White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1871-10-05

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Interesting Reoiniseesees.
The following graphic account ofthe "deep snow"
an event SO often referred to by the old residents
of Illinois. is from address delivered by Presi
dent Sturtevant, of Illinois College, before q reu-
MON of the old settlers of Morgan, Cass and Scott
Counties, at jacksonville, III, on the 10th inst:
The constitution of your society defines an old
settler. He is one who resided here before the
deep snow. The thought has occurred to me that
| it might be interesting to many in the audience
to be informed what We mean by the deep snow.
We shall have no difficulty in making ourselves
understood on that subject. In the interval be-
tween Christmas, 1880, and New Year, 1881, of
course, forty years ago last New Years, snow fell
all over central Illinois to the depth of fully three
feet on level. Then came a rain, with weather
80 cold that it froze it fell, forming crust of
ice this three feet of nearly if not quite
strong enough to bear q man, and finally, over
this crust of ice there was few inches of very
light snow. The clouds passed away and the wind
came down upon from the northeast with ex-
traordnsry forcity. For weeks, certainly not less
than two weeks, the mercury in the thermometer
tube was not, on any one morning, higher than II
degrees below zero. The wind was steady, fierce
gale from the northwest day and night. The air
was filed with flying snow, which blinded the
eyes and almost stopped the breath of any one who
attempted to face it. No man could, for any con-
siderable length of time, make his way on foot
against it.
The story of such a winter may be pleasant
enough to hear to one who hopes never to expe-
rience it but the situation of the inhabitants of
this country was certainly rather alarming. The
people were almost wholly from regions more
southern than this, and knew nothing by expe-
rince of dealing with such depth of snow and
such cold Indeed, had then some experience of
New England winter, and have had some since,
hut have to this day never seen any other which
bore any comparison to this. Jacksonville had
then about 400 people. We were dependent chief
ly for keeping warm OH having plenty of wood,
for our houses were certainly far enough from be-
ing warmly built; and yet our supply of fnel for
the winter was not as is more commonly the case
now, piled ut our doors before the beginning of
winter. 1t is in the forest, and must be brought
us through the snow, and by people who were
quite unaccustOmed to it. Could it be dOnef 1t
was at first not quite apparent that it could.
Our corn was in the fields, over which this cover
ing of snow was spread, and to great extent the
wheat for our bread was in sacks in like cond- |
ton. Snow paths could not be broken after the |
New England fashion. There few hours of wind |
blows all the snow from exposed places, and de- !
pOsits it in valleys and behind hills, where the |
wind can not reach it. little energy with OK |
teams and sletis will break ont road, and there |
is no more trouble till the next snow storm.
There is no truer picture than that given by Whit
tier in his "Snow Bound" of the frolic of break
ing the roads after great snow storm. But moth
ing of the sort would have been of much use in
our case. In this level country there is no end to
the drifting as long as the snow lasts and the
wind blows. There are no covered places in which
the snow can be driven, consequently the path
would fill behind team, or any number of teams,
in few minutes, that its track could not be
seen: The only way in which snow paths were
finally made was by going as nearly as could
in the place, till the snow was finally trod-
den bard and rounded up like turnpike. This
snowfall produced constant sleighing for nine
weeks, and when at last warm rains and sunshine
prevailed, about the LIST of March, in melting the
snow from fields and untrodden places, the roads
rs lines of ice, which disappeared but
The New Englander has scarcely any
such experience of winter as this-certainly not,
unless it be quite in Northern New England. We
had no railroads then, or indeed any dream of
them. But our mail communication with the rest
Of the world was qnite interrupted for several
weeks continuously. We, in those days, had only
Dne mail a week, and that on horseback from
Springfield, and to bring that through that snow
required more energy than mail boys in those days
we're masters of.
I say We had NO railways in those days. But
how little good they would have done US if we had
mad them! lam free to confess that my memory
IF the deep snow produces in my mind to this day
IN uncODquerable aversion to long journeys by
railway in the winter. Should such winter as
hat of lS3O-3l occur again in central Illinois, our
weeks together, though they were buried
thousand feet in the earth. The cuts would all
Ne filled, and they would fill again in half an hour
,ehnd any train that might dig its way through. | I
{ is a consolation that such a winter has never
,ccurred but once in the memory of man. But I
that has happened once may happen again. If it
loes we shall get very definite idea how impor-
ant our railroads to us, and we shall be very
Had that the snow is not the telegraph wire
can not say, after all, that in town there was :
my very serious amount of suffering-we did get {
God and fuel, and q good deal of fun and freiic g
mt of the deep snow, though at the expense of
lot q few frozen ears, noses and faces. But the
oss to the farmers, in stock and crops was very !
considerable. Some varieties of game were nearly
Deer were entirely unable to pro- !
ect themselves from the dogs and the huntsmen!
think, then, my audience will agree with me
hat the line drawn by this association to defiue