Schwenkfelder Thanksgiving – September 24, 2026

History of Schwenkfelder Thanksgiving

In 1733, a small number of Schwenkfelder’s followers arrived in Philadelphia. A second group came from Germany on September 22, 1734. They swore their allegiance to the British king and two days later, they expressed gratitude to God for allowing them to flee persecution, by holding a thanksgiving service. As there were no crops to harvest, the Thanksgiving meal consisted of water, bread, butter, and apple butter.

The Schwenkfelder Thanksgiving event is the oldest continuously observed Thanksgiving in the United States. The traditional Thanksgiving was yet to be observed annually and uniformly across the nation. While the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast in 1621, the observance wasn’t a popular practice among everyone. George Washington proclaimed the nation’s first Thanksgiving in 1789. And while his successors followed suit and Thanksgiving was accepted, the celebrations were still not consistent. In fact, it wasn’t until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving for the last Thursday in November. There was now some uniformity in the celebrations and the nation gave thanks on that day until 1939. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the observance to the fourth Thursday, and that’s when it has been celebrated ever since.

The Schwenkfelders are the descendants of a small Protestant sect that popped up in Germany during the time of the Reformation. They were the devotees of Caspar Schwenkfeld, a theologian. He and his followers separated from Protestant circles and formed the brotherhoods that are still around today as the Schwenkfelder Church. The Schwenkfelder population has shrunk over the years, but most now live in Pennsylvania Dutch country.