Harvests & Hearths
The Holiday Season in Colonial and Early America
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By Taylor Murphy ITTSBURGH IS FILLED WITH REMNANTS OF AMERICAN LIFE DATING BACK TO THE COLONIAL AND EARLY AMERICAN ERAS. Beyond the historic Fort Pitt Block House at the Point, the city preserves many homes dating back to the 19th century, with the oldest right here in Squirrel Hill. The Neill Log House in Schenley Park was constructed in 1795, making it the oldest surviving domestic structure in the entire city.
As the holiday season approaches, this time for celebration offers the opportunity to reflect upon Pittsburgh’s roots by comparing our modern festivities with how the Neill family and their neighbors may have celebrated.
THANKSGIVING AND HARVEST FESTIVALS The Thanksgiving celebration Americans know and love today is not nearly the same as it was at the time of the nation’s birth. Though history credits the Pilgrims and Native Americans for the day of thanks filled with turkey, cranberries, and stuffing, the original holiday was much more somber. George Washington first proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving on November 26, 1789. Though it was intended as a day of praise and thanks for the conclusion of the Revolutionary War and the development of the Constitution, many politicians protested it. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson publicly refused to endorse the newly developed holiday as he be-
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. Gazette of the UnitedStates (New York, N.Y.), October 7, 1789.
lieved it lent itself to state-sanctioned holidays, a violation of the heavily emphasized separation of church and state that the young nation was striving for. Even so, many still recognized Thanksgiving, though without the feasting. Americans celebrated through gatherings that emphasized thanks and prayer without displaying an abundance of food. That was for harvest festivals. Harvest festivals occurred during the autumn months (September, October, November) to honor a year of hard work. For most of the early American colonists, survival was a sink or swim endeavor that involved long, labor-driven days spent tending crops that would feed
