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Event Series Event Series: Old Sturbridge Village, New England Thanksgiving

Old Sturbridge Village, New England Thanksgiving

November 11, 2023 - November 12, 2023

In early 19th-century New England, preparations for Thanksgiving started well before the actual holiday. This weekend be sure to stop by our households to learn about some of the dishes on 1830s Thanksgiving tables as we prepare for the holiday.

On November 11th, we will be highlighting an 1830s Thanksgiving and the Old Sturbridge Village dancers will be performing in the Bullard Great Room.

The Village will be closed this year from Nov 13 to Nov 22 and on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 23, but we wanted to give you an opportunity to learn about how early 19th-century New Englanders celebrated Thanksgiving!

Two costumed historians prepare a Thanksgiving meal

In her book Oldtown Folks, Harriet Beecher Stowe referred to Thanksgiving as “the king and high priest of all festivals.” It was a fitting name since Thanksgiving was the biggest holiday of the year in early 19th-century New England. 
Preparing for the Holiday Similar to today, families would plan to travel and gather together to celebrate with a special meal. Even before the official proclamation from the state governor, many families started eagerly anticipating the holiday and preparing for it. In Oldtown Folks, Stowe reminisced about families baking dozens of pies in the weeks before the holiday and storing them in bedrooms or attics where “frozen solid, and thus well preserved in their icy fetters, they formed a great repository for all the winter months; and the pies baked at Thanksgiving often came out fresh and good with the violets of April.”
The Thanksgiving Table While pie was and remains a Thanksgiving staple, there are some differences between the typical early 19th-century feast and the typical modern one. While turkey is the star of many Thanksgiving tables today, that was not always the case. If it was on the Thanksgiving table, it was often accompanied by other meats. In her 1845 book The New England Economical Housekeeper, Esther Allen Howland called for the following to be prepared for the great Thanksgiving feast:
  • Roast Turkey, stuffed
  • A pair of chickens stuffed, and boiled, with cabbage and a piece of lean pork
  • A Chicken Pie
  • Potatoes; turnip sauce; squash; onions; gravy and gravy sauces; apple and cranberry sauce; oyster sauce; brown and white bread
  • Plum and Plain Pudding, with sweet sauce.
  • Mince, Pumpkin, and Apple Pies
  • Cheese
A Slice of History For Your Thanksgiving Table: Consider adding a taste of 1830s culinary delights to your Thanksgiving Feast! Find original receipts (recipes) and modern translations for dishes like Marlborough pudding, carrot pie, apple and pork pie, gourd soup and more on our website by clicking the button below.
View Historic Receipts

You can find historically common ingredients like rose water, cookbooks, and Village-inspired foodstuffs like jams, jellies, and drink mixes at both Ox & Yoke Mercantile and the Miner Grant Store

Did you know?

  • In early New England, Thanksgiving was the biggest holiday of the year, far surpassing Christmas, which wasn’t celebrated in the tradition of the Puritans who settled the region.
  • During the Village’s time period, Thanksgiving was not a fixed date on the calendar. Thanksgiving proclamations were written by the governors of each state that participated in the holiday and these proclamations were typically read in meetinghouses on the Sunday before the holiday. In 1838, ten of the 26 states in the Union officially celebrated Thanksgiving. It did not become a national holiday until 1863.
  • Turkeys in the early 19th century were much smaller than today’s “butterballs,” and turkey wasn’t always on the Thanksgiving menu, because they were a lot of work to prepare for not much meat.
  • In the early 1800s, turkey “drovers” herded and marched turkeys on foot from central and western Massachusetts to the huge Brighton market just outside of Boston, Mass. to sell the birds to wealthy city dwellers.
  • Many vegetables weren’t peeled for everyday cooking, but they were for holidays like Thanksgiving to show the elevated status of the day.
  • Pies were baked weeks ahead of time and stored in unheated attics and bedrooms where they would freeze and keep for months. Pies not consumed at Thanksgiving would sometimes last until April.
  • The cranberry is one of three fruits native to North America, and was used by Native Americans to make pemmican – a survival food made of mashed cranberries mixed with deer meat. They also used cranberries in poultices to draw poison from wounds.

Details

Start:
November 11, 2023
End:
November 12, 2023
Series:
Old Sturbridge Village, New England Thanksgiving

Venue

Old Sturbridge Village
1 Old Sturbridge Village Road
Sturbridge, MA 01566 + Google Map
Phone
(800) 733-1830
View Venue Website