The Story of the Thanl{sgiving Turl{ey at the White House
WILLIAM
11jamin Franklin proposed the turkey as the national symbol, but the eagle won out.The turkey was not forgotten, however, emerging as the symbol of the uniquely American holiday called Thanksgiving. Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were once plentiful in the Washington, D.C., area, and early presidents had excel lent dinners that featured local turkey as well as venison, can vasback, terrapin, and oysters. By 1816, however, David Bailie Warden observed in his Chorographical and Statistical Description of the District of Columbia that most of the native species of "deer, wild turkey, canvas back ... the wild goose, which inhabited the place about fifty years ago have all disappeared." Throughout the eastern United States, the wild turkey population quickly dwindled in the nineteenth 1
Marshmallow ( opposite) is petted by children afier receiving the traditional Thanksgiving presidential pardon fi·om President George W. Bush in 2005, 1l'hile the turkey pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 1998 explores the Rose Garden ( above).
B.
BUSHONG
century due to hunt ing and the loss of forest habitat as log gers cut down oak trees and took away one of the wild turkey's favorite food sources-the acorn.2 By this time domesticated turkeys were a significant food source. They were favored by Maryland and Virginia planters as a remedy for hornworm infesta tions in tobacco fields. Turkeys devoured the large and meaty hornworm and feasted on other pesty insects.3 Well into the nineteenth century, Maryland poultry growers drove large flocks of domesticated turkeys to the Washington markets, but by 1917 William A. Gordon lamented, "I doubt a drove of turkeys has come into this District within the past fifty years or more."' Observation of the Thanksgiving holiday at the White House with a roast turkey as the centerpiece of the meal may have begun with President and Mrs. James K.Polk who introduced "the new idea of a Thanksgiving in Washington."' Once the precedent was set, observation of the holiday quickly became an annual custom in the city. Celebrating and giving