The story of the Pilgrims so dominates the Thanksgiving Holiday that other fascinating aspects of its history are often completely ignored. You would have thought that at some point in my education from elementary through college, someone would have taught about the origin of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, but no one ever did.

A year or two ago I bought an inexpensive edition of a collection of speeches by Abraham Lincoln published by one of my favorite sources for interesting books, Dover Publications . One of the speeches was an impressive declaration given in midst of the Civil War. In it, Lincoln recommended that the final Thursday of November should be observed as a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Previously, other presidents had declared individual days for thanksgiving, but since Lincoln’s declaration in 1863, Thanksgiving has been recognized annually in the final weeks of November though the specific Thursday was changed from the last to the fourth.

I think that each Thanksgiving it is worth while to read Lincoln’s declaration. Here it is in full: