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Cold Summer Of Year 1816

Cold Summer Of Year 1816 image
Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
August
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

COLD SUMMER OF YEAR 1816

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It is Contrasted With This Season

 

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PEOPLE WERE FRIGHTENED

 

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Imagined That Fire in the Sun Was Being Suddenly Extinguished

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The recent phenomenal weather has brought to mind a clipping from an old scrap book which is in reference to the remarkable summer of 1816. The sun seemed to be devoid of heat, and all nature was clad in gloom. The people were frightened and imagined that the fire in the sun was being rapidly extinguished and fears were entertained of the approaching end of all things. Sermons were preached upon the subject in all churches, and scientific men of the day talked learnedly in efforts to explain the strange phenomena. 

January was very mild, so much so indeed that fires rendered homes uncomfortably warm; this was broken, however, in February for a few days, and the warm condition which existed nearly all of that month gave noindication of the coming wintry aspect which rendered all the remaining months of the year unlike any summer that had preceded it within the memory of the "oldest inhabitant." 

March came in with its usual icy winds, but moderated greatly toward the end. April began with warm and bright sunshine, but as the month drew near to its close the cold increased, and it ended in ice and snow and a very wintry temperature. May, which is usually looked for with its welcome flowers proved a bitter disappointment; the early buds were soon blackened by the frost, and in one night during the first two days in May all vegetation became a blackened waste; the corn was killed and the fields had to be made ready for another planting, but that was prevented by the extreme cold. Ice formed to the thickness of half an inch through all the fields. 

June was amonth of ice and desolation with the thermometer sunk very far below the freezing point, even  in the southern latitude, and all renewal of planting was abandoned. Frost, ice and snow were common throughout the country, ever green thing which had availed itself during the few days of sunshine to develop perished in the frost, and all kind of fruit were destroyed.

In Vermont snow fell to the depth of ten inches during that month; seven inches of snow in Maine and three inches throughout Massachusetts and Central New York. 

July was accompanied by frost and ice and on the glorious Fourth an abundance of ice was found in streams and pools as far south as Virginia.

August, which it was hoped would end the cold weather, soon dispelled that hope; it was even more cheerless than the months which had preceded it. Ice formed even thicker than the preceding month, and the corn was so badly frozen that it was cut for fodder, and almost every green plant was destroyed. --Washington Post.