Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-25
A WINTER THAT WAS.
Cornell Vanderbilt's Old Canal Asso-
ciate Tells of 1928,
WHEN THE RIVER BOTTOM FROzE,
Though There Was No Ice From November
27 to February 22.
WAsHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY TO THINK Of

There isn't so much talk about "open
winters" as there was, down to the latter
part of last week. Not that there is less
openness now than there was (for the zero
period has brought little ice and no snow);
but the fact is that people are really salts
fed to call it seasonable weather, and have
no disposition to find fault with the time as
being out of joint, when the mercury gets
down to its cipher in February. However,
the memory is surely of sufficient elasticity
to embrace that not very remote period when
every mouth and every newspaper were full
of comparisons that failed to show up an
other winter SO very, very open as this, one
had been.
Speaking of open winters, q little chat
with good old Captain William Siebert, of
this city, which a reporter enjoyed few
days since, will be found quite apropos.
Venerable Captain Siebert had arisen,
wiped off his spectacles and looked back to
the winter of 1923 to see if he couldn'
find in it plenty of good hard facts with
which to correct the recently recorded state
ment that there was no ice whatever, but
people picked flowers and berries in that
winter.
'My memory, reinforced by my records,
is very accurate" said Mr.. Siebert, "not
only with regard to the winter of '42-S, but
as to the exact character of the weather we
had in many of those early seasons, when I
was
PITTSBURG BoATMAN,
at times on the river and the old canal
respectively. That winter found me on the
old packet Pittsburg, and surely we cannot
correctly speak of it as having been a
winter without ice, in view of these facts:
On the morning of November 6, 1872, I got
out of my berth aboard the Pittsburg to find
six inches of ice on the surface of the old
canal. Then, 1 distinctly recollect-and
the records have kept are ample to fortify
my memory-that on the 18th of the same
autumn month the river froze over, and re-
mained in that condition until the 9th.
Then there were snow and rainstorms-
plenty of them-to break things up.
$50 ycu see, down to the beginning of
the first actual winter month (December),
we had been blessed with enough winter to
satisfy the most fastidious of frigid tastes
and not very open winter at that But
oh! what weather followed Through De-
cember and January, right up snug to the
opening of February, we had warm SHOWS
and rains enough to have opened any winter.
Then it remained very warm, until Febru
ary % (Washington's Birthday }, when, as
we'll remember, the old Washingtonian
temperance people had planned to have a
great turnout. But alas! it showed at in
the morning; soon developed into blizzard
(though we only calledit "a storm in those
days., and, by 8 o'clock in the afternoon,
the mercury
HAD GONE BELOW ZERO.
"I'm not guessing at all this, either, for 1
froze one of nv legs, and had very good
reason to recollect the occasion.
"Well, you see, this was about the only
ice we had been blessed with that winter
between November q and February %.
But it aoaS ice; and I can tell you it stayed,
too. became steward of the old st.
Charles Hotel, and I know how many in
conyeniences we suffered from the frigid
spell that followed Washington's Birthday
IN '43. The ice remained solid until April
10. Solid is a good word to use in this
connection, for The Allegheny river was
frozen clear to the bottom, as you may well
appreciate when tell you that on the 18th,
when the river broke up, there were great
chunks of ice and gravel six and eight feet
thick thrown up into one of the most dis
turbed streams ever saw.
"No, no 1t wouldn't do to say that the
winter of 1928 was such an altogether
open season, for it wasn't; or that the
farmers plowed through January, for they
didn't. There was too much rain and too
much snow for that.
81 have abundant data to show the &C.
curacy of my memory with regard to that
winter And nigh: add, by the way, that
was the last year in which Cornell Wander
bilt ran his boat on the old canal here. By
Cornell don't mean the present young
Cornelius, nor the old Commodore, but the
old mans son, Cornelius, a brother of
William H., both of whom are now dead"