On this day in 1941 Mason and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

Mason, Peyton Randolph He was the First President of the Continental Congress and last Provincial Grand Master of Virginia. He was born in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1721, the son of Sir John Randolph. A graduate of William and Mary Coll. and student of law at the Inner Temple, London, he was appointed King’s attorney for Virginia in 1748. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1748-49 and 1752-75. When trouble with England threatened, he was a member of the committee of correspondence, from 1759-67, and chairman of the committee in 1773. He was a close friend of Mason George Washington, and married the sister of Benjamin Harrison, governor of Virginia. His original Masonic affiliation is unknown. He was named as master of the lodge at Williamsburg, Virginia (No. 6) in a warrant from Lord Petrie, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, dated November 6, 1773. He was present at this lodge on July 5, 1774 as Provincial Grand Master. He entered the Celestial Lodge at the age of 54 on October 22, 1775, while attending the Constitutional Convention. But was reinterred in the cemetery at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia on November 26, 1776.