Thanksgiving didn’t simply appear on the American calendar — New Jersey helped build it.
In this episode, we explore how two New Jersey leaders, Governor William Livingston and Congressman Elias Boudinot, transformed thanksgiving from a private spiritual instinct into a public, civic ritual. Their fasting and thanksgiving proclamations, congressional resolutions, and direct influence on George Washington shaped the first national Thanksgiving in 1789.
From wartime suffering to national unity, learn how New Jersey stood at the heart of America’s earliest public expressions of gratitude — and how these “Jersey architects of thanksgiving” helped turn survival into a national tradition.
Part 2 of Crossroads of Thanksgiving: Two Peoples, One Prayer, in partnership with RevolutionNJ.
Keywords: William Livingston, Elias Boudinot, New Jersey history, Thanksgiving origins, American Revolution, Washington Thanksgiving proclamation, New Jersey Gazette, Morristown winter, NJ colonial history, RevolutionNJ, Continental Congress, early American thanksgiving
#newjerseyhistory #americanrevolution #thanksgivinghistory #williamlivingston #eliasboudinot #revolutionnj #historypodcast #washington #morristown #colonialhistory #thanksgiving
Email me: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1782.National Archives.
Annals of Congress, 1789. Congressional Record of Thanksgiving Resolution.
Boudinot, Elias. A Star in the West. Philadelphia: Bradford & Inskeep, 1816.
Hutson, James. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. Library of Congress, 1998.
Washington, George. “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, October 3, 1789.”National Archives.https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091