The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-01-01
The Dark Day.


great grandmother used to tell my
mother when she was little girl, the
most wonderful was about the dark day
in New England, Friday, May 10, 1880.
This was during our Revolution, you
will remember, and the same year in
which the traitor, Benedict Arnold, at
tempted to betray his country to its
enemies.
For several days before the nine.
tenth, the air was full of vapors, as we
often see it when fires are raging in the
woods near us, and the san and moon
appeared red, and their usual clear
light did not reach us. especially when
rising and setting. The winds blew
chiefly from the southwest and north
east. and the weather was cool and
clear. The morning of the nineteenth
was cloudy and IN many places slight
showers fell, sometimes accompanied
by thunder and lightning; but as the
sun arose 1t did not increase the light,
and the darkness deepened and deep
ened, until the children standing be.
fore the tall clocks could not see to tell
the time, and older people peering over
the almanac were not able to distin-
guish the letters. The birds sang their
evening songs and flew to their nests in
the woods, the poultry hurried to their
roosts, while the cattle in the fields ut
tered strange cries and leaped the stone
fences to gain their stalls, and the sheep
all huddled together bleating piteously.
Color, which you know depends upon
the light of the sun, filled many with
astonishment by its unusual appear
ance, 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 sunlight bore deep
yellow hue.
The shadows, which before noon fall
to the we-tward and after noon to the
eastward were observed during the
darknss- to fall in every direction.
The rain, also, was unlike any other
rain, and it set all the people to won
dering as they dipped it from tubs and
barrels; for scum formed on it re.
sembllng burnt leaves, emitting a sooty
smell, and this same substance was seen
on streams and rivers, especially the
Merrimac, where it lay four or five
inches thick, for many miles along its
shore.
Another peculiarly was the vapor:
IN many localities it descended to the
earth from high in the atmosphere: but
at one point gentleman saw the
vapors, at nine o'clock, rising from the
springs and low lands; one column he
particularly noticed rapidly ascending
far above the highest hills, then it
spread into large white cloud and
sailed off TO the westward, a second
cloud iOmed in the same way from the
same springs. but did not rise as high
as the first, and third formed fifteen
minutes afterward. At quarter of ten
the uppermost cloud was Of q reddish
hue, the second was green indigo and
blue, and the third was almost white.
So unwholesome was this vapor that
small birds we're suffocated in it, and
many of them were so frightened and
stupefied that they flew into the houses.
adding to the fears of ignorant people.
who considered it bad sign for bird
to enter a dwelling.
The commencement of the darkness
was between ten and eleven in the fore
noon when the men we're busy in the
fields and Offices and workshops, the
women spinning, weaving and prepar-
ing dinner, and the children at school,
or helping their fathers and mothers at
home, and it continued until the mid
die of the following night; but the de-
gree of darkness varied; in some places
the disk of the sun was seen when the
darkness was the most dense.
Lights were seen burning in all the
houses, and the people passing out-of-
doors carried torches and lanterns,
which were curiously reflected on the
overhanging clouds.