The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-06-26
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO,
May 10, 1880, the Dark Day in New En-
land.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
May 10, 1850, 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 a
cause, but, said he, "you will agree
with me that no satisfactory solution has
yet appeared" In similar language
wrote DR.. Noah Webster in 1913. The
theory of some, that it was smoke and
ashes from forest fires, extensively rang
ing, was disproved. No fires in the for
ests could have been sufficient to spread
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 it from one point
to another. 1t was darkness that set
tied down over an area of more than
100000 square miles at the same time.
We publish a condensed account of
this remarkable phenomenon, forward
ed to us by d. 7. Taylor, of Rouse's
Point, N. Y, who wrote it for the Bos-
ton journal IN 1871:
"The year of 1880 was celebrated for
its numerous auroral exhibitions in this
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
persisted with the cold. Long Island
Sound was crossed by heavy artillery
on the ice. Narraganset 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 10Th vapor filled
the air for several days. There was
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
yellowness of the atmosphere that made
clear silver assume a grass green hue.
Then a dense, undeinable vapor settled
rapidly and without aerial 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 effectually
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 natural cloud moving laterally.
Besides this, the day was too calm to
imagine such thing. Down came the
darkness thicker and thicker. Bv ten
O'Clock the air was loaded with thick
gloom. The heavens were tiuged with
yellowish or faint red; the lurid look
increased; few, if 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 meian-
choly aspect-a dusky appearance as if
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.
"The 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. 1t reached south to
the northern half of Pennsylvania, and
from thence along the coast northeast to
the wilds of Maine, eastward to the Gulf
OF st. Lawrence, and out at sea 1920
miles southeast of Boston, and undoubt-
eddy 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 800
miles in length and 400 miles in
breadth, embracing an area of 10000
square miles, was known to be covered
by The cloud, and so far as can be ascer-
tanned, population of 10000 souls sat
for q portion of the dav and nioht in a