The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1872-09-17
The Dark Day in New England,
i'm 1850.
By D. t. T.TAYLoR.

parts were the trembling witnesses of
phenomenon never seen before or since,
and which to this day remains:unexplained.
The year was celebrated for its numerous
auroral exhibitions in this latitude. They
covered the midnight heavens with cor
ruscations Of red and silver, and streamed
out lightning, seeming, says one writer,
fairly to flash warmth IN the face. The
winter preceding was marked with extra
ordinary severity. Snow lay on the ground
die of April. In December and January
storm continued seven successive days, and
the snow fell to a depth of four feet on
level in this single storm and with drifts
eight and ten feet high. Sheep were bur-
led in the drifts for many days, and even
men and animals perished with the cold.
Long Island Sound was crossed by heavy
artillery ON the ice. Narragansett Bay
froze over so hard that men traversed the
ice from Providence to Newport in skating
parties, and from Fall River to Newport
loads of wood we're conveyed on the ice
through Bristle ferry.
Previous to the 10Th avapor filed the
air for several days. There was smell of
sulphur. The morning of the 10Th was
overcast with some clouds, and rain fell
over the country, with lightning and thun-
der. Scarcely any motion was in the air,
what wind there was came from the south
west. By nine clock in the forenoon, with
out previous warning, the darkness stole
gradually on, with luminous appearance
near the horizon, as if the obscuring clouds
had dropped down from overhead. There
was yellowness of the atmosphere that
made clear silver assume a green hue.
Then a dense, undefiDable vapor settled
rapidly and without aerial movement over
all the land and ocean from Pennsylvania to
the Gulf of ST. Lawrence, the darkness it
caused sinking by degrees until the sun
light was effectua]ly shut out. Ordinary
cloud it was not. The rapidity with which
so large an extent of country was envelop-
ed precludes the possibility of supposing
this to have been natural cloud moving
laterally. Besides this, the day was too
calm to imagine such thing. Down came
the darkness thicker. BY ten o'clock the
air was loaded with thick gloom. The
heavens were tinged with yellowish or
faint red; the lurid look increased; few, if
any, ordinary clouds were visible. The
sun, in disappearing, took brassy hue.
The lurid brass color, spread everywhere,
above and below. The grass assumed the
color Of the sky, and all out doors work a
sickly, weird and melancholy aspects
dusky appearance as if seen through a
smoked-glass. By eleven o'clock it was as
dark as night itself, and from this until
three in the afternoon the darkness was
extraordinary and frightrul.
The extent of the darkness was greater
than is related of any other similar phe-
nomenon on record, not excepting the eel
ebrated dark days over Egypt and Judea.
1t reached south to the northern half OF
Pennsylvania, and from thence along the
coast northeast to the wilds of Maine, east
ward to the Gulf of st. Lawrence, and out
at sea 1870 miles east of Boston, and un.
doubtedly much farther; west to the val
leys of Lake Champlain and the Hudson
River, and north into underlined regions in
Canada. Portland, Boston, Hartford d, New
York, West Point and Albany were affect
ed by it. But the degrees of darkness diff
cred in differeht places, the deepest nigh
over New England. A tract Of land and sei
800 hundred miles in length and 400 miles
in breadth, embracing an area of $4,000
square miles, was known to be clouded
and SO far as can be ascertained, popula
tion of 700, 900 souls sat for portion of th'
day and night in gloom more or less pro
found and inexplicable.
just how dark the day was is atteste'
by indisputable evidence. The hour an'
minute could not be discovered ON the fac
of the clock or watch by persons of unim
paired eyesight. Candles became ne
cessity both inside and out side of doors
and it was impossible to transact ordinar
business without them. Fire on tn
hearth-stone shone as brightly as on
moonless November evening", and all Dime
tables were set with lighted candles upo
them as if it were the evening repast. TIL
keenest eyes in doors could not see TO rea
the common int. So far beyond any oil
dinary fog was the effect that stages on tn
road either put up at the nearest hotel dun
ing the mid day hours, or carried candle
or lanterns to enable the perplexed drive
TO we'll see his way.