Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-01-24
Correspondence Of the New York Iteraldg
TIE TERRIBLE TEMPEST AND C0LL
IN .VTNNESOTi.
WlxosA, Min, Jan. Is, 1873.


Up 10 that fatal Tuesday, at whose mention
many heart shall ache in Minnesota for
years to come, there had been winter weather
Of the usual sort, clear, cold, with occasional
storms of snow, some of which had serious
ly blockaded the railroads and induced con-
siderable suffering from scarcity OF fuel. The
eplzooty had for sometime laid an embargo on
travel Our great Northwestern country
must rot be considered to be like Canada, a
land OF hills and valleys, thekly clad with
pine forests. y great table land, of consider
able altitude, lying open TO the winds, that
sweep down from the Northern Sea at inter-
walls, icy as the breath Of death, with an oc-
casional tree, a semi occasional clump of
trees, or still rarer belt of forest along a
water course, and nm atmosphere dry and rare
such is the Northwest. 1t is largely settled
by immigrants from Scandinavia, poor ard
thifty folks, whose wooden houses stand sing
ly or in little hamlets, marking the prairie at
every few miles. The country is fertile, and
in summer smiles as the garden of the Lord ;
but in winter it presents bleak face Of snow
to a cloudless, blue sky.
Tuesday, the 9TH was a lovely and mild day.
The sun was bright and the air balmy. Every
pulse of the country was astr under the
genial influence and the wild swans that
changed overhead once or twice from their
meres must have seen the prairie roads alive
with teams. The farmers were all out at the
nearest settlement They were getting short
of fuel; there was but u handful of Hour at
the bottom of the barrel, not scrap Of meat
was left. But the SHOWS had ceased, their
shaggy little horses were well again, SO every
farmer hitched his team for the town. In the
little cottages Of wood were women and chill
dren; the schoolhouses were full Of LITTLE cnes.
Such was the country, thus its jewellers, when
the blow fell. Nature would seem TO have
arrogated to herself all the savage attributes
which had marked her first children there,
their careful and patient watch for an easy
opportunity and their sudden and and relent-
less onslaught.
At Winnebago City there were sixty teams
assembled scores were st New Clm. All
along from Albert Lea and Blue Earth, BY
Window, Manketo, clear up to Breckenridge,
Belle Prairie and Duluth, the people were
scattered, delivered into the hards Of the
| storm.
Between twelve and two o'clock on Tues
! day the sky turned liyid, the sun became mere
| ly a dull brazen ring, the south wind chopped
round rapidly and became cold, and in very
few minutes was laden with fine frozen snow :
drift that stung like shower of needles. SO
utterly unprepared were the people for the
change in the weather, and so suddenly did it
! come upon them, that one man at Winnebago
| City describes it as ''f a man clapped his
| hands-so, and the snow came in our faces. y
knowing what this hurricane BODIED men
| leaped into their sieighs, and with voice and
lash urged their covering horses out into the
storm. Then the work of death began. For
more than fifty hours, till late on Thursday,
the freezing wind and falling snow continued.
1t was not steady fall of snow, but bowling
hurricane, the wind sometimes attaining a
speed of twenty-oight, thirty or thirty-two
miles. The snow came in ftful fiurres, with
wild screech and singing whiz. The Their
mopeter fell steadily, till at Champlaiu it
registered fiity-four degrees below zero. At
other places the mercury or spirit marked
from eight to tortytwo degrees below. Some
OF the farmers who set out soon found that if
they valued life they must turn back. They
were developed in sheets of snow, that blinded
them. The wind came so fereely that they
were fain to stop and turn round till mo-
mcntary lull came. The road-why, the level
prairie was all road now, without one track Of
wheel or runner to indicate the path Of safety.
Wherever there was a slight knoll or tree,
the driving snow-sleet curled round it and
broke over it like yeasty pillows over wreck,
and far to the leeward grew up drifts of &C.
centric form. Then the snorting horses that
toiled along, pressing with their heaving TANKS
closer to each other for warmth and dumb pro-
lection and sympathy, refused oto forward;
the driver felt himself becoming listless, his
cold limbs were growing warm, and, warned
of the swift coming OF death, he turned and
retraced his steps. Happy they who did so
betimes. There were many who held on
stubbornly till it was too late. There were
many more who, goaded on by dreadful fear
of the fate of their wives and little ones, left
alone in their trail citadels, forced on through
the drifts that grew deeper at every step and
cold that became more intense at every mo-
ment. And there were others who grew
weary of the contest, and, lying down in their
robes, were luled by the elemental rage into