Wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly magazine depicts on
field action during a football match between Yale and
Princeton on Thanksgiving Day, November 1876.

On November 30, 1876, Yale defeated Princeton, 2-0, in Hoboken,
New Jersey in the first collegiate football game played on
Thanksgiving. Nearly 1,000 fans attend the game, played in cold,
rainy weather. "The friends of both colleges mustered in good
force," the New York Times reports. "Several carriages containing
ladies were on the ground, and a goodly number of Alumni were
there to cheer the contestants."

The football was oval and made of leather, the Times noted,
"similar to those used in Rugby Union rules." The game
resembled rugby more than a present-day football game.