Thanksgiving in early Wareham combined the custom of celebrating a successful harvest, which was based on harvest festivals in the settlers’ native England, with the Puritan custom of giving thanks, which was a solemn religious observance of prayer and feasting.

Did you know that in the fall of of 1621, the citizens of Plymouth held a three-day celebration to give thanks for the harvest? What we know about the early Wareham settlers was that they had cleared the land and planted flax, rye, oats, wheat, beans, peas, and barley. Cranberries were also in abundance along with deer, fowl and fish. It is therefore most likely that the early residents of our town celebrated their autumn harvests with similar forms of prayer, socializing and feasting.

By the middle of the seventeenth-century Thanksgiving became a regular event which was officially proclaimed by each of the Colonies. In 1777, the Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving. Today, Wareham has much to be thankful for, and the Wareham Summer of Celebration 2014 Committee would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!