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This Thanksgiving was very spe­cial for my fam­ily, as it was dur­ing the past year that we dis­cov­ered that we can count one of those that came across on the Mayflower among our ances­tors. Fourteen-year-old Henry Samson trav­eled with his aunt and uncle to the New World and sur­vived that ter­ri­ble first win­ter at Plymouth even as they succumbed.

This dis­cov­ery brought new mean­ing to my family’s tra­di­tion of read­ing the his­toric poem “Five Kernels of Corn” to remem­ber the his­tor­i­cal rea­son for Thanksgiving. At one point in that sad year, stores had dropped so low that the ration for each Pilgrim was only five ker­nels of corn. And yet “to Bradford a feast were five ker­nels of corn!”

Let us read and reflect on our heritage–we all should be thank­ful that the Pilgrims sur­vived that first win­ter, whether we carry Pilgrim blood or not. If that set­tle­ment had failed as the Roanoke Island colony had in North Carolina, our coun­try would have very likely not formed in the same way, estab­lished on the same val­ues as it did. And let the nation give thanks for five ker­nels of corn!

Five Kernels of Corn
April, 1622
’Twas the year of the famine in Plymouth of old,
The ice and the snow from the thatched roofs had rolled;
Through the warm pur­ple skies steered the geese o’er the seas,
And the wood­peck­ers tapped in the clocks of the trees;
And the boughs on the slopes to the south winds lay bare,
and dream­ing of sum­mer, the buds swelled in the air.
The pale Pilgrims wel­comed each red­den­ing morn;
There were left but for rations Five Kernels of Corn.
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
But to Bradford a feast were Five Kernels of Corn!

“Five Kernels of Corn! Five Kernels of Corn!
Ye peo­ple, be glad for Five Kernels of Corn!”
So Bradford cried out on bleak Burial Hill,
And the thin women stood in their doors, white and still.
“Lo, the har­bor of Plymouth rolls bright in the Spring,
The maples grow red, and the wood robins sing,
The west wind is blow­ing, and fad­ing the snow,
And the pleas­ant pines sing, and arbu­tuses blow.
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
To each one be given Five Kernels of Corn!”

O Bradford of Austerfield hast on thy way,
The west winds are blow­ing o’er Provincetown Bay,
The white avens bloom, but the pine domes are chill,
And new graves have fur­rowed Precisioners’ Hill!
“Give thanks, all ye peo­ple, the warm skies have come,
The hill­tops are sunny, and green grows the holm,
And the trum­pets of winds, and the white March is gone,
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
Ye have for Thanksgiving Five Kernels of Corn!

“The raven’s gift eat and be hum­ble and pray,
A new light is break­ing and Truth leads your way;
One taper a thou­sand shall kin­dle; rejoice
That to you has been given the wilder­ness voice!”
O Bradford of Austerfield, dar­ing the wave,
And safe through the sound­ing blasts lead­ing the brave,
Of deeds such as thine was the free nation born,
And the fes­tal world sings the “Five Kernels of Corn.”
Five Kernels of Corn!
Five Kernels of Corn!
The nation gives thanks for Five Kernels of Corn!
To the Thanksgiving Feast bring Five Kernels of Corn! 
                                                    –Hezekiah Butterworth

Giving thanks,
John Calvin Young