Thanksgiving is around the corner. That holiday is an annual reminder of our nation’s Christian roots, our godly heritage. Although Virginia rightfully proclaims that the first Thanksgiving was in Jamestown in 1619, not in Plymouth in 1621, the Plymouth one became the prototype of our annual celebrations.
President Lincoln was the first to declare Thanksgiving as an annual holiday. George Washington was the first president under the Constitution to declare a national day of Thanksgiving.
However, Samuel Adams, with the help of two other Continental congressmen, was the first to declare a national day of Thanksgiving for America as an independent nation.
The time was the fall of 1777. Overall, it seemed that things were not going well for the United States. Americans lost the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11. Dr. Peter Lillback is the founder of Providence Forum, for which I am privileged to serve as executive director – since Lillback donated this organization to Coral Ridge Ministries. Lillback notes that the disastrous defeat at Brandywine was our “first 9/11,” if you will.
George Washington saw that the Brandywine defeat meant the impending fall of Philadelphia, our nation’s capital at the time, into the hands of the British.
And so, Congress had to flee westward, first to Lancaster and then to York, Pennsylvania. George Washington and his troops had to flee westward, also. They ended up in a place called Valley Forge. The worst was yet to come with the brutal winter there.
Meanwhile, on Oct. 7, 1777, there was a victory at Saratoga, New York. Samuel Adams of Boston, a key leader in American independence, saw that we as a nation could rejoice in this act of Providence (God). So, with the help of fellow Continental Congressmen Rev. John Witherspoon of New Jersey and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia – Samuel Adams wrote up our country’s first Thanksgiving declaration as an independent nation.
Adams et al. wrote in that First National Thanksgiving Proclamation, Nov. 1, 1777:
“… it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such further Blessings as they stand in Need of.”
As humans, as Christians, we should be grateful. They continue, “And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success.”
I think it’s fair to say that Adams, Witherspoon and Lee were looking for the good news (the Saratoga victory) in a sea of bad news (American setbacks, the latest of which was the defeat at Brandywine).
They continue: “It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE.”
And what were the Americans to do during that day of Thanksgiving and praise? To confess “their manifold sins … that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole.”
If someone prayed like this in Congress today, they might try to drive them out of town on a rail – like the leftist members of Congress who blew a gasket when California minister Jack Hibbs prayed in the name of Jesus in Congress in early 2024.
Writing on behalf of Congress, Adams, Witherspoon and Lee continue: “To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE.”
They also prayed for God “to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People,” as well as the farmers, for success of the crops. They also asked for God’s help in the schools, which they note are “so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth ‘in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.’”
This prayer proclamation is no namby-pamby type of prayer we might hear from Congress these days. These are bold proclamations of faith, showing a pro-Christian side of the Founding Fathers we rarely hear about these days.