Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-02-05
WHAT A "BLIzzARD IS"
Graphic Description by One who
Knows whereof He Speaks.


| s@The papers want to know what
blizzard is, and they turn up their
noses at the word, but them as has been
thar can see where the joke comes in.
I've shook hands with one or two biz
yards and here's the affidavies to prove
itn', .I-
he drew off his boots. Three toes
were missing from the right foot, and
the big toe alone remained on the left
Two fingers were gone from the left
hand, one ear shriveled out of shape.
and his nose seemed to have no life in
it., He was a rough looking old chap,
and he was warming his heels on the
4 team-pipe in the cabin Of ferryboat
along with sever al other passengers.
-" Well, what is blizzard P''s asked
one of the crowd as the old man pulled
on his boots. sa
What's the weather here, to-dayY"
Two below"
..Well, you add five or six degrees of
cold to it. take off your clothes and walk
around for three hours, and you'll have
q slight comparison. A blizzard haint
'zactly two-edged sword nor bullet,
but it lives next door to 'em. You'd
better twice over be cotched in a tor
nado. I'd take the chance of outrunning
4 prairie fire quieker'n livin' through a
Jinuary blizzard" /"
TEL us about 'em" sae
ssThe fust one / ever seed, - said the
| old man as he held up the stumps of his
| missing fingers, was down in Nebraska,
close to the west line. ! had a rancho,
and was well fixed. The livin' room
for me and three herders was about
twenty feet squar', with big stove in
1a n Ia. ~, +Irf e.. l. Il
\ ary, 1853, there wasn't flake of snow
on the ground, and at four o'clock in the
afternoon it was warm enough to 90 in
my shirt sleeves. Half an hour before
1 the sun went down the sky was clear
and blue. stood looking off at a herd
of horses, feelin' as if / wanted to go
bar'fut, when all at once a shiyer
climbed over me. 1t was as If ice
water had been poured down my back.
/ There was a moanin', roarin' sound
away to the westward, another shiyer.
and the next mint it was dark and the
| blizzard had come. Quicker than | can
| tell you the sky turned black, night set
in, and mountains of snow come
boomin' along before a gale blowing
eighty miles an hours
Well?" said some one as the old man
paused. aaf
wall, there she was. That blizzard
was born in the Rockies. Shed whirled
round and round, gettin' stronger every
mint, lifted herself out of some awful
canyon, tore along the crags and peaks,
and finally tumbled down on the level
and started eastward, mad as grizzly
and powerful as a million runaway
/ horsesi Them three herders weren't
half mile away, and ali mounted, but
| yet only one reached the cabin. The
4 other two were struck rs dumb and
numb as if hit with cannon balls, and
they weren't out Of their saddles a mint
before they were covered with six in
ciles of snow.n -f,-sr..-
Must have been coldr
"Coldi Mebbe it wasn't l didn't
| have no thermometer to look at, but
! didn't want one. Our jug of whisky
froze solid and split the jug in ten minits.
| Frost settled on the taller candle within
an inch of the light. Every board in
| the rancho cracked and popped with
cold. We had big stove, but the fuel
was mostly under a shed fifty feet away
I thought to 90 after load, but as
opened the door / fell back as if ten
thousand needles had been fired into my
face. That one breath of the blizzard
froze my nose and ear
And you were out of fuel?" .s
'tYes. in half an hour | burned up
stools, benches, tables and all else that
would burn, but after midnight the fire
went out. Then | lost my toes-frost-
bitten even when l was dancing over
the floor. Ours was tight cabin, and
yetthere was foot of snow on the floor
before daylight. The awful wind drove
4 = ~, i,
| hear the gale which goes with biz
zard? Well, you'll face a cannon sooner
than hear it a second time. The wind
screamed louder than locomotive
whistle. 1t ragged and raved like
giant in chains, and it struck down
every livin' thing it came to. A il al
once it would stop blowin' for half {
mint, and the stiffness would be awful.
of, as if poor lost children were cryiu
for home. Then the groanin' would
| change to a screech-the screech to ?
wild shrek, and the gale would whirl
| round and round the cabin as if bound
Ito lift it from the earth in its teeth.
That gale knocked over trees a hundr d
! years old, and rolled rocks weighing q
thousand tons down upon the level!"
And about your stock?n
When that blizzard struck my ranch
had 500 cattle. 1900 sheep and about
200 hosses, all alive and kickin'. Itdied
away about daylight, and after an hours
work we got out OF the cabin and
through the snow. Far as the eye
could reach all was dead level.
Clutches, ravines and dips had been
filed up with from five to thirty feet Of
snow. Every horse, sheep and steer had
gone down in his tracks to die and be
coffined in white, and we two, frost
bitten and frozen, were fifty miles from
any white man Don't sneer at biz
zardi You'd better meet thousand
she eigers !N-Detrnft Free Press