"A day of Prayer and Thanksgiving in this State"

posted Nov 25, 2015 at 2:10 PM

Until 1863 "days of Thanksgiving" were irregularly observed holidays in the United States. That's when Abraham Lincoln -- at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, and with a proclamation written by New York's own William Seward -- declared the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving. Here in New York the regular observance of the holiday stretches back to 1817 when governor DeWitt Clinton declared "a day of Prayer and Thanksgiving in this State" for November 13 of that year.

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