Thanksgiving Virginia and a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1619 arrival of 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia, concluded with a religious celebration as dictated by the group's charter from the London Company, which specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned ... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history
John Carver (Plymouth Colony governor) John Carver (Plymouth Colony governor) John Carver (before 1584–1621) was one of the Pilgrims who braved the "Mayflower" voyage in 1620 which resulted in the creation of Plymouth Colony in America. He is credited with writing the Mayflower Compact and was its first signer, and he was also the first governor of Plymouth Colony. Little is known about Carver's ancestry or early family life. Jeremy Bangs notes that Carver and his wife Mary were members of the French Walloon church in Leiden, Holland on February 8, 1609. The French Huguenot community was fleeing adverse events in their homeland, as were