The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1881-07-01
Storm ut the Signal Station, MT. WASH
nRf0u

L"-I
Noticing that the sides of the summit
were strewed with boards, beams and
debris of all sorts, my guide explained
that what / saw was the result of the
great January gale, which had demol-
ished the large shed used as m engine
house, scattering the loose fragments
far and wide. 1 begged him to give me
his recollection of II.
"During the forenoon preceding the
gale we observed nothing very unusu-
al; but the clouds kept sinking and
sinking until the summit was quite
above them. Late in the afternoon my
comrades, Sergeant M, came to
| where l was lying abed sick, and said,
There is going to be the devil to pay,
so l guess I'll make everything snug.
"By nine in the evening the wind
had increased to one hundred miles an
hour, with heavy sleet. At midnight
the velocity of the storm was n hun
bred and twenty miles, and the expos
| ed thermometer indicated twenty-four
degrees below zero. With the stove
red, we could hardly get it above freez-
ing inside the house. Water froze with
in three feet of the fire-in fact, where
you are sitting now"
Gail this time the noise outside was
deafening. About II O'Clock the wind
rose to $50 miles. 1t was now blowing
a hurricane. The wind, gathering up
all the loose ice on the mountain, dash
| ed it against the house with n con-
timed roar. / lay wondering how long
| the building would stand this, when
all at once there came q crash. M
shouted to me 10 get up; but l had
| tuinbled ont in a hurry OH hearing the
| glass go. You see, l was dressed to
keep myself warm in bed.
"Our united.eflorts were hardly equal
to closing the storm shutters from the
inside, but we finally succeeded, though
the lights went ont when the wind came
in, and we worked in the dark"
He rose to show me how the shutters
of thick oak were first secured by an
iron bar, and secondly by strong wood
EN- buttons firmly screwed in the win
dow frame.
"We had scarcely done this, resum-
ed Doyle, s'and were shivering over
the fire, when a heavy gust Of wind
again burst open the shutters, as easily
as if they had never been fastened at
all. We sprang to our feet. After a
hard tussle we again secured the win
dows by mailing a cleat to the floor,
against which one end of a board was
fixed using the other as q lever You
understand" l nodded. "Well, even
then it was all we could do 10 force the
shutters back into place, but we did it.
We had to do it.
"The rest of the night was passed in
%momentary expectation of being blown
into Tuckerman's. AT four O'Clock in
the morning the wind registered 1856
miles. Itthen shifted from east to north
east. From this time it steadily lower
ed to ten miles at 8 O'Clock. This was
the biggest blow v experienced OF
the mountain"
"Suppose the house had gone and
the hotel stood fast, could you have ef-
fected an entrance into the hotel?" l
asked.
"We could not have faced the gale"
"Not for a hundred feet? not in a
matter of life and deathr"
impossible. The wind would have
lifted lis from Il feet like bags ofwool.
We would have been dashed against
the rocks and smashed like cgg-shells,"
was tho quiet reply.
"And so for some hours you expected
to be swept into eternity
"Wc did what VIC could. Each wrap
ped himselfin blankets and quilts, bind /
ing these tightly around him with ropes
to which were attached bars of iron. so
that if the house went by the board we |
might stand some chance-a slim one
OF anchoring somewhere, somehow"
Somewhere, indeed!
When, on the following morning, IL
busted myself getting ready to go down |
the mountain, 1 heard a profound sigh, |
followed by some half-audible words, |
proceeding from tho adjoining room.
These words rang in my ears all that
day:
"Ab, this horrible solitude PTS. A.
Drake, in Harper's Magazine for Ju-
ly.