Day is ours alone,” he wrote. “Who but we
would come out four days before Christmas to celebrate a completely unrelated event?”

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And since the Pilgrims didn’t believe in Christmas, Talbot pointed out they couldn’t even stick
fancy fruit above the doors of the Pilgrim Village like Williamsburg.

“We think what they did was worth doing and worth remembering too,” wrote Talbot. “We look
at the cold waters of the harbor on Forefathers Day and think of them in an open boat heading
toward land. It's worth the effort to get together with others who care about the Pilgrims.”

Today the Old Colony Club still meets Fridays in a colonial building in Plymouth, and members
play an archaic game of cards called Bestia.

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