Holy Days--
Thanksgiving, 1859

"[In 1859, while John Brown was still a prisoner in Virginia awaiting his hanging,] November 24 marked Thanksgiving Day in twenty-seven states of the union, including Brown’s birth state of Connecticut and his adopted home state of New York.  Neither Ohio, the place of his formative years, nor Virginia, his captor, observed the holiday on this date--although apparently some towns like Fredericksburg and Norfolk chose to join in the observance."

Excerpted from Freedom's Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia