Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-09-15

started, after dinner, to fix up some sort of
shelter for the sheep in the pasture. No
one had any idea, cold and eccentric as the
season was, that we could have snow to
amount to anything at that time OF the
year. l remember father, as he went out
| of the door, turning to my mother and say
! ing in jocular way:
s1f Pm not back in an hour, mother, call
| the neighbors and start them after me.
June is a bad month to get buried in the
snow, especially when it gets to be SO near
the Fourth of July"
''The snow increased in fury, and by
night it had drifted so that the roads were
almost impossible, but even then, and when
it grew dark, none of us felt uneasy about
father The weather had grown intensely
cold. When the night set in, however, and
there was still no signs of fathers return.
mother sent me to alarm the neighbors and
tell them that we believed father had been
lost in the snow. In spite of the severity
of the night all the neighbors that could be
reached turned out and searched the woods
all night, but no sign of the missing man
could they find. The search was kept up
all the next day and the next night without
finding any trace of him, except that he
had reached the pasture and built shelter
of boughs in one corner of the lot, under
which the sheep were hudllled. On the
forenoon of the third day they found faith
er half buried in the snow mile from the
pasture, in almost the opposite direction
from our home. He was dead! He had
evidently become lost in the binding storm,
and had wandered about until he succumb-
ed to fatigue and exposure. 1t seems a
most improbable thing that q person ever
fell victim to a snow storm in the month
of June in this latitude, but have SORROW
full knowledge of one instance where it was
only too true.
The wind during June, July and August
of 1916 was almost continually in the north,
and it blew ffercely and cold. Farmers
put in their crops, and shivered under their
wraps while doing SO. There was but little
use in planting. Nothing grew, to speak
of. There was very little rain during the
entire summer. The great piles of fire.
wood that always accumulated during the
summer months at the farmhouse back
doors, in readiness for winter, didn't ac-
cumulate in 1916. They were needed for
current use."
Shay, was the only man that had any corn
to gather in our neighborhood that year.
He saved his crop in funny wav, and that
was by building immense bonfires around
his field, which he kept burning all night
and on the coldest days. He and hired
help took turns in patroIling the fields at
| night and keeping the fires we'll supplied
with pine knots, which were an abundant
material in those days. This novel expe
dent on the part of farmer Shay kept his
corntield warm and free of pests, and he
had the only crop of corn that was raised
in that part of the State"
"July was coldor than June, and August
was still colder. Ice formed a quarter of
an inch thick in July, but in August, in
Vermont, water was frozen to the depth of
nearly an inch. On the 30th of August
there was severe snow storm. August
was as cheerless and dreary as November
sometimes is. There was not a green thing
to be seen anywhere. The first two weeks
in September brought the first real warm
weather we had experienced since May.
The thermometer registered as high as 700. !"
"The general opinion had been formed
that the cause of the cold weather was a
sudden and rapid cooling of the sun, and
many believed that the end of all things
was not far off, The appearance of the
warm spell in September destroyed that
fear for time, but on the 18th the cold
weather returned, and the people were once
uOIc tuIOWA pdCh W UuO OclICl. AL
old man named James Gooding killed all
his stock, and then hanged himself, after
vainly trying to induce his wife to make
way with herself also, to escape gradual
and terrible death by freezing ard starva-
ton, which he believed was to be the COM
mon doom. Cold weather increased from
the middle of September until winter, and
it may be said that the year 1S16-in Ver-
mont at leaSt-had no summer or autumn
There wasn't grain enough raised for seed
the next year, and those who were lucky
enough to have more of the crop of 1916 on
hand than they wanted for their own use
had no difficulty in selling it for S. and
more bushel."
Cali the corn raised in Vermont in 1917
was from seed grown in 1915, and guess
that was the case all through the Eastern
States. Those who feared that the sun was
cooling off in 1916 changed their minds in
1917, for that was one of the hottest and
dryest Summers that ever settled down in
that country"