Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1897-01-07
SOME BAD WEATHER.
\ PIONEER RECALLS HOW TWO
MILD DECEMBERS ENDED
ILLINOIS HOMINY WINTER IN 1880,
WHEN SHOW HID THE
TOPS OF TREES.


genarian resident of this city, that when
early December is mild and fair we're sure
to have old Boreas bowling about our ears,
sharp and sudden, toward the latter part
of the month. But never knew him to
come down and show his teeth quite so
terribly at the far end of a mild December
as he used to OH the Illinois prairies In the
pioneer days | was an Illinois PIONEER.
My folks settled in piece of timber in
Mclean county known as keg grove. The
grove got it's name from the circumstance
of its having been traded to IA white man
by it's Indian owners for a keg of whisky.
The city of Bloomington occupies the site
of Keg grove now. We settled there in
1929. There were only 40, 900 people in
the whole state of Illinois then. Neighhors
were few and far between about keg
grove.
THE fall and early winter of 1880 were
very dry and mild. Late n December,
and with very little warning, snow began
falling 1t didn't fall either. 1t tumbled.
1t came down in regular ready made snow
banks and continued without moments
let up for two days and nights. You may
have some idea of how deep the snow fell
when tell you that when it went away
been cut for firewood as the choppers stood
on the snow during the winter were I feet
high, that being as low down as the chop
pers could get at the trees. In going to
neighbour drove over the tops of their
orchard trees and did not know it. 1t was
fortunate thing that the corn crop had
been good that year. for many families
were so blockadcd by the snow that they
could not get ont of their houses They
would have starved to DEATH but they
lived on corn, which they pounded into
coarse meal or hominy, and that was so
generally the case that the winter was ever
afterward known to the pioneers as the
hominy winter.
Deer, wolves and wild turkeys were
more plentiful than domestic animals and
fowls in Mclean county then. Deer grew
so bold from hunger during that deep snow
that when they heard men chopping down
trees they would come up and eat the
branches as the trees fell Hundreds of
deer We're caught in this way, and the
wolves killed hundreds more. One settler
named Cowen caught ! 9 deer, Penned them
up and fattened them on corn. Wild tur
keys lowered about the cabins, and fed
scores of them out of the window of our
house. We had drove of 25 hogs covered
by the deep snow, and they remained be-
meath it six weeks, in n space not more
than 80 feet across When we found them,
there We're only II of the drove left, and
they were as fat as fat could be. They had
Toasted on the other 3. So r1any deer were
crowded into piece of timber known as
Buckles grove that they killed every tree
in the grove by girdling to get the bark to
eat Cattle died by the score during the
six weeks that snow lay on the ground,
because no one could get to them to dig
them out and care for them.
There was heavy frost every month in
the year after that deep snow. Corn
couldn't ripen, and there wasn't enough
gathered for seed TO plant the next season.
There wasn't bushel of seed corn to be
had nearer than Ohio in 1922 1t cost 80
bushel. John Duffy came in that year
with a few bushels of small, yellow corn
from Pennsylvania. That was planted. 1t
matured early, ard some people out there
raise Duffy corn yet
But in Decenber 1885, the prairie
pioneers got some weather that made them
quit dating things from the winter of the
deep snow The month had been warm and
moist. Everything was slush and slop and
mud. Young Ben Cox father had been
10 SUlCaSO WIN u urONG VI mugs, anu He
brought Ben pair of skates There wasn't
another pair in all that part of the state.
But there was no ice, and young Ben got
desperate because he couldn't use his new
skates One day he was SO mad that he
yelled out:
81 wish to tie Lord it'd get so cold that
thngs'd freeze before they knew it'
~ don t suppose that what followed was
IN ia la
it rain was falling and the thermometer
stood at 40 degrees above zero. Suddenly
the wind began to blow gale. 1t came
out of the northwest, and no wind that
ever swept over those prairies before or
since came SO near being a blast from the
north pole as that one was. Almost in
stantly the mercury dropped from 40 de-
grees above to 90 degrees below zero, and
the falling rain was turned at once TO pei
let's and barbs of ice. The damp air froze
so quickly that it became one great cloud
of flying frost
This polar blast swept down upon us
at O'Clock in the afternoon. John Daw
son was on his way from Williams mill,
six miles down Salt creek. He had gone
half a mile from the mill when he heard n
roar like thunder. The noise was behind
him. Looking around he saw the storm
coming and the rain freezing before it.
When it struck him, he turned to go back
to the mill Before his horse was headed
about Dawson was frozen fast in the sad
de The slush had been more than fet-
lock deep. By the time Dawson had urged
his horse around hundred yards the slush
was frozen so it bore the horses weight
and it was with great difficulty that Daw-
son got back to the MILL the water in the
road having become such glare of ice
that his horse could scarcely make his way
over it.
Fowls that were out on the soft ground
when this unheard of change of weather
came were frozen fast where they stood.
Cows froze in their tracks. Our folks had
three hogs frozen to death while they were
hurrying from their feeding places to their
pen, less than 800 yards away.
John Lapham had forded the Mack
inaw and his horse slipped off a rim of Ice
| @l,,.sN Il 9 Il