“And all servile Labour is forbidden”

Thursday, 25 Nov 1773, 250 years ago today, was a holiday in Massachusetts.

About a month earlier, Thomas Hutchinson had issued this proclamation, printed on broadsides as shown at University Archives auction house:

Massachusetts-Bay. }

By the Governor.

A PROCLAMATION for a Publick Thanksgiving.

Whereas it is our incumbent Duty to make our frequent publick thankful Acknowledgement to Almighty GOD our great Benefactor, as well for the Mercies of his common Providence as for the distinguishing Favours which at any Time he may see meet to confer upon us:

AND WHEREAS among many other Instances of the Favour of Heaven towards us of a publick Nature in the Course of the Year past, it hath pleased God to continue the Life of our Sovereign Lord King GEORGE—of our most Gracious Queen CHARLOTTE and of the rest of the Royal Family—to succeed His Majesty’s Councils and Endeavours for Preserving Peace to the British Dominions—to continue to us a good Measure of Health—to prosper our Husbandry, Merchandize, and Fishery:

I HAVE therefore thought fit to appoint, and I do, with the Advice of His Majesty’s Council, appoint Thursday the Twenty-fifth Day of November next to be a Day of Publick Thanksgiving throughout the Province, exhorting and requiring the several Societies for Religious Worship to assemble on that Day, and to offer up their devout Praises to GOD for the several Mercies aforementioned, and for all other Favours which He hath been graciously pleased to bestow upon us, accompanying their Thanksgivings with fervent Prayers that, after they shall have sang the Praises of God, they may not forget his Works.

And all servile Labour is forbidden on the said Day.

GIVEN at the Council-Chamber in Boston, the Twenty-eighth Day of October, in the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Third, by the Grace of GOD, of Great-Britain, France, and Ireland, KING, Defender of the Faith, &c. Annoq; Domini, 1773.

By His Excellency's Command,
Tho’s Flucker, Secr’y.

T. Hutchinson.

GOD Save the KING.

BOSTON: Printed by RICHARD DRAPER, Printer to His Excellency the Governor, and the Honorable His Majesty’s Council. 1773.

New Englanders expected to observe some autumn Thursday as a Thanksgiving, with sermons in the daytime and a big family dinner. However, the date of that holiday wasn’t set by the governors until the fall.

In 1773, between the governor’s proclamation and Thanksgiving Day there had been two small riots over tea, Hutchinson’s sons and the other consignees were keeping low profiles, and everyone was on tenterhooks waiting for the first East India Company cargo to arrive.

According to merchant John Rowe, that Thanksgiving saw “Dull heavy Raw Weather.”