St. Augustine Record re: First Thanksgiving Here on September 8, 1565

Our view: We wish a happy and safe Thanksgiving to all

Posted: November 23, 2011 - 9:06pm

Thanksgiving Day holds special meaning across our nation as the official holiday dedicated to giving thanks for the blessings we have received during the year.

It is indeed a special day in St. Augustine and St. Johns County where the first act of community thanksgiving took place 446 years ago. While that date was Sept. 8, 1565, historian Michael Gannon says our day of thanksgiving was first in what later became the United States of America.

“It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land,” said Gannon.

Over the years, the respected Gannon has raised the ire of Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts which says it was first with its Pilgrim-led thanksgiving in 1621, the year after they arrived from England.

Our celebration was led by founder Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Menendez and his soldiers and settlers then celebrated with the native Timucuan Indians after a Mass of thanksgiving.

Today’s celebrations are a far cry from that of Menendez. The Spanish were thankful for their arrival in La Florida across the ocean from Spain. Today we count our blessings, thankful that we are a free nation, and thankful that Menendez made it here when he did.

Our Thanksgiving Day ritual of family togetherness and gratefulness is changing across the nation in the 21st century. The image in the Norman Rockwell painting of Freedom from Want — where the family matriarch brings the huge turkey to the table to the anticipation of young and old — is fading into history.

Today’s dinner is arranged around Thanksgiving Day parades, football games and early bird Black Friday sales that start in some stores today. What family members that are at home or, close by, celebrate together. Those who are afar, especially those in service to our country overseas, are remembered by their loved ones. Thanks to modern communications satellites, they themselves can be seen and heard across oceans in the family’s living room.

So however you celebrate today — whether it is at the dining room table with family, on TV trays watching the games, or, on the serving line at St. Francis House helping the less fortunate — we wish all of you a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.