St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-03-07
THE GREAT STORM.
Thursdays Snowfall the Worst of the
Season.

ThuFAdaY,g SnOw1aIA hnc "Orst Oh INC
season.
The man who predicted an open winter
and mild March has not been seen since
last Thursday, the day when % inches
OF snow fell in St. Johnsbury and even
more than that in the surrounding hill
towns. 1t was more of storm than
February, 1899, and ranks with the big
storms OF the past decade. In the woods
the snow is now six feet deep and all
numbering is temporarily suspended.
The Passumpsic division of the Boston
& Maine Jared well and aside from
stalling of the "air line" at Warren, N.
H., the trains on this road were but little
delayed On the Maine Central force
OF 100 men worked four days before they
could get the road opened through the
notch. Here the drifts were over Is feet
deep and frequent avalanches hindered
the progress of the shovellcrs. All trains
were cancelled on this road until the
plows opened up the notch.
Roadmaster Severance has been on the
Lake road Is years and he says this was
the worst storm they ever had during
that time. The last train to come in to
ST. Johnsbury last week was the freight
which arrived here early Thursday after
noon. That afternoon Charles Ranney
started out with the mail train west aud
this got stuck in the drifts just beyond
West Danville. Here the train remained
u hours and an engine brought the
train back to St. Johnsbury Sunday
afternoon. AS there are no stoves in the
cars the trainmen kept up steam by
chopping wood in the vicinity of the
track and feeding the fire with green
wood. There were six passengers on
this train and most of them stayed by
the train through those long three days.
The last train out of here last week
was the mixed train which left late
Thursday afternoon. Fortunately there
were no passengers on this train
and this got stalled at Badgers Gap just
above the the big trestle. This train
was reached by a shovelling gang early
Sunday afternoon. A small snow plow
started out to clear the track during the
storm, but the point was crushed near
the big treste and the plow came back
here early Friday morning unfit for
further use in the storm.
| Roadmaster Severance had the big
snowplow at the Swanton end of the line
| and started to come east as soon as the
storm commenced. He had three engines
behind the pillow and gang of 20 men to
do the shovelling and between Green's
boro and Walden they encountered drifts
three feet higher than the smokestacks OF
their engines. These drifts had to be
shovelled out by hand and on Thursday
afternoon they only advanced mile and
could not get back to Greensboro for the
night. The plow finally got through
Sunday morning and since then the track
has been clear and passenger and freight
service have been resumed.
In st. Johnsbury village Supt. Russell
had his force of men increased by six and
also added six horses to his equipment.
By vigorous use of snow plo VS., the snow
roller, the road machine and anincreased
force of shovellers the roads and side
walks were all cleared before Saturday
night. In some of the bill towns the
snow rollers were run all Sunday and
even then it was impossible to reach all
the roads.
Horace Jackson had large force Of
men and 80 horses on the town roads
and worked five rollers for three days.
Early Monday every road in town was
opened, which is probably as good a
record as can be shown in the state.
&C. Follansby and ]. w. Titcomb will
not forget the storm for good while.
Mr.. Follansby went to Burlington
Thursday morning and got back to
Cambridge Junction before the traffic
was interrupted. Here he remained for
day and then took the train to Green's
boro. From there he hired team and
drove to Barton and reached home on
the night train from the north Sunday
morning. MIR. Titcomb was returning
from Washington and thought he would
come home by way of Swanton 1t took
him 20 hours to come from Swanton to
St. Johnsbury and he reached here Sum
day morning by coming via White River
Junction.