I am grateful for who I am and what I have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. − Henry David Thoreau

As we approach our unique American holiday of Thanksgiving, where Americans eat 46 million turkeys and, perhaps, give thanks before football and food stupor, I have some grateful thoughts.

I am grateful to President Abraham Lincoln who in 1863 made Thanksgiving a national holiday. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, Lincoln saw the need to remind Americans that better days lay ahead as the nation grappled with the horrors of slavery and struggled to live up to its ideals.

I am grateful for the wonderful bird that represents this American holiday. Although the turkeys most of us eat come from farms and are little better than rounder chickens, the wild turkey is an amazing creature that deserves more credit. Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were first domesticated by the Mayan peoples of what is now Mexico around 800 BC and are one of only two birds native to North America to have been regularly domesticated, the other being the Muscovy duck.

We don’t know if the Pilgrims actually ate turkey on the first Thanksgiving in November 1621. The only foods we are sure the Pilgrims ate were venison, corn, and “waterfowl.” The “wild birds” on the menu could well be ducks, geese or even homing pigeons, not turkeys. But turkeys have quickly become a favorite American dish at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any other time wild turkey can be hunted. As expected, their numbers collapsed. By 1940, there were perhaps only 30,000 wild turkeys left in the United States. But today, successful restoration efforts have led to an estimated 6.5 million wild turkeys in the United States. I recently visited Harvard University where wild turkeys have reclaimed Harvard Square by adding layers to the egg heads.

Benjamin Franklin was wise when he suggested that the turkey, not the eagle, become our national bird. Wild turkeys can run at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and briefly fly up to 55 miles per hour. Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. If pressured, turkeys can swim by folding their wings, spreading their tails and kicking. So I’m grateful that we still have plenty of turkeys to enjoy as a culinary and environmental feast.

But above all, I thank everyone who reads this column or the local newspapers in general. Newspapers are an industry particularly affected by the Internet revolution. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2024, only 26% of American adults say they receive printed information often or sometimes. This historically low figure is troubling. As a historian, I know that the American Revolution was fomented by small local newspapers highlighting the iniquities of a small tyrant, an ocean away from the people he subjugated. The resulting nation had a free and robust press that kept its citizen leaders informed about current events, political issues, and the world at large. Other sources of information do not yet meet this standard and may have different, less noble goals. So thank you for your support of the newspapers and this column over the past eight years.

Mark Madison, a historian with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, lives in Hagerstown and still reads the local newspaper every morning.

This article was originally published on The Herald-Mail: Turkeys are the well-deserved symbol of Thanksgiving