REGION — Most people know that the first Thanksgiving took place in November 1621, in what is now Plymouth, MA, when the recently-arrived Pilgrims mounted an autumn-harvest celebration with the Wampanoag Indians. What many may not know is that the harvest celebration, which was not yet called Thanksgiving, had religious origins.

 “Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times,” according to the website, World Religion News (tinyurl.com/y72ve6al). “The Thanksgiving holiday’s history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation.”

Thanksgiving was not universally celebrated in the U.S. until much later. Presidents George Washington and John Adams both declared Thanksgiving a national holiday during their terms in office. But when Thomas Jefferson became President, he ended that tradition.

Jefferson was a staunch supporter of the concept of the separation of church and state. Shortly after he was sworn to office, he received a letter from a group of Baptists in Connecticut seeking his views on religious liberties. He thought it was a good opportunity to explain his decision on Thanksgiving. He wrote to then Attorney General Levi Lincoln, “I have long wished to find [a reason to say] why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors did.” He believed “fastings & thanksgivings” were the last vestiges of British colonial rule over the states.

He was speaking, however, at a time when his political opposition, the Federalists, had labeled him an atheist, and Lincoln advised him not to include such information in the letter to the Baptists. Instead he wrote in the letter the famous line, that he believes in “a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Jefferson, however, did not hate Thanksgiving. He actually declared a day of “thanksgiving and prayer” earlier in his career when he was serving as governor of Virginia 1779.  But he did not believe he could do the same thing as president without violating the First Amendment, which says in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”.

After Jefferson left office, his successor, James Madison in 1815 revived the tradition of declaring Thanksgiving a holiday. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed thanksgiving a permanent national holiday with a fixed date for all states in 1863.