Thanksgiving cockfights

I’m writing about the year 1857, in the month of November, and I suddenly wonder — was Thanksgiving celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month?

A brief sojourn brought me to Infoplease, how Thanksgiving all began in 1621 in the Plymouth Colony. George Washington made it a state holiday in 1789, but each State set their own date for the Home Festival.

I browsed Cleveland 19th century newspapers, and discovered pre-Civil War journalists could scare up quite the cockfight, even over something as innocuous as Thanksgiving.
November 7, 1856, Issue 236, Col. B of The Daily Cleveland Herald (Cleveland, OH)
“Southern View of Thanksgiving in the Northern States”
“The Baltimore Sun, alluding to the fact that Thursday, November 20th, has been fixed upon by most of the Governors of the Northern States for the annual Thanksgiving, asks– “Where are the Governors of the States south of Maryland?” The inquiry provoked the following rather snappish reply from the Carolina Times:
“We are impressed that the Governors of the States south of Maryland are all at home and competent to decide for themselves when it will be proper to fix upon a day to offer up thanks to the Almighty for past blessings. The movement on the part of Northern Executives is no criterion for Southern men. We are subject to law, common and divine, and need

‘No bleeding bird nor bleeding beast,
Nor hysop branch, nor sprinkling priest,
Nor running brook, nor flood, nor sea,
To wash a dismal stain away.’

“It is meet and proper that the miserable sin-stricken, polluted, and ungodly population of the North should beg pardon for their black sins recorded, committed against God, their country and fellow-men. As a generation of vipers they ought to be warned to flee the wrath to come; yet we believe that the waters of Jordan, Abana, and Pharper, would fail to wash them and heal their leprosy, even though they were to dip seventy times seven. They have much to be forgiven for, and we would advise them to pray often–pray long and pray loud. Baltimore, especially, ought to be covered with sackcloth and ashes.”
Yikes!
-In 1857, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire and Maryland all celebrated the “Home Festival of Thanksgiving” on the 26th of November. Maine celebrated it on the 19th of November (and I’m not sure what the southern States did).
– In 1863 in a Thanksgiving Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln named the fourth Thursday of November as the official national day.
Perhaps the writers of the Carolina Times had more to say on the subject, but I’ve got to stop researching trivia and get back to writing …