Sarah Josepha Hale, The Mother of Thanksgiving
In years past I have shared George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation that begins: “Whereas it is the duty of all nations, to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” Those words are as true today as they were in 1789.
But this year I thought I would tell you the story of “The Mother of Thanksgiving” and how Thanksgiving became a national holiday.
Sarah Josepha Hale was born in 1788 and served as a prominent publisher and magazine editor in the early decades of our county. You may not know of her decades long obsession with making Thanksgiving a yearly national holiday. But there is one thing about Mary you will identify with. In the 1830’s her little children’s poem became part of all American’s consciousness. It was based on the true story of a fourteen-year-old girl who took her lamb to school. Even in the early part of the 19th Century that fact made a pretty good impression. The little poem she wrote was “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” originally Published with the title: “Mary’s Lamb.” In 1877, two years before her death, Mary Hale’s little poem became an iconic piece of the history of the civilized world when Thomas Edison recited the poem into the microphone of his invention. Her little poem became the first recorded message in the history of the world.
Other notable events were her using her influence to promote Vassar Female College, erecting a monument to the Revolutionary Battle of Bunker Hill and saving Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.
During the Civil War there were 30 states that recognized Thanksgiving as a state holiday, and Sarah Hale made it her mission to make it a national observance. With the Union victory at Gettysburg on the 3rd of July 1863, and at Vicksburg the next day on July 4th Mary saw an opportunity. She wrote President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward, encouraging them to create the national holiday to “Heal the nation.”
Four years later, under President Andrew Johnson, Secretary Seward of course, was the primary reason for the purchase of Alaska, 586,413 square miles at a cost of $7.2 million dollars or about two cents an acre. Contemporaries called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s Ice Box”, that is until the Klondike Gold Rush in 1896, twenty-four years after Seward’s death in 1972.
It was actually Secretary Seward who penned the beautiful words of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. In these uncertain times I pray that these words serve to “Heal our nation” now just as Sarah Josepha Hale had hoped it would do in 1863 as the American Civil War was coming to an end. Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln William H. Seward, Secretary of State
Have a terrific Thanksgiving.
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