Editing Fast Day (section)

{{Short description|US regional holiday}}
{{About|the obsolete United States holiday|days of religious fasting|Fasting}}
{{for|the designated day in the LDS Church|Fast Sunday}}

[[Image:Belcherfast.gif|thumb|right|Massachusetts [[British America|colonial Governor]] [[Jonathan Belcher]]'s February 26, 1735 ([[Gregorian calendar|NS]] 1736) proclamation of a fast day for April 1.]]
'''Fast Day''' was a holiday observed in some parts of the [[United States]] between 1670 and 1991.

"A day of public [[fasting]] and prayer," it was traditionally observed in the [[New England]] states. It had its origin in days of prayer and repentance proclaimed in the early days of the [[British America]]n colonies by Royal Governors, to avoid such calamities as plagues, natural disasters or crop failures; it was common to hold a Fast Day before the spring planting (cf. [[rogation days]]).<ref name=nhgov>{{cite web |url=http://www.nh.gov/nhinfo/fast.html |title=Fast Day |first=Donna |last=Gilbreth |year=1997 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102115710/http://www.nh.gov/nhinfo/fast.html |work=New Hampshire Almanac |publisher=[[New Hampshire State Library]] |archive-date=2011-01-02 |access-date=2020-08-26 }}</ref> It was observed by [[church attendance]], fasting, and abstinence from secular activities.

A Fast Day could be added for any particular reason in a particular year, rather than being instituted as an ongoing annual holiday. The earliest known Fast Day was proclaimed in colonial [[Boston]], held on September 8, 1670.<ref name=nhgov/> The colonial [[Province of New Hampshire]] proclaimed a Fast Day for February 26, 1680, seeking "God's blessing" on an upcoming General Assembly and for good weather during spring planting.<ref name=nhgov/> The following year, when illness struck [[John Cutt]], the president of the Province of New Hampshire, and [[Great Comet of 1680|a comet]] was seen in the sky, the province designated March 17, 1681 a Fast Day in response to these signs of "divine displeasure".<ref name=nhgov/>  The image at right shows that [[Jonathan Belcher]], colonial governor of the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]], declared a Fast Day in 1735 because of "the holy Anger of Almighty God, evidently manifested in the various judgments inflicted on us", specifically highlighting a "mortal sickness" that had been divinely inflicted on the colonists.

Fast Day had lost its significance as a religious holiday by the late 19th century. It was abolished by [[Massachusetts]] in 1894, when that state replaced their Fast Day, celebrated on the third Monday in April, with [[Patriots' Day]], commemorating the [[Battles of Lexington and Concord]] and the [[Battle of Menotomy]] on the first day (April 19, 1775) of the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref name=Punctuation>{{cite news |url=https://www.centralmaine.com/2014/04/20/patriot_s_day_or_patriots__day__punctuation_confusion_continues_/ |title=Patriot's Day or Patriots' Day? Punctuation confusion continues |first=Susan |last=McMillan |newspaper=[[Kennebec Journal]] |date=2014-04-20 |access-date=2020-08-26}}</ref> [[Maine]], which also celebrated Fast Day on the third Monday in April, changed it to Patriot's Day<!--- Maine uses different punctuation, as per cited article ---> in 1907.<ref name=Punctuation/> Fast Day continued in [[New Hampshire]] until 1991, with the late April holiday signifying only the opening of the summer tourist season; the state dropped Fast Day in 1991, replacing it with the January Civil Rights Day, which they renamed [[Martin Luther King Jr. Day]] (the last U.S. state to do so) in 1999.<ref name=nhgov/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nhpr.org/post/nhs-martin-luther-king-jr-day-didnt-happen-without-fight#stream/0 |title=N.H.'s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Didn't Happen Without A Fight |first=Michael |last=Brindley |work=[[New Hampshire Public Radio]] |date=2013-08-27 |access-date=2020-08-26}}</ref>