November Issue

Shenandoah Homeowners Association
NEWSWATCH
November 2018 Issue 11 Serving the Homeowners of Shenandoah Estates Since 1972
Happy Thanksgiving!
—from the Readers Digest
Things Everyone
Myth: Pilgrims wore large hats with buckles on them. Fact: None of the participants were dressed anything like the way they’ve been portrayed in art: the Pilgrims didn’t dress in black, didn’t wear buckles on their hats or shoes, and didn’t wear tall hats. The 19th-century artists who painted them that way did so because they associated black clothing and buckles with being old-fashioned.
Myth: They ate turkey.
Fact: The Pilgrims ate deer, not turkey. As Pilgrim Edward Winslow later wrote, “For three days we entertained
and feasted, and [the Indians] went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation.” Winslow does mention that four Pilgrims went “fowling” or bird hunting, but neither he nor anyone else recorded which kinds of birds they actually hunted—so even if they did eat turkey, it was just a side dish. “The flashy part of the meal for the colonists was the venison, because it was new to them,” says Carolyn Travers, director of research at Plimoth Plantation, a Pilgrim museum in Massachusetts. “Back in England, deer were on estates and people would be arrested for poaching if they killed these deer ...
The colonists mentioned venison over and over again
in their letters back home.” Other foods that may have been on the menu: cod, bass, clams, oysters, Indian corn, native berries and plums, all washed down with water, beer made from corn, and another drink the Pilgrims affectionately called “strong water.” [
Believes About Thanksgiving
That Are Absolutely Untrue
Myth: At the 1st. Thanksgiving they were called Pilgrims. Fact: They didn’t even refer to themselves as Pilgrims— they called themselves “Saints.” Early Americans applied the term “pilgrim” to all of the early colonists; it wasn’t until the 20th century that it was used exclusively to describe the folks who landed on Plymouth Rock.
Myth: It was a solemn, religious occasion.
Fact: Hardly. It was a three-day harvest festival that included drinking, gambling, athletic games, and even target shooting with English muskets (which, by the way, was intended as a friendly warning to the Indians that the Pilgrims were prepared to defend themselves).
Myth: It took place in November
Fact: It was some time between late September and the middle of October—after the harvest had been brought in. By November, says historian Richard Ehrlich, “the villagers were working to prepare for winter, salting and drying meat and making their houses as wind resistant as possible.”
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