The American Churchman: The First Thanksgivings

Welcome to the American Churchman podcast where we encourage men to fulfill their biblical responsibilities, live for Christ, and be men, which is something you don't have as much as you probably should have today.

I am joined today with a special guest, Sean McGowan. Sean's actually been on my other podcast, which is called Conversations That Matter, but this is his first time on the American Churchman, so welcome, Pastor Sean McGowan.

It's good to be here, brother. Good to see you.

Thanks for joining me. For those wondering where Matthew Pearson is, he had a family obligation tonight, and so I think a lot of people do this week as it's Thanksgiving, and we decided to go ahead and do the show anyway and talk specifically about Thanksgiving because Sean wrote a great article on the first Thanksgiving in Virginia.

But before we get to that, just a little housekeeping business. The American Churchman is sponsored by TruthScript. If you want to know more about the American Churchman or TruthScript, just go to truthscript .com, and you can check it out there.

We also have on the website, I want to point out, the conference coming up in Sullins Grove, Pennsylvania from April 25th and 26th on Christianity and the founding. If you go to truthscript .com and click on that tab, it'll take you to a place you can sign up.

It is a steal, I'm telling you. TruthScript is underwriting this. It's going to cost some money for us, but we want it to be affordable for people who are coming, so it's only $30 to pay to come. Sean's actually one of our speakers, so he's going to be there as well.

Of course, as always, if you want to donate to TruthScript, we are a 501c3. Scroll to the bottom, and you can donate there under the Donate tab. With that, Sean, I'm going to jump right into it because we usually do an attribute of God, and I do that with Matthew Pearson.

He loves doing it. I'm going to save the next attribute for him. We'll just talk about Thanksgiving a little bit. Your article, of course, is up right now, and the title of it is Love Thanksgiving, Thank Virginia, which, of course, I like as the director and producer of the 1607 Project.

I think Virginia will always hold a very special place in my heart. I did live there for a few years, but I think just the history of Virginia is fascinating. It's sad to see politically and socially, and mostly in northern Virginia, I suppose, where some things have gone because it's just different.

A lot of people from outside the state have moved in and changed some things, but Virginia is still Virginia. I know, Sean, you're from Virginia, I believe, right?

Yeah, I'm from Spotsylvania County, Virginia. It's central Virginia, about 40 miles north of Richmond. We kind of straddle that line with northern Virginia, but I know exactly what you're talking about, man, because it changed quite a bit even from when I grew up there and lived there.

Yeah, you're not there now. I should probably just let you plug where people can find you and that kind of thing because I know you're a pastor, you're in the PCA, you're a trustee, actually, of Covenant College.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, and if people want to ask you questions after hearing you talk about this, where they can go to find you.

Yeah, so I'm a PCA minister in Tallahassee, Florida, Westminster Presbyterian Church. I've been there for about four years. I've actually been out of Virginia for about, I guess, now seven. I was in Alabama for four years, too.

Yeah, my only really social media presence is Twitter. I refuse to call it X. Twitter, Irish Presby, at Irish Presby. That's the tag.

No one can mistake you for not being Irish. No, probably not, no. So are you old stock Virginia? I mean, I'm just curious how far your family goes because I know there's a lot of Scotch-Irish settlement in that area, but yeah, I think of like—go ahead.

Yeah, no, I'm not. We're a transplant.

Actually, my mother's grandparents came over from Northern Ireland, so my grandmother's a first-generation American, and then my dad's side is actually from New England, and they came over from, I guess, a couple generations beyond his grandparents.

My dad's, they came over from Ireland, too. So no, I'm not old stock or anything like that, but grew up in Virginia, love Virginia, love the history.

Well, his name is—I mean, I'm assuming your father and you share the same last name, McGowan, right? So he must be Irish, right? Yes, yeah.

Okay. His background, yeah. So my dad's family came over from—originally from the Republic of Ireland, so I actually have ancestors from the Republic, particularly in County Kerry, and my mom's grandparents came over from County Down and County Armagh in Northern Ireland.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so I got a little bit of both, yeah.

Yeah, so it's—I mean, it's a slight difference, but we have—. I think—is Louisiana the only state that doesn't have counties? I think every other state, I think, has counties. Yeah, but we usually, in America, we refer to it like I live in Ulster County.

Yeah. Right? Which is—I mean, it sounds actually kind of like Northern Irish, right? Ulster County, but—and I'm in the town of Highland, too, which is—. Okay, okay, yeah. It almost sounds like I'm in Scotland, but I think it's better.

I should just call it County Ulster. It just sounds better. I don't know why. Oh, yeah. You know, but no, very cool. So it's awesome. I love talking to people about their background and their heritage, and I could just go on about that forever, but—.

Yeah, part of the reason I love—you know, I grew up in Spotsylvania, which is where Fredericksburg is a city. And if you know—I mean, goodness, George Washington's mother lived in the city of Fredericksburg.

James Monroe practiced law in the city of Fredericksburg. And then you got the, you know, Civil War, the Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Chancellorsville. I mean, that's all—that was all my backyard.

And, you know, when I was younger, I took it for granted, but I've grown to appreciate it more that I've gotten older, so.

Yeah. Well, you know, I was seeing some pictures of that area in Fredericksburg recently, and some of those places haven't changed since the Civil War. I mean, they look the same. The buildings are the same.

They've tried to keep them, period, which I think is awesome. I actually grew up in a home that was from the 1700s. We don't know exactly the date. We found the cornerstone for the barn, which was probably built after, and that was like 17—I think it was 1781, if I'm not mistaken.

So, yeah, I mean, somewhere in there. It's 1770s, probably. Our home was built, and I just—it's the coolest thing, because you feel like you're walking through a museum every day. I lived in that, and I took it for granted growing up.

History is around us, and when you go to Europe, I think it's even deeper. People can remember back hundreds of years. Here, it's more shallow, but we still do have a rich history going back hundreds of years, and I think what you wrote about Thanksgiving—.

I mean, this is one of our oldest traditions, I guess you could say, and it's quintessentially American, right? I remember a few years ago, my wife's cousin, she lives in England, and they were calling in for Thanksgiving.

We were talking on the phone, and her husband has a British accent and stuff, and he was there, and it occurred to me. I was kind of like, what are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? He's like, we don't do Thanksgiving.

I'm like, oh, right, right, right. It is a very American holiday, and so part of our national identity, and one of my favorites. I don't know, is it your favorite holiday, or is it a stack?

I mean, it's up there. Christmas is hard to contend with. Yeah, yeah. I love Thanksgiving, though, just the traditions, the family, all of those things. So, yeah, the history. It's definitely up there.

I don't know if I could grade the holidays first, second, or third,.

But it's definitely up there for sure. I mean, you're all supposed to say Easter, Resurrection Sunday, right? As Christians, we're always told that, but I have to confess, Christmas is my favorite, but Thanksgiving is definitely close.

I like it. I mean, in some ways in our family, it seems that we kind of rush to Christmas, and I'll put up the tree and all those things, and it's like, well, wait a minute. We got to appreciate Thanksgiving first.

I mean, everybody's jumping to Christmas.

I was like that my whole life until, so today was the first day I started listening to Christmas music. I've never done it this early, and I think it's because I have a kid now, and I'm trying to show my daughter Christmas songs.

So, anyway. All right, well, let's talk. We could jab on forever here and chew the cud, but let's talk about your article. We usually think of Thanksgiving in connection to the pilgrims, and in this article, obviously the title gives it away, that you're tracing the Thanksgiving celebration back to Virginia.

So, I think the first thing we should probably cover, and since you're the author, I usually read articles. You don't need to do that, but why even talk about the Virginians, right? Because if I'm not mistaken, the first Thanksgiving, because we've had days of Thanksgiving, but the first Thanksgiving declaration that was traceable to the pilgrims was pretty early, right?

Which president? Do you know which president it was?

Oh, yeah. I don't. Offhand, I don't know, but I think it was pretty early, yeah.

Yeah, I'll look it up real quick, because there's two in my mind, and I don't want to get it wrong here. All right, so while I'm looking that up, I know that it was traceable to the pilgrims. That was the first recognizable Thanksgiving celebration that we trace our tradition back to, but it wasn't until, I think, you say, what, it was the 1930s or so that we actually rediscovered that actually that wasn't the first.

Yeah, yeah. And I was right. My first inclination was right. It was Abraham Lincoln. So, you would leave it to him to say that it was the pilgrims, right?

Yeah, I will say I was thinking him, but you said earliest, so it made me question. Lincoln's not that early, technically.

All right, so I will confess. I was thinking either George Washington or Lincoln. And with Washington, I know he had days. There were days of prayer and penitence. That was just in America from the beginning, and I couldn't remember if I was confusing that with the Thanksgiving celebration there.

But, yeah, I just looked it up, and it's Abraham Lincoln. At least that's who the internet credits with the first Thanksgiving. Makes sense. Declaration, national declaration, right?

Well, you know, it's interesting. I do say in the article that I wonder how many Virginians actually realized that there was a Thanksgiving in Virginia before, because according to the research that I've seen, it was Lyon Tyler, who was the son of John Tyler, President John Tyler.

Lyon Tyler was the president of the College of William and Mary, and I think it was in the late 19th century in the New York Public Library, he discovered these papers. So this is late 19th century, late 1880s, 1890s maybe.

He discovered this collection of papers in the New York Public Library known as the Nibley Papers, and they were named after John Smith. Ironically enough, his name was John Smith. It wasn't the John Smith of Jamestown.

It was S-M-Y-T-H, John Smith of Nibley, and he documented, I think it was, I don't have the article in front of me now. I think it was 1608 or 09 to 1622, this history of Virginia, and it's in those papers that we find the account of this Thanksgiving.

So when Dr. Tyler discovered this, he goes on to publish his findings in 1931, and it seems that that was the first time many Virginians, let alone other Americans, learned about this Thanksgiving. So I remember I was in elementary school.

Even when I grew up, I never heard of it. So it's still, I think, even now relatively unknown, but that was when it was discovered. So who knows when it was lost? I don't know the answer to that, and how many Virginians before the late 19th, early 20th century actually knew about this Thanksgiving.

So that's who discovered it, and John Smith of Nibley was one of the travelers. There were four men that were granted land in Virginia to travel over and to plant this settlement on what would come to be known as Berkeley Plantation.

So he was one of the men that traveled on the ship Margaret over to Virginia in 1619.

Gotcha. So just to correct one thing, I was right on both counts. Washington actually was the first one to issue on Thursday, the 26th of November, a Thanksgiving proclamation and celebration for Thanksgiving, but it wasn't established as a regular occurrence until Abraham Lincoln.

So there you go. They both get to take some credit there. All right, so back to, so the Berkeley Plantation, maybe explain that to people, because early on in Virginia settlement, you had all these different plantations going up, the Chesapeake, the James River, the Chesapeake Bay.

They were spreading out into Delaware, into Virginia, and I think we're still out of touch with that era of history, but these are essentially land grants, right? It's from England. Yeah. That prominent individuals would, they would ascertain, and then that was their land to farm tobacco or do whatever they wanted to do with them.

Yeah.

So it seems that from my understanding, and again, a lot of the history is kind of scant history, you know, because it was relatively unknown. My understanding is that the area where these men came from, the industry there, I think was a wool industry, and it fell on hard times, and many people from that area were looking to go to Virginia to try to make a profit.

So it was actually King James I that granted this land to these four men, and that's what prompted them to go, and they took a group with them, and I believe after this group arrived there, the year after, the rest of the settlement that was going to come over came over.

So that's how they acquired the land and then went over there to really make profit, what they could not do back in England.

And one of the things you hear about the Virginia settlement is that they were a bunch of businessmen or adventurers looking for gold, and that was what was on their minds, whereas the pilgrims and the Puritans after them were looking to establish a theocratic society.

They were in it for maybe more noble reasons, depending on whose perspective you're asking. But within that, you find things that seem to, in my mind, put a wrench in that narrative. This is one of them.

Obviously, the first landing is one of them where they erect a cross. Even the charter talks about the propagation of the gospel. So there's this Christian language. They establish a church. I mean, it's all, it's the Church of England, but this is all there from the beginning.

And so why would they then, what was the purpose that, as far as we know of them giving thanks, how much do we know about what it entailed? Did it have, were they feasting? Was it like the pilgrims or what was it?

Yeah, so obviously, they, I mean, again, people in that context, in that day and age, they were thoroughly Christian. Whether every single person was personally converted is a different question, but that was their background.

That's what they knew. So it was almost natural, it seems, probably, to the first thing you do when you arrive in a difficult circumstance, traveling on a ship where you could have died four or five different times from different storms to acknowledge Almighty God.

And that was really what the first English Thanksgiving was. They arrived, it was a very difficult travel. They encountered multiple severe storms where they really thought they were gonna lose their life.

And then when they finally arrived, I think it was December 4th, 1619. So again, keep this in mind. December 4th, 1619, they arrived. The pilgrims had not even left for the New World yet. They hadn't even left on the Mayflower.

They arrived December 4th, 1619, and as they row up to what would become Berkeley Plantation, the first thing they do is they put down their bags, put down everything they were traveling with. And the captain, who was a man named John Woodleaf, he ended up becoming the governor of the Berkeley Land.

He commanded everybody to get down on their knees and he prayed to God. And he thanked God for safe travel. And then he proclaimed this Thanksgiving to God to be a perpetual holy day. That's key right there.

So there was no feasting. There were no Indians that they feasted with, nothing like that. But the first English Thanksgiving was in Virginia and it was proclaimed to be a day where people would acknowledge Almighty God and give them thanks for what He has blessed them with.

And yeah, I think it is important to acknowledge this is a year before the Pilgrims came. And if the Pilgrims had actually arrived at their originally intended destination, which was Virginia, we may not have heard about, like the tradition would have been different, I would think at least.

I mean, because they would have been tapping into something that was already there and there was already a perpetual celebration of Thanksgiving. How long did that go on, that perpetuity? Yeah, that's a good question.

I don't know the answer to that.

I can imagine it went on for some time, but because of the lost connection to this Thanksgiving, you wonder if it stopped at some point because there was no acknowledgement of it for a long time. And you know, the Pilgrims,.

When they celebrated initially, I think that was in October. And here we have, what day did you say that they celebrated? December 4th. December 4th, right, okay. So, I mean, neither of those is in late November.

So that's probably from George Washington then initially, that why he set that time as a time to give thanks. But I mean, this is harvest time anyways, and it taps into, even though the initial purpose of both Thanksgivings weren't necessarily harvest, they were survival, and just thanksgiving to God that we made it.

But it's close enough that this kind of gets wedded to harvest celebration. And that's something, of course, if we tie it to that, that goes back all the way to ancient times, including to Israel, and thanksgiving to God for a good crop.

And so it's just, I think for America, we do have this unique holiday, but we also should recognize as believers that this is also bigger than that. Yeah. Well, I love,.

I don't know if at the bottom or at the end of the article, I give a little bit of an account of when this was recognized, or at least there were forced acknowledgements of this history. And one of the kind of funny accounts is during the Kennedy administration, there was a state senator from Virginia, and he was an attorney named John J. Wicker, Wicker Jr.

And in Kennedy's 1962 Thanksgiving proclamation, he gives full credit to the pilgrims. You know, and he talks about them coming over and all the hardship and everything like that. Well, this senator from Virginia was not happy.

So he sent a letter to Kennedy. And I mean, he had the documentation, he had the evidence, all these things. And he received a response from a historian who was working in the Kennedy administration at the time, Arthur Schleisinger Jr., I think is his name, Arthur Schleisinger.

And actually it was a full acknowledgement that he was correct and they were wrong. And I forgot the exact words, but Schleisinger chalked it up to extreme New England bias on behalf of the Kennedy administration.

Of course, Kennedy's from Massachusetts, you know, so, but anyway, to his credit, you know, Kennedy's November 1963 Thanksgiving proclamation, which was, keep in mind, what, two weeks or so before he was assassinated, gave credit to Virginia.

Of course, he gave credit to Massachusetts too. I mean, he wasn't gonna, you know, he wasn't gonna let that go, but he says, you could read it. Yeah. Four fathers in Virginia and Massachusetts.

I think it's an audio or video recording too. I feel like I remember hearing it.

And that was credited to this lowly state senator from Virginia who told him to get his facts right. Now they're proud of it in Virginia.

I mean, I, at least, you know, I don't know to what extent it's a statewide thing, but I know like PBS did a whole special documentary on it and how Lyon Tyler Gardner found the, the Virginia company records that showed that this happened.

And yeah, there was a parade.

I think there's a parade. And I mean, you could go to the Berkeley plantation today. I mean, that's where a lot of these facts for the article came from and they have all kinds of stuff there. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think Virginia is rightfully embraced it now that they realize that, that they were first.

Yeah.

And just another example, my audience is tired of hearing it probably, but just another example, like how Virginia is first there and predates new England on so many things, that being one let me ask you this.

So, you know, given we have this Anglican tradition in Virginia, we have this Puritan or the pilgrims are of course, separatists, but you know, this reformed congregational type tradition in new England, where did the Presbyterians fit in since you're a Presbyterian?

Yeah. So, well, the Presbyterians,.

I mean, had a, had a strong presence, you know, obviously originally in places like Pennsylvania, but then trickled down to, to Virginia and to places like North Carolina, you know, the South Carolina.

But, you know, you have, you have people like Samuel Davies and even, even before him, Francis McKinney, who were in Virginia. And I mean, one of the things that Samuel Davies did was he challenged, he challenged the church of England and actually argued for the act of toleration saying that it was applicable to the colonies.

So, I mean, you know, the Presbyterians were dissenters, but they played a very prominent role in, in establishing religious toleration. And then also, you know, into the 19th century, I mean, you have some of the great, you know, Presbyterians in Virginia, like, like Dabney and others.

And, and then in South Carolina. So I'd say the Presbyterians, you know, they, they obviously didn't have an established church in any of the, any of the, the colonies and in the States. But they had a strong presence in places like Pennsylvania and, and Virginia and South Carolina as well.

So.

Yeah. You know, Virginia is probably credited more than any other state and it should be with propagating religious toleration, freedom, mostly because of Jefferson's bill of religious freedom. But, you know, you look back at the transition, because it was a transition from the church of England to a more of an expanded toleration.

And, you know, even Jefferson the same year wanting to have Sabbath laws, you know, which, which shows you that there were limitations to this, but I wonder whether or not the secularists have overplayed their hand on that.

And, you know, tried to make the historical record say something. It really doesn't say, it seems to me that Virginia was long before new England, but new England eventually became more of this. Well, actually there's a difference.

So maybe you tell me what you think of this. In my reading of it, Virginia became the pan Protestant project and it was, it was primarily Protestant, not saying there weren't some Catholics there, but it was, uh, Anglicans, then Episcopalians, of course, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists.

And in new England, you had basically the congregationalists for years after even the, the Jefferson's bill there, there, there's still the official church, your taxes go to them. And of course, though they get hollowed out and basically rotted from the inside.

They're no longer even Orthodox. And then the whole thing falls. Then, then it's, it's just this, basically they just fall into Unitarianism and secularism overnight. Whereas I think Virginia kept that pan Protestant.

And to me, that's what America really is like on a definitional level, more than, um, you know, if I had to compare the two, I suppose I'm not saying both are America, but I think Virginia is more representative of what America became and what some of the other colonies, especially in the South and even in the mid Atlantic States embrace, which was this pan Protestantism.

Um, of course, Maryland and Pennsylvania having more Catholics, but still not a majority at all. So, um, yeah, go ahead.

Fascinating. I mean, you know, because even, even some of the things that I think we, we think America is, uh, because, you know, often we interpret what America is through like Jefferson's bill of religious freedom and all those things.

And we think of the founding fathers as, as kind of a monolith. Um, but it's fascinating that even, even look at place like Virginia and realize, no, there were strong differences, even in, you know, in the founding generation.

I mean, you have someone like Madison pitted against Patrick Henry. I was going to say Patrick Henry wasn't happy. Right. Two men that we think are the founding generation. And they, they differed on how much influence the state ought to have in, um, in, uh, well, at least they differed on if the state should have any, any play at all within, uh, maintaining a religious society where, where Patrick Henry wanted a general assessment tax.

So we're actually, no, you would, you would be taxed. And, and if you were Baptist, you'd pay your tax to the Baptist church. If you were Presbyterian, you're paid, you know, your tax to the Presbyterian church.

Um, because he recognized the importance of religion in, in, uh, civil society. Um, it's like, I mean, I wonder how many people on the street would actually realize that someone like, you know, Patrick Henry, give me liberty or give me death, uh, advocated for that.

Um, so, you know, I think, I think that it's a bit more complex than we think. And yeah, I mean, there were, there were prominent, you know, uh, prominent, uh, Christian voices, even in those debates like the, uh, the Hanover Presbytery, who was, um, influencing, uh, that, that discussion that was going on, um, to the point where one time Madison ended up saying, you know, all the, all the religious denominations are on my side, except the Presbyterians.

Hanover Presbytery, but they eventually came into the fold and embraced Madison's, uh, position. But, um, yeah, I mean, I think, I think your, your assessment is correct, uh, that Virginia, Virginia really does reflect what, what America was supposed to be.

And you see that today too. I mean, it's shows up not just in voting, uh, maps, but, uh, I was going to ask you as someone who's native Virginia and, and, you know, I, I was, I, I'm a little bit of a mud, I guess I was born in California.

I grew up in New York, but, one side of the family having Midwestern sentiments, one side of the family having, uh, I, I would say Southern and Midwestern sentiments. It, um, you know, I, I felt like an oddball a little bit, not like weird, but just like, I knew that, in New York, sometimes I stood out a little bit.

Sometimes the things we did were a little different. And, um, one of the things I was going to say though, in New York is, you know, maybe it's everywhere now, but, you know, I don't know. I, I just want to see if it compares with your experience.

Thanksgiving has become very much, uh, a secularized holiday where, you know, I don't even think the pilgrims are hardly thought about. You, you make fun of like, um, you know, I've seen at Abbeville events and stuff.

They'll make fun of those pilgrim hats. And, you know, that was like, maybe when I was a kid, right. I don't think that even is hardly around anymore. People don't know who those folks are. They probably know more about the Indians.

They don't even know much about them. Um, and so, uh, so, so anyway, like, what, what does it become? Uh, the most conservative reading of it is it's a day for the family to get together. And traditionally we have Turkey, but that's even fading.

It's really just, uh, a day for sports, a day to get off. Yeah. You know, um, there's really, I don't even know if you're supposed to be thankful to there. There's nothing in the culture that I can tell that reinforces that aspect of it, that this is Thanksgiving to God.

So, I mean, you're in Florida now you've lived in the South, Alabama, Virginia, anything different there. I mean,.

I think growing up, I think, um, there was more of a religious overtone to it. Uh, you know, I mean, I grew up in the, in the late nineties, um, and there was certainly not the late nineties in Virginia, early nineties, late nineties in Virginia.

There were certainly, at least in my experience, a lot more religious overtones. I, I really think, you know, um, Virginia has changed so much that there, there's so many people living there now, at least, at least where I was living, uh, in central Virginia and certainly Northern Virginia, that, I mean, you know, a lot of that has disappeared.

I think, I think there's pockets, you know, you go to certain places and in the state and, uh, you know, especially small towns, rural counties, you know, you'll find a lot of that still because there's a lot of religious, uh, people, um, that acknowledge God and his blessings.

But, um, you know, in a lot of the cities and especially the further North you go, I think, I think a lot of that is lost. I mean, I did, I lived for some time in, uh, Massachusetts. So I know, I know exactly what you're talking about, um, where it's just, it's so secular, um, that there's, there's no acknowledgement of God.

And I mean, even, even the stories we all know from the Bible, um, a lot of people don't know, you know, you can make references to biblical references and they have no idea what you're referring to. I,.

I don't know if this is true, but someone told me they were at the Plymouth plantation not long ago. Cause they still have just like at Jamestown and at, uh, you know, Williamsburg, they have kind of a library enactment thing going there, but they were there not too long ago.

And they said, you know, it's changed so much even there, and it's still a tourist trap, but it's, the pilgrims are, have kind of been side, uh, side, I don't know what you want to call it. Like, um, sideline, that's the word I'm looking for.

And, uh, it's become more, you know, the, the focus even at the plantation is more about the Indians. So I don't know if this is all true cause I haven't gone, but, uh, I was a kid when we went, but, uh, that doesn't surprise me, you know, and there's a lot of, the other thing was, okay, so here, here's the, here's the kicker for this story.

The person who told me this said they went into a number of shops. They're looking for a Bible. And it's like, people looked at them like they had two heads. They couldn't find a Bible anywhere. And there was a bunch of, they said like witchcraft type shops and things like that.

So there's, there's sort of like a witch, uh, Pagan presence now. And this is the area of the pilgrims of course, first landed, you know, they would be mortified. Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, and I'm, I'm a, I don't know if, uh, you have any ancestral connections.

It doesn't sound like it, if it was Ireland. Uh, but, um, you know, I have connections going back to, to both places, but specifically at least my dad tells me that, uh, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins are direct ancestors, you know, and they got off the Mayflower.

And so, you know, I think of that like, you know, would they even have recognized the place that they landed? They probably would be so disappointed today. Yeah. You know,.

We were up, um, I was up there not too long ago. Um, and North Hampton, Massachusetts is not that far from where I was. So I ended up, I ended up going there. Um, and I, I told my wife, as I said, thankfully we didn't take our kids because I mean, North Hampton, Massachusetts is like, you know, homosexual haven.

Yeah. Um, and I mean, it's literally like, it was just, it was just, I've never experienced something like that before. Uh, where the, the majority of the people, um, are either that, or they're heavy promoters of it and it's everywhere.

And I found the church, uh, it's, it's, it's no, it's not the original church that, that Edwards preached in, but it's an old church. It was built on the, on the grounds where Edwards church was. Um, but it goes back to like the late 19th century.

And I took a picture of it. Cause there's this little tiny plaque there on the sidewalk, uh, of Edwards and like, you know, everything he did and everything like that. And behind him is the church. And it's got this massive, uh, pride flag.

And then, and then I, the, the building next to it had a BLM flag and it is, it was, it was surreal, you know, being there and, and to imagine that that's where Edwards preached. Um, and, and what it is today.

So yeah, I mean, you know, it's exactly like,.

Like Plymouth, New England's hard territory. There's no doubt. God bless a friend of mine, Jake Dell, who just, uh, got a congregational church in Connecticut. And it's, it's one, I think it sounded like to me, like it was going to go under until he, he got there.

He's trying to revitalize, but, um, it's, it's different. And I see people from the South try to come up from the Southern Baptist convention or whatever. And, uh, and they just don't understand the new England mindset.

It's very different. It's, it's hard to do the gimmicks. It's hard to do. Like, we're going to have a family fun day for the kids. You know, what kids, what kids, what are you talking about? Right. Yeah.

Um, so, but anyway, like, uh, back to Thanksgiving though, there were certain things that were universal and across denominations across States. And that was, uh, there, there was honoring the Sabbath.

There was giving your due to God and that included Thanksgiving. And that was just natural. That wouldn't have been a weird thing. I mean, they, there were Thanksgiving proclamations called all the time, or at least days of prayer that were called all the time in response to different events.

And, and that was a common thing. I think the last time, I don't even know if, uh, George Bush's proclamation, I think he had one after nine 11. That was like the last time I can remember that there was a day of prayer, um, from the office of the president.

It just doesn't happen anymore. But Biden didn't do that this year. Well, they always do something in relation to Thanksgiving, right? They like spare, they pardon a Turkey or something, which is kind of a cute little tradition, but it, it misses the point.

It's not about turkeys.