George Washington's first national Thanksgiving proclamation designated November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. It was the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in the United States.
Washington issued the proclamation on October 3, 1789, in New York City, following a request from both houses of Congress. The announcement called on people to give thanks for the peaceful establishment of the new government and for what it described as national blessings. Washington later attended services at St. Paul's Chapel in New York.
This was not the first Thanksgiving observance connected with the United States. The Continental Congress proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving in 1777, during the Revolutionary War, and issued similar proclamations during the following years. The modern federal Thanksgiving holiday became an annual November observance much later, after President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 proclamation.