Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-01-19
--xxsSNMIzM
Daily eagle
SNOW In AUGUST.
Interesting "reminiscences of a
Year Without Summer.
Ten Inches of Snow in June, 1S16-Plant.
ing Crops with Mittens On-Sad
Fate of Farmer Who Was
Lost in a Snow-Storm.
rHonesdale pa. Letter.


8 heavy coat on, yesterday, and day be-
fore the thermometer was standing at for
ty-six degrees" said one of the Oldest resi-
dents of the northern part of this county
recently, "and that is the most practical
and vivid reminder l have ever had of the
year without summer, when it was
common thing to see the farmers, every
day, from June till September, wearing
not only heavy coats, but overcoats and
mittens as well, as they went about their
work. That YVES in 1916 and was twelve
years old, and so have lively recollec-
ton of the remarkable summer. lived in
Vermont then, where the season was at Its
worst, as in New York State and Pennsyl
vania only three inches Of snow fell during
the month of June, while in Vermont we
had ten inches. Snow fell several times
during that month, and ice came daily.
''One of the severest snow-storms within
my recollection fell in Vermont on the nth
of that June; that was the day we got the
ten inches, and it was ten good, solid
inches, on the level l have good reason
TO remember that day. My father had
some sheep in back pasture, to reach
which we had to go through piece of
falling on the 18th about eleven o'clock in
the forenoon, and my father started after
dinner to fix up some sort of a 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
any thing at that time of year. i remem-
Der father, as he went out of the door,
turning to my mother and saying in joe
ular way:
"If Pm not back in an hour, mother,
call the neighbors and start them after
me. June is bad month to get buried in
the snow especially when it gets to be so
near the Fourth of July
'sihe 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 the family felt
uneasy about father The weather had
grown intensely cold When night set in,
however, and there were still no signs of
fathers return, mother sent mo to alarm
the Deighbors and tell them that we be-
ieved father had been lost in the snow.
La spite Of the severity Of the night all the
neighbors that could be reached turned
out and searched the woods all night, but
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 a shelter of boughs
in one corner OF the lot, under which the
sheep were huddled. On the forenoon of
the third day they found father half buried
in the snow a mile from the pasture, in al
most the opposite direction from home.
He was dead He had evidently become
lost In the binding storm, and had wan
dered about until he succumbed to fatigue
and exposure. 1t seems a most improba-
BILE thing that a person ever fell victim
to a snow storm in the month of June in
this latitude, but have sorrowful knowl-
edge of one instance where il was only too
true.
The wind during June, July and Au-
gust of 1916 was almost continually in the
north, and it blew fiercely and cold. Farm
ers 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 firewood that always accumulated dur
ing the summer months at tho farmhouse
accumulate in 1916. They were needed for
current use.
Il remember that an old farmer named
Shay was the only man that had any corn
to gather in our neighborhood that year
He saved his crop in a funny way, and that
was by building immense bontires around
his field, which he kept burning all night
and on the coolest days, He and hired .
help took turns in patrolling the field at
night, and keeping the fires well supplied
with pine knots, which were an abundant
material in those days. This novel expe-
dent on the part of Farmer Shay kept
his corn-feld warm and free of pests, and
be had the only crop Of corn in that part
of the State.
July was colder than June, and August
was still colder. Ice formed 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 a severe snow storm. August
was as cherries and dreary as November
some times is. There was not green thing
10 be cen any where. The first two weeks
In Sep ember brought the first real warm
Seathe' we had experienced since May.
:" 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 of. The appearance of the
warm spell in September destroyed that
lear for time, but on the 10th the cold
weather returned and the people were
once more thrown back to the Old belief.
An old man named James Gooding killed
all his stock, and then hanged himself,
after Sainly trying to induce his wife to
make way with herself also to escape a
gradual and terrible death by freezing and
starvation, which he believed was to be the
common doom. Cold weather increased
from the middle of September until winter,
and it may be said that the year 1Sl6-in
Vermont at leaSt-had no summer or au-
tum. There wasn't grain enough raised
for seed the next year, and those VINO were
lucky enough to have more of the crop Of
1915 on hand than they wanted for their
own use had no difficulty in selling it for
five dollars aud more bushel
"All the corn raised in Vermont in 1917
was from seed grown in 1918, and l 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 4
1871, for that was one of the hottest and
dryest summers that ever settled down in
that country"
The Oldest Student at Yale.
Tie oldest student in Yale College is /
Porter Sherman, CT Kansas. Mr. Sher- /
man is back at Yale after an absence of I