By Erin Maxson
 
November 26, 2009
 
MEDFORD, Ore. -- This is the 388th Thanksgiving.
 
The pilgrims had much to be thankful for in 1621. A year earlier, 102 of the Separatists and their Mayflower crew landed at Plymouth in what would later be known as Massachusetts, after a grueling 66-day voyage across the Atlantic.
 
"You stop and think, you're eating a fancy dinner, very comfortable and all that. but what those people went through in 1621. It was probably an iron pot boiling over a fire," Mayflower Descendant Neil Watson said.
 
It's estimated that half of the pilgrims died during that first year.
 
After the following harvest, before another cruel winter, the remaining pilgrims and the befriended Indians led by Squanto feasted for three days on venison, fish, clams, berries, and squash. There was no turkey.
 
"It's extremely different, that is certainly true. The life they lived was extremely different than the life we live now," Watson said.
 
A dozen generations have passed between then and now.
 
"I am 11th generation down from William White," Mayflower Descendent Yvonne Earnest said.
 
Yvonne Earnest is also a descendant of Richard Warren. She is 9th cousins twice removed to Watson.
To honor their privileged pilgrim heritage, both joined the Cascade Colony, a part of the National Mayflower Society.
 
"You need to supply documentation for every step of your lineage, from yourself to the Mayflower passenger," Earnest said.
 
In 1863, in the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day. It stuck.
 
The modern celebration of Thanksgiving, on the fourth Thursday of November, is in thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress, who in 1941 made the date a matter of federal law.