Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an
abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and garden
vegetables, and made the forest to abound with game and the sea with
fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of
the savages, has spared us from the pestilence and granted us freedom to
worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
Now I, your magistrate do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your
wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill,
between the hours of nine and twelve in the daytime on Thursday,
November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and
twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth
Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to ye
Almighty God for all his blessings.
– Governor Bradford
November 29, 1623
