George Washington’s National Thanksgiving Proclamation designated November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.
Washington issued the proclamation on October 3, 1789, in response to a request from Congress. It called on people in the United States to observe Thursday, November 26, with gratitude for what the proclamation described as national blessings. The observance took place while the new federal government was still establishing its traditions.
The proclamation was the first formal presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, but it was not the first thanksgiving observance in North America or in the United States. The Second Continental Congress had issued a thanksgiving proclamation in 1777, and regional thanksgiving traditions were older still.
Washington attended services at St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City on the designated day and donated food and beer to imprisoned debtors. The date is distinct from the modern federal Thanksgiving holiday, which Congress fixed on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941.