Historical Highway Markers

First English Thanksgiving in Virginia

V-70

On 4 Dec. 1619, Capt. John Woodlief, a member of the Virginia Company, arrived aboard the ship Margaret with 35 men to take charge of Berkeley Hundred. An experienced former Jamestown settler, he became Berkeley's first governor. He bore instructions that the day of his ship's arrival “be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to almighty God.” Beginning in 1958, the Virginia First Thanksgiving Festival commemorated this directive as the first English Thanksgiving in North America with an annual reenactment at Berkeley Plantation.

Department of Historic Resources, 2012

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Susan Myra Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company of London, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906-1933)