HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

What we’re about to establish, right here and right now in this column, is the unprecedented pinpointing of the first Thanksgiving celebrated in Oak Bluffs.

This is a difficult endeavor, because no one can say with any certainty when the first Thanksgiving, aka harvest festival, took place on the North American continent. (Canada had its own precipitating event, but that’s their business.)

Just to get a couple of pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgivings out of the way, some kind of Spanish-y event took place in St. Augustine on Sept. 9, 1565, so northern Floridians have timing over us. But did the early conquistadors and padres serve cranberries and that green beans dish with the sliced almonds and the can of mushroom soup mixed in? I don’t think so.

In the settlement of Jamestown, the folks threw some kind of shindig in 1607. But if this really qualified as the first Thanksgiving, why aren’t school kids today cutting out cardboard coon caps instead of those silly pointy Puritan hats? And if Jamestown were the birthplace of Thanksgiving festivities, we’d see tobacco leaf decorations everywhere instead of the cobs of corn introduced to the original Plymouth 102 by the local Wampanoags.

As a fascinating footnote, it was this same tribe of Wampanoags who taught the Pilgrims how to spear cod in nearby streams. Clearly this was an indigenous culture that believed the old adage about feeding a man for life by teaching him how to fish.

But here’s the catch: Not a single one of these Wampanoags or Pilgrims had any sense of their first al fresco feast being the start of anything big other than keeping a bunch of white people from starving. It wasn’t until the 1660s that an annual harvest festival came to be celebrated consciously as an event that would require a centerpiece and the good china. Eventually we codified Thanksgiving as a national holiday. I personally don’t know what U.S. teachers are telling their social studies students these days, but we’re getting closer to the perception of the Pilgrims as losers. In the near future Thanksgiving will be all Wampanoag, all the time.

So, Oak Bluffs arrived on the scene a smidge before that 1660 set point. A young man named Joseph Daggett — Daggetts being key, along with Mayhews, Nortons, etc. in those early Vineyard founding days — ­was awarded 500 acres alongside what is now known as the Oak Bluffs Harbor. Joseph named his land Squash Meadow.

Why did we ever forsake the name of Squash Meadow? That’s so much cooler than Cottage City, inaugurated in 1880, and the humble-pie Oak Bluffs incorporated in 1907.

We know very little about Joseph other than the intriguing datum that he took a Native American bride whose name is lost to time and poor record-keeping. But this beloved town has always attracted people of all races and ethnicities, so it’s heartwarming to think Oak Bluffs was launched by a white man and an Indian woman whose brood defined a new generation of Squash Meadowers. Alas, where have all the Squash Meadowers gone?

Whether or not the occupants were a spin-off of this branch of the Daggett family, an old farmhouse from the 1700s still stands in the Farm Neck subdivision along the shores of Sengekontacket. The home has long since been remodeled, maybe many times over, but within those ancient walls we may very well have the setting of the first Oak Bluffs Thanksgiving. Did the celebrants have wild turkeys available? Duh. Cranberries? Check! Corn, well sure. Those Puritans, a few of whom arrived on the Vineyard in 1630, really worked the Wampanoag corn patch for all it was worth. As for stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with praline stuffing (see Philip and Shirley Craig’s awesome cookbook, Delish!), we can only pray those original Squash Meadowers had some of the culinary knack so very much appreciated at this time of year.

Hope this helped!

Several Oak Bluffs residents will participate in the upcoming 14th annual Nutcracker Gala, which takes place Saturday, Dec. 3 at 4 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 4 at 2 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center. Participating Oak Bluffs students include Ava McGee, Makenzie Luce, Matthew Luce and Madeline Clatworthy. Adult performers from Oak Bluffs are Anna Marie D’Addarie, Elizabeth Convery and Mark Luce. Admission is $15, $25 for central seating, or $50 for a family of two adults and three children.