IT wasn’t in New England, but in St. Augustine, Florida:

An explorer, Pedro Menéndez de Avilé, along with 800 Spanish settlers celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving to commemorate the successful sea voyage & founding of the town of St. Augustine, which would go on to be the 1st & longest-lasting port within the present-day United States. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement on  the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

Occurring as it did so soon after trans-Atlantic landfall, this was a maritime Thanksgiving, with sailor’s fare making up the bulk of the feast, probably along with local native food, which would likely have included oysters & fish.

It is said he invited members of the Timucua tribe to dine along with them. The local St. Augustine Timucua were known by the Spanish as the “Agua Salada,” or Salt Water, Timucua, a testament to the maritime culture that existed in St. Augustine prior to European colonization.

This first Thanksgiving took place 55 years before the Pilgrims came to America. Even the National Park Service acknowledges it:

This was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement in North America. It took place just 300 yards north of the Castillo de San Marcos, at what is now the Mission of Nombre de Dios. This event is commemorated today by a 250 foot cross which stands on the original landing site.

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