Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-02-12
A SUMMERLEss YEAR.
WHAT AN OLD NEW Workers. DAIRY
TELLS OF SNOW AND ICE IN lSl6.

then living. There are persons in north
ern New York, says the Sun, who have
been in the habit of keeping diaries for
years, and it is from the pages of an old
diary, begun in 1910 and kept unbroken
until 1910, that the following information
regarding this year without summer
has been taken:
January was so mild that most per-
sons allowed their fires to go out and
did no1 burn wood except for cook
ing. There were few cool days, but
they were very few. Most of the time
the air was warm and sprnglike. Feb
ruary was not cold. Some days were
colder than any in January, but the
weather was about the same. March,
from the lst to the 9th, was inclined to
be windy. 1t came in like small lion
and went out like very innocent sheep.
April came in warm, but, as the days
grew longer, the air became colder, and
by the first of May there was a tempera-
ture like that of winter, with plenty of
snow aud ice. In May the young buds
were frozen dead, ice formed half an
inch thick on ponds and rivers. corn was
killed, and the corn fields were planted
again and again, until it became too late
to raise a crop. By the last of May in
this climate the trees are usually in leaf
/
When the last of May arrived in 1916
everything had been killed by the cold.
June was the coldest month of roses
ever experienced in this latitude. Frost
and ice were as common as buttercups
usually are. Almost every green thing
was killed; all fruit was destroyed.
Snow fell 10 inches deep in Vermont.
There was q seven-inch snowfall in
Maine, three-inch fall in the interior of
New York State, and the same in Mass
achusetts. There were only a few
moderately warm days. Everybody
looked, longed and waited for warm
weather, but warm weather did not
come. 1t was also dry; very little rain
fell. All summer long the wind blew
steadily from the north in blasts laden
with snow and ice. Mothers knit socks
of double thickness for their children,
and made thick mittens. Planting and
shivering were done together, and the
farmers who worked out their taxes on
the country roads wore overcoats and
mttens. On June II there was a heavy
fall of snow. A Vermont farmer sent a
flock of sheep to pasture on June l6. The
morning of the 18th dawned with the
thermometer below the freezing point.
At about o'clock in the morning the
owner of the sheep started to look up his
flock. Before leaving home he turned to
his wife and said iokingly:
Better start the neighbors soon; it's
the middle of June, and may get lost in
the snow"
An hour after he left home terrible
snow storm came up. The snow fell
thick and fast, and, as there was so much
wind, the fleecy masses piled in great
drifts along the windward side of the
a fences and outbuildings. Night came
and the farmer had not been heard of
His wife became frightened and alarmed
the neighborhood. All the neighbors
day they found him. He was lying in a
hollow on a side hill, with both feet
f frozen he was half covered with snow
, but alive. Most of the sheep were lost.
A farmer near Tewksbury, VT, owned
= large field of corn. He built fire:
, around the field to keep off the frost
Nearly every night he and his men tool
? turns in keeping up the fires and watch
ing that the corn did not freeze. ThC
} farmer was rewarded for his tireless la
| bors by having the only crop of corn il
) the region.
July came in with snow and ice. Or
5 the Fourth of July ice as thick as win
0 dow glass formed throughout New Eng
I? land, New York, and in some parts o
the State of Pennsylvania. Indian corn
s which in some parts of the East hat
e struggled through May and June, gay
e up, froze, and died.
| TO the surprise of everybody, Angus
e proved the worst month of all. Almos
: every green thing in this country an
Europe was blasted with frost. Snoy
fell at Barnet, 30 miles from London
Enn Q0
n from England stated that 1916 would
T. remembered by the existing generatio
h as the year in which there was no sun
# mer Very little corn ripened in NeN
Il England. There was great privatlOr
d and thousands of persons would hay
perished in this country had it not bee
l. for the abundance of fish and wild game
u In direct contrast with 1916 appear
u the year lS27-2S, when there was no wiz
ter. Capt Daniel Lyon, who died som
u years ago in Burlington, VT, used to rt
u late his experience in lS27-2S. He was
walking encyclopedia of local event;
II He said: 81 knew but one season whe
winter was almost like summer, the wir
3 ter of lS27-2S. | was running the steam
+ boat Gen. Green between Burlington
J. VT, and Port Kent and Plattsburgh, \
~ Y, and during the year there was not
|. DIT or Ice IN the Wnole lake from one en-
u to che other. The old Lake Champlai
i Steamboat company hauled out til
steamboats, Phoenix and Congress, an
I hardly bit of ice appeared in Shelburr
bay, near Burlington, during the winte
1.-THE Phoenix had new engine bui
- in Albany, and the whole outfit had
n be carried from that city to Shelburr
p" harbor by teams through the mud.
MiddlebuTy, VT, the mud was more tina
Y foot deep. The Ph9nix was rebuI
IN and ready to launch by Jan. 10. Jan.
or was the day fixed for the launching, an
+ | took over large party from BurllnI
G ton on the Gen. Green. The sun w'
o. shining with the warmth of July da
IL The women who sat on deck raised the
nl' parasols."
Hundreds of Vermont families WI