# Fast Day > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Fast_Day > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Fast_Day.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Day > Source revision: 1244551468 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) This article is about the obsolete United States holiday. For days of religious fasting, see [Fasting](/source/Fasting). For the designated day in the LDS Church, see [Fast Sunday](/source/Fast_Sunday). **Fast Day** was a holiday observed in some parts of the [United States](/source/United_States) between 1670 and 1991. "A day of public [fasting](/source/Fasting) and prayer," it was traditionally observed in the [New England](/source/New_England) states. It had its origin in days of prayer and repentance proclaimed in the early days of the [British American](/source/British_America) 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](/source/Rogation_days)).[1] It was observed by [church attendance](/source/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](/source/Boston), held on September 8, 1670.[1] The colonial [Province of New Hampshire](/source/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.[1] The following year, when illness struck [John Cutt](/source/John_Cutt), the president of the Province of New Hampshire, and [a comet](/source/Great_Comet_of_1680) was seen in the sky, the province designated March 17, 1681 a Fast Day in response to these signs of "divine displeasure".[1] The image at right shows that [Jonathan Belcher](/source/Jonathan_Belcher), colonial governor of the [Province of Massachusetts Bay](/source/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](/source/Massachusetts) in 1894, when that state replaced their Fast Day, celebrated on the third Monday in April, with [Patriots' Day](/source/Patriots'_Day), commemorating the [Battles of Lexington and Concord](/source/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord) and the [Battle of Menotomy](/source/Battle_of_Menotomy) on the first day (April 19, 1775) of the [American Revolutionary War](/source/American_Revolutionary_War).[2] [Maine](/source/Maine), which also celebrated Fast Day on the third Monday in April, changed it to Patriot's Day in 1907.[2] Fast Day continued in [New Hampshire](/source/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](/source/Martin_Luther_King_Jr._Day) (the last U.S. state to do so) in 1999.[1][3] ## Notes 1. Gilbreth, Donna (1997). ["Fast Day"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110102115710/http://www.nh.gov/nhinfo/fast.html). *New Hampshire Almanac*. [New Hampshire State Library](/source/New_Hampshire_State_Library). Archived from [the original](http://www.nh.gov/nhinfo/fast.html) on 2011-01-02. Retrieved 2020-08-26. 1. McMillan, Susan (2014-04-20). ["Patriot's Day or Patriots' Day? Punctuation confusion continues"](https://www.centralmaine.com/2014/04/20/patriot_s_day_or_patriots__day__punctuation_confusion_continues_/). *[Kennebec Journal](/source/Kennebec_Journal)*. Retrieved 2020-08-26. 1. Brindley, Michael (2013-08-27). ["N.H.'s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Didn't Happen Without A Fight"](https://www.nhpr.org/post/nhs-martin-luther-king-jr-day-didnt-happen-without-fight#stream/0). *[New Hampshire Public Radio](/source/New_Hampshire_Public_Radio)*. Retrieved 2020-08-26. --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Fast Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Day) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Day?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.