The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1879-02-15
The Dark Day.


New England, Friday, May 10, 1880.
This was during our Revolution, you will
remember, and the same year i'm which
the traitor Benedict Arnold attempted to
betray his country to its enemies
For several days before the 10th the
air was full of vapsrs, as we often see 1T
when fires are raging in the woods near
us, and the sun and moon appearedred,
and their usual clear night did not reach
us, especially when rising and setting.
The winds blew chiefly from the south
west and north west, and the weather
was cool and clear. The morning of the
4 10Th was cloudy, and in many places
showers fell, sometimes accompanied by
thunder and lightning, but the sun arose
it did not increase the light, and the
darkness deepened and deepened, until
the children standing before the tall
clocks could not see to tell the time, and
older people peering over the almanac
were not able to distinguish the letters.
The birds sang their evening songs and
few 10 their nests in the woods. the
poultry hurried to their roosts, while
the cattle in the fields uttered strange
cries and leaped the stone fence to gain
their stalls, and the sheep all huddled
together, bleating piteously.
Color, which you know depends upon
the light of the sun, filed many with as
constituent by the usual appearance, for
the clouds were in some places of light
red yellow and brown; the leaves on the
trees and the grass in the meadows were
of the deepest green, verging ON indigo,
the brightest silver seemed furnished
and everything that is white in the sun
light bore deep yellow hue.
The shadows, which before noon fall to
the westward and afternoon to the east
ward, were observed in the darkness to
fall in every direction.
The rain, also, was unlike any other
rain, and it set all the people wondering
as they dipped it from tubs and barrels
for a scum formed on it, resembling
burnt leaves, emitting a sooty smell, and
this same substance was seen on rivers,
especially the Merrimac, where it lay
four or five inches thick for many miles
along itssho
Another popularity was the vapor; in
many localities it descended to the earth
from high in the atmosphere; but at one
pointa gentleman saw the vapors at mine
O'Clock rising from the springs and low
lands; one columnhe particularly noticed
rapidly ascending far above the highest
hills thenit spread intoal large white cloud
and sailed off to the westward; asecond
cloud formed in the same way from the
same springs, but did not rise as high as
the first, and the third formed fifteen
minutes afterward. At a quarterof ten
the uppermost cloud was of q reddish
hue, the second was green, indigo and
blue, and the third was almost white.
Sounwhulesome was this vapor that
small birds were suffocated in iii, and
many of them were SO frightened and
stupefied that they few into the houses,
adding to the fears OF ignorant people 4
who consider it a bad sign for q bird to
enter dwelling.
The commencement of the darkness
was between ten and eleven in the fore
noon (when the men were busy in the
fields and offices and work shops, the
women spinning, weaving and preparing
dinner. and the children at school, or
helping their fathers and mothers at
lhome), and it continued until the mid
die of the followingsnight; butthe degree
Of darkness varied; in some places the
disk of the sun was seen when the dark
ness was the most dense.
Lights were seen burning in all the
ihousessand the people passing out of
doors carried torches and lanterns, which
were ecuriously reflected .onithe overhang-
ing clouds.
Thousandsof people were sure that the
end of theworld had come; many dropped
their work and fell on their knees toI
pray others confessed totheir fellows the
wrongs they had done and endeavored to-
make restitution.
The meeting houses were crowded, and
neighborhood prayer1meetings were
formed and the ministers and oldchurch-