While Abraham Lincoln is credited with creating the Thanksgiving holiday as we know it today, historians differ on the question of whether he was the first to “pardon” a turkey for the holiday he created. Laying those two issues aside, as a native Hoosier, I believe the true genesis of Lincoln’s soft spot for turkey day can be traced back to his “growing up years” in Indiana. Abraham Lincoln lived in southern Indiana for 14 years, arriving at age 7 in 1816 and leaving for Illinois at age 21 in 1830. The episode was perhaps detailed best in the November 19, 1945, Lincoln Lore publication of the Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne.
The Lincoln family moved from Kentucky to Indiana during the Thanksgiving season in 1816. Lincoln described their new home as a “wild region with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods.” He stated that it was here he took “an early start as a hunter, which was never much improved afterwards.” Lincoln recalled that a few days before his 8th birthday (February of 1817), while his father was away from home, a flock of wild turkeys approached Lincoln’s log cabin near Pigeon Creek. Young Abraham retrieved a long rifle from above the fireplace, loaded it with a lead ball and cotton wadding, poked the gun barrel through an opening between the logs, and fired, killing one of them. Lincoln missed the head, shooting the turkey through the neck instead, presumably causing a slow and painful death to the bird. He hoped the kill would impress his father, instead, the sight of the dead bird left a scar on Lincoln’s psyche. Lincoln later wrote that he never again pulled a trigger on “any larger game.” My “career as a hunter…was brought to an abrupt termination.”
Almost a half-century later, after the Battle of Gettysburg brought more than 50,000 American casualties to Lincoln’s doorstep, the President issued his famous Thanksgiving proclamation on October 3, 1863. It specifies that Americans “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving…And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him…, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.” Although Mr. Lincoln issued the proclamation, it was written by his Secretary of State William Seward, the “other” man who nearly died by the assassin’s hand on the same night Lincoln was murdered.
Days after the President delivered his famous Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, Lincoln’s 10-year-old son Tad was also traumatized by a turkey. In accordance with tradition, a live turkey was sent to the Executive Mansion (it didn’t become known as the White House until Teddy Roosevelt came along in 1901) to be used during the holidays. Tad immediately made a pet of the turkey, leashing the bird and traipsing it around the grounds. Tad named his pet Jack. When the chef came to collect the turkey for the holiday table, Tad begged for a reprieve, which was granted by the chef momentarily. Tad rushed through his father’s office into the Cabinet Room (the large southeast room on the Second Floor of the White House that has been called the Lincoln Bedroom since 1945), while a Cabinet meeting was in progress. Tad burst into the room crying and sobbing, his face red with rage and indignation, screaming. ‘Papa, they are going to kill Jack!’ Tad pleaded, ‘Jack must not be killed; it is wicked.’ The President replied, ‘Now Tad, Jack was sent here to be killed, and eaten.’ ‘I can’t help it,’ roared Tad between his sobs ‘he’s a good turkey and I don’t want him killed.’ Lincoln paused for a moment, removed a card from his pocket, and thoughtfully wrote an order of reprieve. Tad seized the Executive Writ of Cessation and fled the room to save his friend, quite literally, from the chopping block.
Tad would keep Jack for another year. On Tuesday, November 8, 1864, when Abraham Lincoln was elected to a second term as president, a special polling place was set up on the Executive Mansion grounds, especially for soldiers who chose to vote. The President watched as Jack proudly strutted in front of some of the soldiers and cut into the voting line. Lincoln playfully asked his son if the turkey would be voting too. Tad answered, “Oh, no; he isn’t of age yet.”
This began what has become an annual Thanksgiving tradition. Each year the President pardons a turkey before Thanksgiving. According to the White House Historical Association, “It is often stated that President Lincoln’s 1863 clemency to a turkey, first recorded in an 1865 dispatch by White House reporter Noah Brooks, was the origin for the pardoning ceremony, although this is likely apocryphal.” Well shucks, that’s a fancy Biblical term for untrue. So I decided to consult the man who wrote the book on that subject, legendary Lincoln scholar Dr. Wayne C. “Doc” Temple (Lincoln’s Confidant. The Life of Noah Brooks. University of Illinois Press 2019). “Tad was begging for the turkey’s life. The Cabinet members were aghast, but probably amused, by the episode. Lincoln always indulged his children, sometimes to the point of distraction, so he pardoned the turkey,” said Dr. Temple. “Years before, in 1861, Lincoln wrote a pardon for a toy soldier, also named Jack, that Tad and his older brother Willy (who died in February 1862) had sentenced to death. Lincoln is probably the only President with the sense of humor to pardon a turkey, that’s just how he was,” laughed Temple.
Doc further noted that the “turkey pardon” incident was also detailed in the book Lincoln’s Sons by his longtime friend, author Ruth Painter Randall. Mrs. Randall was the wife of Doc’s mentor James Garfield Randall, Indianapolis native, and Lincoln/Civil War scholar who taught at the University of Illinois from 1920 to 1950. To commemorate the episode, in 2005, as part of a riverfront revitalization effort in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, the Lincoln Financial Group sponsored 16 sculptures along the Connecticut River. The “Lincoln Sculpture Walk” series commemorates the life and achievements of our Sixteenth President. Among the sculptures is a stylized depiction of Tad’s pet turkey Jack designed by New York artist Philip Grausman. So, this November 23rd, as you eat your Thanksgiving dinner, remember Lincoln…you turkeys!
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
