Connecticut western news., 1891-09-10
COLD SUMMER WAY BACK.

The Oldest Inhabitant outdone by a
 Member of the Ananias Club.
 If don't miss my guess very much we will have snow before morning" :" exclaimed Patrofman Josh Spears.
 If you remember, the winter of 1762- -63 was very open one. In fact, if remember rightly, there was but little weather too chilly for man to go in his shirt sleeves Why, I was run ming around then barefoot, quite a chunk of a lad. It was in many re- spects 8 most remarkable winter. For instance, we cut hay on the list of Jan uary. Well, the winter went away and spring happened along. It was just like any other spring; but an old In dian chief who lived near our house in Brown county said that before the year was done the winter would make up for lost time. We didn't pay much at tention to the warning, laughing it away as an idle jest, and soon it dropped out of mind entirely. The 23d day of August, 176s, was the hottest day ever knew. The sun raised blisters on the street pavements, and wells thousand feet deep went dry. It was not safe for any person to be where the sun could get a good square lick at him. If he did he would shrink up and die right there. About 7 o'clock in the evening a light breeze came up, and the people ventured out. In the western sky there was just such cloud as I pointed out to you few minutes ago. We didn't know what it meant then, but we found out later on. By 8 o'clock that evening the atmosphere was cool and pleasant, and every one went to bed to catch little sleep, for the intense heat of the previous nights had driven sleep from our eyes. In the morning there was six feet of snow all over the town. Every bit of running water was now frozen, wells and cisterns were frozen solid, all grain and vegetable life were killed, and flowers withered before the snow like bananas before my friend Hart. Several houses where the win dows had been left opened were half filled with snow. It was cracking cold morning, the mercury was 60 degs. below zero and it seemed to be growing chillier every minute.
 "About II o'clock high wind came up, and the snow was piled in drifts about the city. It was banked up against the Lutheran church to height of 70 feet As if that was not enough, at o'clock in the afternoon the snow commenced falling again. It did not come down like plain, every day winter snow. There were no flakes, but spheres about the size of base balls, They were as hard as chilled steel until they struck the earth, and then they burst, not because of the hardness of the ground alone though it was frozen so hard that it could not be broken with dynamite cartridges-but there was peculiar atmospheric condition that was heightened when the snow ball came in contact with the earth, and this brought about the bursting I mentioned previously. There was not the least bit of noise attendant on the bursting or, I might say, by violent attack on the English language that the explosion was perfectly hoiseless. But thousand different colors darted and dashed from the fragments It was the most wonderful pyrotechnio display I ever witnessed. It was broad daylight, too. The result of this strange unnatural shower of snowballs was that over fifty feet of snow was piled upon that city"-
 "Where- were the people2' asked Sergt. Joyce in a voice faint from suppressed emotion.
 'sDead. Every one of them dead. In that city of 25,000 souls not g single person escaped, They were smothered by the snow or killed by the pellets that came from the clouds. No living thing, not even Q dog, escaped, and when the glad sunshine came out again and melted the snow, the raging waters washed the buildings from the face of the earth, and to this day nota sign can be found of the once beautiful and en- terprising city" |
 At this moment a commotion ocr cured at the front door, Sergt. John Lowe rushed breathlessly intothe room with the intelligence that a man had been frozen to death on Blake street, near Indiana avenue, and the club filed out to capture the body before it could get away.-Indianapolis News.