It would be the first American Thanksgiving proclamation issued for many years that didn't
end in "God Save the King," this proclamation issued in 1774 just two hundred years ago.
And it would set a pattern for all future American Thanksgiving proclamations. Almost from
the beginning, the colonists in New England had set aside a day in spring for fasting and
prayer and, again in the autumn, a day to give thanks for the blessings of God. These
mostly had been proclaimed, however, by Royal Governors on paper bearing the royal crest.
But in this October of 1774, there was no hope of this. For nine years, since the time of
the imposition of the aborted Stamp Tax, Britain and her American colonies had been
struggling in a cold war, and it was getting hotter.
The street riots, later to be called "The Boston Massacre", when British soldiers fired on
demonstrating civilians, were only four years in the past. Just ten months earlier, in
December, 1773, "The Mohawks" inflamed by a new tax on tea, had swarmed over London-loaded
vessels in the Boston port and dumped overboard the cargoes of tea -- tea worth L10,000
which washed up in windrows around the edges of the harbor. The newly appointed British
commander and Royal Governor was General Thomas Gage, a famous soldier, who did not easily
suffer people whom he regarded as rebels and traitors. His troops were quartered in Boston,
five regiments of them, and the guns of his ships in the harbor were trained on the town.
That June Parliament had closed the port of Boston until the citizens should pay for the
tea that had been jettisoned.
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John Hancock
(Detail from the Copley portrait, courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
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Earlier, in May, when the Provincial Assembly had petitioned him to set aside a special
day for prayer and fasting because of the unsettled times, Gage had not even bothered to
respond.
"The request," he said, "was only to give an opportunity for sedition to flow from the
pulpit."
There was, therefore, no hope that General Gage would proclaim a day of Thanksgiving, but
the colonists were to have their Thanksgiving, General Gage or no.
The bedeviled Gage was learning that he had lost control of his colony. He had thought,
for instance, to humble John Hancock by removing him from the colonelcy of a showpiece
company of cadets. The cadets quit in protest. Further angered by the Assembly vote
appropriating money for Massachusetts attendance at the First Continental Congree, Governor
Gage pocket vetoed the appropriation and dissolved the Assembly. Gage then called for the
election of a new Assembly, summoned it to meet in Salem, and then changed his mind and
told it not to meet.
The newly elected Assembly, ninety strong, met in Salem anyway, on October 5th, waited two
days for Gage to turn up, and then voted: "To resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress,
to be joined by such other persons as have been or may be chosen for that purpose...". The
newly formed Provincial Congress then elected as its President, John Hancock.
Hancock was a merchant prince, a lover of fine wines, good books and elegant clothing. He
liked to compliment a friend by ordering a suit of "superfine broadcloth" from his own tailor
as a present. At the time, he was becoming one of the most dedicated of the new breed of
American patriots. He was a man with fire in his eyes and a jutting jaw, and his popularity
and influence were such that the royal power could hardly touch him. He would later become
the first man to sign his name to the Declaration of Independence.
The Congress adjourned from Salem on a Friday and met again the following Tuesday, October 11,
in Concord. There it resolved: "That when this Congress shall adjourn over the Sabbath
that it be adjourned to the Court House in Cambridge".
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