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Holidays In the willingness of Americans to foster myth and misconception, nothing is sacred, not even holidays. That American independence was declared on the Fourth of July in 1776 is so well established that it might seem unpatriotic to question the fact. But it's not fact. Historical records plainly show that independence was declared by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 2. The night of the second the Pennsylvania Evening Post published the statement: "This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States." Americans have endeavored not to let the facts get in the way of tradition, however. When a scholar in the nineteenth century discovered a John Adams letter that contradicted the tradition of the Fourth of July, he simply altered the document to conform with current belief. Adams had predicted in a letter to his wife dated July 3, 1776, that from then on "the Second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival." To "correct" the record, the scholar altered the date of the document to read "July 5" and had Adams predicting that the holiday would be celebrated, not on the second but on the fourth. The widespread belief in the Fourth as the great anniversary day is based on the fact that Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was adopted that day; when the declaration was published, it bore the date July 4. Thus what seems to have happened, as one scholar observed, is that the document announcing independence overshadowed the act of declaring it. Congress itself didn't celebrate independence until July 8, when the members participated in a gala public demonstration that included the firing of guns and a parade of soldiers. People in the rest of the country celebrated independence even later, depending on when the news of Congress's action reached them. Washington's soldiers, camped in New York, didn't hear of the Declaration until July 9. Savannah, Georgia, had to wait until August 10. Word didn't reach London for another two weeks. France finally heard on August 30. Yet another myth persists concerning the Declaration of Independence: that it was signed the day it was adopted. Even contemporaries got this wrong. Just a few years after the Revolution both Jefferson and Franklin reported in letters to friends their memory that the Declaration had been signed by all of the delegates (with one exception) on July 4. When someone challenged his memory in the early 1800's, Jefferson stuck by his mistake. It wasn't until 1884 that the record was corrected when historian Mellon Chamberlain, researching the manuscript minutes of the journal of Congress, discovered that the declaration was signed by most delegates on August 2. A few didn't affix their signatures until even later. One person didn't sign until 1781. Only John Hancock, president of Congress, and Charles Thomson, secretary, signed it on the fourth. When the document was originally published, the Congress cautiously refused to say who, beyond Hancock and Thomson, had approved it. Not until January 1777 were the names of the other signers released. [1] Equally wrong is the belief that independence was unanimously supported in Congress. Actually, more than half a dozen delegates opposed the rebellion. In the penultimate roll call Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted no, Delaware's delegates were divided, and New York's members, lacking instructions, didn't vote. In the end South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Delaware voted to approve independence, South Carolina only because it didn't want to be left out. New York, still uninstructed, abstained. At least independence is not so shrouded in error as it once was. For a long time North Carolinians believed that they deserved the credit for making the first statement of independence. So convinced were they of the authenticity of the so-called Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, which was supposedly approved in 1775 in Mecklenburg County, that the state legislature required students to learn about it. In a sober moment the legislature repealed the order. Nothing much has been said about the North Carolina declaration since. Historian Allan Nevins, apparently with good reason, says it was a fraud. It was not put into written form until 1800, it wasn't even printed until 1820, and its written version was provided by a county clerk on the basis of his memory of the event. [2] Mecklenburg does figure in the developing schism with Great Britain. In May 1775 some resolutions were passed denying the authoriry of the king in North Carolina. But there was no mention of independence.
Thanksgiving is the source of bountiful misconceptions. Though we celebrate this holiday in November, no one knows precisely when the first Thanksgiving took place since none of the surviving Pilgrim records say anything more than that it occurred in the autumn of 1621. At any rate, the holiday was not an annual Pilgrim event. It was not even firmly fixed as a fall festival. In 1623, according to one scholar's best estimate, it was celebrated in July. More surprising, the first Thanksgiving wasn't a family celebration. More like a huge community picnic, it lasted for about a week and was attended by more than ninety Indians. Above all, it was an occasion for celebration and recreation. Scholars say it wasn't a religious holiday. The Pilgrims wouldn't have tolerated festivities at a truly religious time. Whether turkeys were eaten is anybody's guess. Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford's journal doesn't say one way or the other. Neither do any others. Opinion is divided about the other things they ate. Robert Myers asserts confidently that they had duck, goose, seafood, eels, white bread, corn bread, leeks, watercress, a variety of greens, and, for dessert, wild plums and dried berries. Roland Usher says they had hasty pudding. Where Myers and Usher came by their information, they don't say. Actually, all that is known for sure is that the Pilgrims had "fowl" and "deer." [3]
Of all holidays, Christmas looms largest on the national calendar, but it hasn't always been in this position. Until the Civil War Christmas was but scantly observed. Most shockingly, retailers hardly seemed to take notice of the occasion. Historians report that the pages of the New York Tribune in 1841 did not contain a single example of advertising with a Christmas theme. It wasn't until after the Civil War that retailers began experimenting with special Christmas sales. Once they did, however, it didn't take long for them to discover the commercial possibilities offered by the holiday. By 1870 December had become the merchants' single largest selling month of the year. Christmas had not, by the way, always been regarded as a proper time for celebration. In the seventeenth century this holiday, which was to become so American, was widely regarded in New England as an unappealing popish import. The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony so disdained Christmas that in 1659 they passed a law against celebrating the holiday, punishing "anybody who is found observing [it], by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way." The law was repealed twenty-five years later, but the prejudice against Christmas remained strong. Judge Samuel Sewall was happy to report in his diary in 1685 that he didn't see anybody celebrating the holiday. [4]
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