BAD START: President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving...
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BAD START: President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863, but Orange County’s oldest city, San Juan Capistrano, had little reason for being thankful that year. . . . “The little town was in the second year of a two-year smallpox epidemic that killed 200 residents,” says city historian Pamela Hallan-Gibson. “Also, there was a mega-drought, and cattle were dying.” There are no records showing an 1863 Thanksgiving celebration at the old mission, because Lincoln’s proclamation probably took a year to arrive.
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