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Story
December 6, 1842
The Caledonian
Saint Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vermont
What is this article about?
An editorial celebrating Thanksgiving as a unifying State festival originating from Puritan traditions, now adopted widely including in South Carolina. It highlights ample harvests, health, peace, temperance reforms, and family reunions, evoking memories of the living and dead.
Clipping
OCR Quality
95%
Excellent
Full Text
DAY OF THANKSGIVING.
Thursday is thus set apart, and should accordingly be observed. It is the annual celebration which unites all parties and all sects at one social altar, with one religions purpose.
It is appropriately a State festival. Having had its origin amid the institutions of the Puritans, it has won favor in distant States, until now South Carolina has adopted the New England fashion of a voluntary Sabbath.
To all the people the day may suggest a profusion of reasons for joy and thanksgiving: The harvests have been ample enough to respond to the most covetous wishes. The guardian Angel of the Commonwealth has fanned us with the wings of health during another twelve month. Our foreign controversies have been settled by a wise policy, and peace is built up for ages. The progress of the right and the moralizing to the most distant points of the Union with the wide spread of the Temperance Reform, has dried up open fountains of woe, methodized jarring families, laid the kind hand of sympathy upon the bosom of female affection, and exalted the condition of thousands who before were not virtuous because they were not temperate.
Thanksgiving is a social festival. It summons families together. It beckons children home by soft hands. Some families never meet all together upon earth; others but once or twice, here and there, in life. This is the day for it, or none will happen.
The new made bride will come and take off her white veil before the olden altar. The joys of her new position will mingle with the treasured memories of earlier youth. Men jostle through the crowd to go home and spend the Anniversary in tranquility. If death has left a vacant chair, this is the day when it will be noticed—and felt. Or, if the bolt of sickness has passed over, there is no better time for a celebration of the discriminating mercy, than a general Thanksgiving proclaimed for all favors and all indications of kindness and grace.
It is a monument in the field of memory. Old communions and long separated fellowships are engraven upon it. Broken ties are here reunited and recorded. Joys that have fled, here cluster anew.
We are all here,
Even they, the dead, though dead, so dear;
Fond memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view,
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well remembered face appears!
We see them, as in times long past.
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old—
We are all here.
Worcester Aegis.
Thursday is thus set apart, and should accordingly be observed. It is the annual celebration which unites all parties and all sects at one social altar, with one religions purpose.
It is appropriately a State festival. Having had its origin amid the institutions of the Puritans, it has won favor in distant States, until now South Carolina has adopted the New England fashion of a voluntary Sabbath.
To all the people the day may suggest a profusion of reasons for joy and thanksgiving: The harvests have been ample enough to respond to the most covetous wishes. The guardian Angel of the Commonwealth has fanned us with the wings of health during another twelve month. Our foreign controversies have been settled by a wise policy, and peace is built up for ages. The progress of the right and the moralizing to the most distant points of the Union with the wide spread of the Temperance Reform, has dried up open fountains of woe, methodized jarring families, laid the kind hand of sympathy upon the bosom of female affection, and exalted the condition of thousands who before were not virtuous because they were not temperate.
Thanksgiving is a social festival. It summons families together. It beckons children home by soft hands. Some families never meet all together upon earth; others but once or twice, here and there, in life. This is the day for it, or none will happen.
The new made bride will come and take off her white veil before the olden altar. The joys of her new position will mingle with the treasured memories of earlier youth. Men jostle through the crowd to go home and spend the Anniversary in tranquility. If death has left a vacant chair, this is the day when it will be noticed—and felt. Or, if the bolt of sickness has passed over, there is no better time for a celebration of the discriminating mercy, than a general Thanksgiving proclaimed for all favors and all indications of kindness and grace.
It is a monument in the field of memory. Old communions and long separated fellowships are engraven upon it. Broken ties are here reunited and recorded. Joys that have fled, here cluster anew.
We are all here,
Even they, the dead, though dead, so dear;
Fond memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view,
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well remembered face appears!
We see them, as in times long past.
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old—
We are all here.
Worcester Aegis.
What sub-type of article is it?
Historical Event
Family Drama
What themes does it cover?
Family
Providence Divine
Moral Virtue
What keywords are associated?
Thanksgiving
Family Reunion
Harvest
Temperance Reform
Puritan Origins
Social Festival
Where did it happen?
South Carolina
Story Details
Location
South Carolina
Event Date
Thursday
Story Details
The article praises Thanksgiving as a unifying festival of Puritan origin, adopted across states, celebrating harvests, health, peace, temperance reforms, family gatherings, and memories of the departed, including a poem on reunion in memory.