George Washington’s 1789 National Thanksgiving Proclamation designated November 26, 1789, for public thanksgiving and prayer.
Washington issued the proclamation on October 3, 1789, in New York City, at the request of Congress. It called on people in the United States to observe the appointed Thursday with gratitude for the nation’s independence, peace, and constitutional government.
The proclamation was the first formal presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, but it was not the first thanksgiving observance connected with American history. The Second Continental Congress had issued a national thanksgiving recommendation in 1777, during the Revolutionary War.
On the designated day, Washington attended services at St. Paul’s Chapel in New York and donated food and beer to imprisoned debtors. The modern federal Thanksgiving holiday was established much later, after Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation and subsequent congressional legislation.