Originally published in the Times Argus/Rutland Herald Weekend Magazine, November 26, 2022 for the “Remember When” column with the title, Doing the Trot: Three Centuries of a Turkey Tradition 

In February 1912, seemingly apropo nothing, a contributor to the St Albans Messenger quipped, “Vermont does not expect to see much of the turkey trot until just before Thanksgiving.” 

If written in today’s paper, most readers would assume this statement referred to the popular Thanksgiving Day foot-race where turkey-costumed runners proactively burn the calories they will consume later that day. Although by 1912 the event that is now known as the Turkey Trot had been around for sixteen years (the first turkey-day race was held in Buffalo, New York in 1896) the race had not yet claimed the monika it holds today. 

So, what was the St. Albans Messenger referring to? We can safely assume that contemporary readers would have understood it perfectly well. It was a pun. Because in 1912 the term “turkey trot” was going viral (so to speak). 

Let’s start with the “trot” of actual turkeys.

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