Hoosier Connection to the First American Thanksgiving

Soon the holiday season will be upon us and many of us will attend Thanksgiving Plays done by local school children to commemorate the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony. For whatever reason, has overlooked the fact that the first Thanksgiving in this new land of America did not occur at Plymouth, but more than a year before at the Virginia Colony of Berkeley Hundred .

The Berkeley Hundred was made up of eight thousand acres on the north shore of the James River. It was named after one of the colonies founders Richard Berkeley. His family had an unbroken male line dating back to Norman England in 1066.

The ship Margaret of Bristol England sailed for Virginia in 1619. The voyage was directed by Captain John Woodliffe . The ship carried thirty five settlers to establish a town in the Berkeley Hundred. The organizers of the journey instructed the ship's crew and settlers to "the day of our ships arrival. shall be yearly and perpetually kept as a day of Thanksgiving."

The ship came to shore on December 4, 1619. The settlers kept this the first Thanksgiving a full year and 17 days before the Pilgrims did at Plymouth. They kept this memorial feast of their safe arrival until 1622. In 1622 a tragedy struck the budding colony.

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The settlers had good relations initially with the local Indians .John Smith stated in his History of Virginia, the "Indians came unarmed into our houses with deer, turkeys, fish, fruits, and other provisions to sell us." Then on this fateful Good Friday the Berkeley Hundred fell victim to planned coordinated attacks by the Indians on settlements on the James River. Nine colonists died that day. Other settlements like the one at Wolstenholme Towne were almost completely destroyed. Jamestown had heeded warnings about the attack and many of the surviving settlers from Berkeley took refuge there.

The colony at Berkeley Hundred was abandoned for a good many years until it was purchased by John Bland a merchant from London. John Bland unpopular political activities caused the land again to be returned to the Berkeley family. Governor Berkeley confiscated the land from Mr. Bland and sold it to his Attorney General Benjamin Harrison the 3rd.

The land stayed in the family and other famous Harrison's were Benjamin Harrison V who signed the Declaration of Independence and William Henry Harrison the governor of Indiana and ninth President of the United States. This gives the site of the first real Thanksgiving on American soil a Hoosier connection.

List of Settlers Sent in 1619 by John Smith

This is a list of the 1619 Settlers as presented and spelled by John Smith. It lists the length of each settler's indenture to the land company for payment for their crossing, the amount of land they were granted to farm, and if they were living or dead at the time he wrote his history.

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Ferdinando Yate, gent 3 yeares 50 acres
returned 20 martij 1620

John Blanchard gent 3 yeares 50 acres
Richard Godfrey Joyner 3 years 0-0
(drowned. mort)

Rowland Paynter 3 years 50 acres
(dead)

Thomas Coopy Carpenter
Smythe fowler and Turner 3 years 30 acres

Peerse gent 4 yeares 25 acres
(dead)

John Cole 7 years 40 acres
(dead)

Humfry Osborne 3 years 30 acres
(dead)

Stephen Torslet 4 years 25 acres

Humphrey Plant Sawier &
Carpenter (dead) 3 years 30 acres

Thomas Davis Cooper &
Shingler (dead) 3 years 30 acre

Xpopher Nelme shooomaker 3 years 30 acre
(dead)

Richard Sherife thelder 3 years 30 acre
Carpenter went with
Mr. Thorpe (dead)

Richard Sherife the 3 years 30 acre
yonger Couper (dead
[written & then stricken through]

Willm Clement Cook & 6 years 20 acre Gardner

Thomas Perise for hops & 7 years 30 acre
oade (dead)

Xpopher Bourton Taylor 4 years 30 acre

Thomas Molton Cook & 5 years 25 acre
gardner

James Cley Joyner 3 years 0-0
(dead)

Charles Coyle a gunmaker 3 years 40 acre
and Smyth & for fish
pitch and tarre (dead)

Edward Paynter 7 years 30 acre
(slayne)

Walter Hampton 3 years 30 acre
(dead)

Samuell Coopy 3 years 15 acre
(dead)

Willm Cole 7 years 30 acre
(dead)

Willm Parker 6 years 30 acre
(dead)

John Hurd 5 years 30 acre
(dead)

Willm Patche 6 years 30 acre
(dead) Thomas Sandford 6 years 30 acre
(dead)

Willm Stone 6 years 30 acre
(query to him)

John Taylor, als stokeley 6 years 25 acre
(dead)

John Jones gardner & 8 years 30 acre
Smyth

Thomas Denton 8 years 20 acre
(dead)

Thomas Thorpe 7 years 30 acre
(slayne)

Willm Mellrickes
(dead)

Willm Moores
(dead)

Robert Taylor
(dead)

John Brunnet 1.
Dead 1.

1. George Thorpe and the Berkeley Company: A Gloucestershire Enterprise in Virginia by Eric Gethyn-Jones (Alan Sutton, 1982).

2. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/jamesriver/bek.htm