Happy Thanksgiving!

Blogging will be light throughout the Thanksgiving weekend. I hope to be back in the swing of things next Monday. In the meantime, go check out all the Thanksgiving postings at Recta Ratio.

And even though I am a Virginian for only a couple more weeks, I would be an awfully poor Virginian if I didn't point out that the first official Thanksgiving in America actually took place right here in Virginia in 1619, at Berkeley Plantation - a full year before the Pilgrims even landed at Plymouth, and 2 years before the Pilgrims' more famous Thanksgiving celebration.

Here is a short history of that event, which appears on a commemorative marker at Berkeley Plantation:

They Gave Thanks for their Safe Arrival in the New World

The first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief led the newly arrived English colonists to a grassy slope along the James River and instructed them to drop to their knees and pray in thanks for a safe arrival to the New World.

On this day, Dec. 4, 1619, these 38 men from Berkeley Parish in England were given the instructions:

"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God."

UPDATE:
Commonwealth of Virginia prosecutor Tom McKenna also points out Virginia's oft-forgotten historic first over at his blog Seeking Justice (formerly Confutatis Maledictis).