The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1899-02-17
- - -
The Cold spell.


The younger generation have at the present
time chance to witness and remember I'M
precedented sights in and around Bel Air
The memories OF the oldest inhabitants fai!
when they attempt to eclipse the present with
their marvellous recollections of the past, aud
it seems as If the hand of some weird NEGRO
mancer from the 'Araban Nights" had by the
waving Of his mysterious wand, picked the
town up bodily and transferred it to some far
off Arctic region. With all means of ingress
and egress completely closed against us, we
are today completely shut out from the rest of
world by the huge drifts and banks Of snow
which environ us, the latter ranging accord
ing to report from six to twenty-five feet in
depth. Those of our residents who are en-
gagged in business in Baltimore have not been
able at this writing Thursday afternoon) to
get 10 the city, and those Of our citizens who
went to the city are still there noiens rolens.
Snow fell on Saturday night, 4th inst, and
again on Monday, 9th; an on Tuesday, Feb
| ruary the mercury fell to zero, and from
that time except at very rare intervals when
the sun was shining directly upon the in
Tuesday Of this week. On Friday it reached
its extreme point. The mercury at the z. E
| rectory on Broadway, registered 13o below at
s A. NJ. on that day and at one or two other
points reached $50 below; while report placed
| it at 200 below zero at Hollingsworth's Spoke
| Factory, on Winters Run and at the Rocks of
| Deer Creek.
| wa iuhf falI Fri Satp
| and Sunday and on Sunday night, the wind
| became boisterous and by daylight on the
| succeeding day full-fedged blizzard was
| raging which thoroughly eclipsed the famous
storm of March 10, 1855, at almost every
point. Snow fell fast, furiously and unceas-
ingly all day and night and the wind drifted
1t in every direction, blocking up the roads
and causing an absence OF all trafiick. 1t was
impossible to travel anywhere within the
limits OF Bel Air, and business was entirely
suspended on each of the railroads. The cut
below Reckord's mill was soon filled COM
pletely, and telephone messages stated that
drifts had formed on the principal thorough
| fares leading into town, some OF them from
| twenty to twenty-five feet in depth and hun
dreds of feet long The Baltimore and Lee
high Railroad was effectualIy blocked. The
southbound train which was due at Bel Air at
8 A. NJ. Sunday, reached here about 80, and
the paper train, due at II A. NJ, succeeded in
| getting in at l z. NJ. No trains passed either
| way
Artist Langley and a number of amateurs
have been busy taking Photographic views Of
Main street, and 1t will be refreshing to look
upon them amid the heat of next summer
Great drifts and piles of snow line both side:
Of our principal street and present a very
picturesque sight, reminding one of the de
scription of Joaquin Miller in the Klondike
The average depth of snow in and around the
town at Tuesday noon was about thirty inches
AS communications reached Baltimore
everything indicated that the weight OF til,
storm was felt In every county in Maryland
The work of clearing away the snow progress
ed rapidly in all directions, and the principa
streets in every town in the State more closely
resembed those of some place in the far dis
tant north than in the equitable climate of GU
State. Dispatches from several points indi
cate fears of freshets should sudden thav
follow the unusual snow fall.