Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-06-18
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
May 10, 1850, the Dark Day in New En-
land.

May 10, 1880, the Dark Day in New Eng.
land.
IT was May 10, 1880, when darkness
was at MONDAY over all New England.
The phenomenon has never been ex-
planned. DR.. Tenney, in 1885, wrote to
the Historical Society that the ability of
the land had endeavored to present q
cause, but, said he, "you will agree
with me thatn no satisfactory solution has
yet appeared" In similar language
wrote DR.. Noah Webster in 1843. The
theory of some, that il was smoke and
ashes from forest fires, extensively rang
ing, was disproved. No fires in the for
ests could have been sufficient to spread
a dense cloud over the whole of New
England and even some parts of the
Middle States. 1t came too suddenly,
with no wind to carry itfrom one point
to another. II was a darkness that set
tied down over an area of more than
300,0 square miles at the same time.
We publish a condensed account of
this remarkable phenomenon, forward
ed to us by D. T. Taylor, of Rouse's
Point, N. Y, who wrote it for the Bos-
ton Journal in 1871:
"The year of 1880 was celebrated for
ll5 duIOIdl III LulH
latitude. They covered the midnight
heavens with corruscations of red and
silver, and streamed out like lightning,
seeming, says one writer, fairly to flash
warmth in the. face. The winter pre-
ceding was marked by extraordinary
severity, Snow lay on the ground from
the middle of November TO the middle
of April. In December and January a
storm continued for 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 buried 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. Narrsganset Bay was froze
over so hard that men traversed the ice
from Providence to Newport in skating
parties, and from Fall River to New
port loads of wood were conveyed on
the ice through Bristol ferry.
"Previous to the 18th a vapor filed
the air for several days. There was a
smell of sulphur. The morning of the
18th was overcast with some clouds,
and rain fell over the country, with
lightning and thunder. Scarcely any
motion was in the air; what wind there
was came from the southwest. By nine
O'Clock in the forenoon, without preVi-
Gus warning, the darkness stole
gradually on, with luminous
appearance near the horizon, as
if the obscuring cloud had dropped
down from overhead. There was a
yellowness of the atmosphere that made
clear silver assume a grass green hue.
Then a dense, undefnable vapor settled
rapidly and without erial movement
over all the land and ocean from Penn
sylvania to the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
the darkness it caused sinking by de-
grees until the sunlight was efectually
shut out. Ordinary cloud it was not.
The rapidity with which so large an ex-
tent of country was enveloped precludes
the possibility Of supposing this to have
been a natural cloud moving laterally.
Besides this, the day was too calm to
imagine such thing. Down came the
darkness thicker and thicker. By ten
o'clock the air was loaded with thick
gloom. The heavens were tinged with
a yellowish or faint red the lurid look
increased; few, II any, ordinary clouds
were visible. The sun, in disappearing,
took on brassy hue. The
lurid, brassy color spread every
where, above and below. The grass as
sumed the color of the sky, and all out
doors wore = sickly, weird and melan-
choly aspect-a dusky appearance as il
seen through smoked glass. By eleven
o'clock It was as night itself, and from
this time until three in the afternoon
the darkness was extraordinary and
frightful.
HThe extent of the darkness was
greater than is related of any other sim.
liar phenomenon on record, not except
ing the celebrated dark days over
Egypt and Judea. II reached south to
the northern half of Pennsylvania, and
from thence along the coast northeast Ia
the wilds Of Maine, eastward to the Gull
of st. Lawrence, and out at sea 12C
miles southeast of Boston, and undoubt.
edly much farther; west to the valleys
of Lake Champlain and the Hudson
River, and north into underlined regions
in Canada. Portland, Boston, Hart.
ford, New York, West Point and Albany
were affected by it. But the degrees Of
darkness differed in different places,
the deepest night settling over New
England. A tract of land and sea SOC
miles in length and 400 miles in
breadth, embracing an area of $4,000
square miles, was known to be covered
by the cloud, and so far as can be ascer.
tanned, a population Of 10000 souls sal
for portion of the day and night in q
gloom more or less profound and mex.
plicable.
"Just how dark the day was is at
tested by indisputable evidence. The
hour and minute could not be discov.
cred on the face of clock or watch by
persons of unimpsired eyesight. Can.
dies became an absolute necessity both
out doors and in, as it was impossible
10 transact ordinary business without
them. Fires on the hearthstone shone
as brightly as on moonless November
evening, and all dinuer-tables were set
with candles upon them as if it were
the evening repast. The keenest eyes
IN doors could not see to read the COM
mon print. So far beyond any ordinary