The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-04-14
WINTER ALL YEAR.
AN OLD DlARY,S ACCOUNT OF SUM-
MERLESS 1916.

ThcreWcre Some Warm Days In the Spring,
but In June, July and August There
Were spowstorms and Ice All Over New
England.
The year 1916 was known throughout
the United States and Europe as the cold
est ever experienced by any person then
living There arc persons in northern
New York who have been in the habit of
kccping 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 persons
allowed their fires to go out and did not
burn wood except for cooking. There were
few coal days, but they were very few.
Most of the time the air was warm and
springlikC. February was not cold. Some
days were colder than any In January, but
the weather was about the same. March,
from the 1st to the 9th, was inclined to be
windy. 1t came in like small lion and
went ont like a very innocent sheep.
April came in warm, but as the days
grew longer the air became colder, and by
the 1st of May there was II temperature
like that of winter, with plenty of snow
and ice In May the young buds were
frozen dead, ice formed half an inch thick
on ponds and rivers, corn was killed. and
the cornliclds were planted again and
again, until is became too late to raise Il
crop. BY the last OF May in this climate
the trees are usually in leaf and birds and
flowers are plentiful When the last of
May arrived in 1916, everything had been
killed by the cold.
June was the coolest month of roses ever
experienced in this latitude Frost and ice
were as common as buttcrcups usually are
Almost every green thing was killed. All
fruit was destroyed. Snow fell ten inches
deep in Vermont. There was "a seven inch
snowfall in Maine, II three inch fall in the
interior of New York state and the Same
in Massachusetts,. There were only 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. Plant
ing and shivering were done together, and
the farmers who worked out their taxes on
the country roads wore overcoats and nit
tens. On june II there was heavy fall of
snow. A Vermont farmer sent Il flock of
sheep to pasture on June IS. The morning
of the 18th dawncd with the thermometer
below the freezing point At about 9
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 jokingly:
Better start the ncighbors soon. It's
the middle of June, and l may get lost in
the SNOW"
An hour after he left home terrible
snowstorm came up. The snow fell thick
and fast, and as there was so much wind
the 1eccy masses piled in great drifts along
the windward side of the fences and out
buildings. Night came, and the farmer
had not been heard of. His wife became
frightened and alarmed the nCighborhood.
All the ncighbors joined the searching
party. On the third day they found him..
| He was lying in u hollow on u side hill,
with both feet frozen. He was half covered
with snow, but alive. Most of the sheep
were lost.
A farmer near Tewksbury, Vt, owned
n large field of corn. He built fires around
the field to keep off the frost. Nearly every
night he and his men took turns in keep
ing up the fires and watching that the corn
for his tircless labors by having tho only
crop Of corn in the region.
| July came in with ice and snow. On
the Fourth of July ice as thick as window
glass formed throughout New England,
Few York and in some parts of the state
of Pennsylvania Indian corn, which in
some parts of the east had struggled
through May and June, gave up, froze
and died.
To the surprise of everybody August
proved the worst month of all Almost
every green thing in this country and Eu-
rope was blasted with frost Snow fell at
| Barnet, 80 miles from London, on Aug. 80.
| Newspapers received from England stated
that 1916 would be remembered by the eX.
| listing generation as the year in which
| there was no summer. Very little corr
ripened in New England. There was great
privation, and thousands of persons would
have persisted in this country had it not
been for tho abundance of fish and wild
game.
In direct contrast with 1916 appears the
year 1S27-S, when there was no winter
Captain Daniel Lyon, who died some years
ago in Burlington, VT, used to relate his
experience in 1S27-S. He was u walking
encyclopedia of local events. He said: 81
knew but one season when winter was al
most like summer, the winter of 1928.
was running the steamboat General Greer
| between Burlington, Vt, and Port KEN
and Plattsburg, n. Y, and during the
year there was not IL bit of ice in the whole
lake from one end to the other. The ole
Lake Champlain Steamboat company
hauled out the steamboats, Phoenix an(
Congress, and hardly bit of ice appeared
in Shclburne bay, near Burlington, during
the winter.
THE Phoenix had new engine built il
Albany, and the whole outfit had to b.
carried from that city to Shelburne harbo
by teams through the mud. AT Middle
bury, Vt, the mud was more than foo
deep. The Phoenix was rebuilt and read,
to launch by Jan. Is. Jan. IS was the da!
fixed for the launching, and L took over
large party from Burlington on the Gen
eral Green. The sun was shining witt
the warmth of July day. The womel
who sat on deck raised their parasols -
New York Sun.