The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-07-06
THE OLDEST YEAR
REMARKABLE. WEATHER PHE-
 NoMENA IN THE YEAR 1916.
It Was One of. the Coldest Twelve Months in the History of the
 ts World. t

more American an account of the year 1916. which was the coldest twelve months on record. It appears that the first months of the year 1916 gave no indica- tions of the strange weather that was to follow. January and February were ratn- CT mild than severe, with no unusual or prolonged cold. There was only the ac- companying ordinary cold and gloom Of the winter months, to make the hrst har- binger of spring welcome visitor. March duly entered, and when the latter part of this month and the first Of April had united in furnishing beautiful spring weather and all nature had commenced to smile, our ancestors greeted tnese ln- dications of pleasant season with the same bright anticipations as we or the present era greeted those of 1901 or any ensuing year.
 soft and warm velvet robe of the deepest emerald began to overspread the earth. Wild flowers sprung up in hooks exposed to the sun and sheltered from the wind; buds swelled to bursting on the trees, and the farmers everywhere prepared the soil for spring crops planted their gar dens and prepared for the routine that was to follow. A sudden change, however, soon swept over the face of nature. Suddenly, In one night, about the middle of the month a stinging frost swept over the land, touching the first born of spring with the icy fingers of death. The destruction was terrible The bu4s on the trees, the sweet-smelling flowers, the tender vege- tables in the garden-all fell before the fatal scythe of the frost king. Every thing that the bright sunshine had called into life now lay dead and withered. Old Boreas usIrped the rule of spring. and, blowing his lev breath over the country, covered the lakes and streams with ice and the land with a white mantle or snow. After such al crushing. disappointment the people turned toward May with the hopes that she, at least, would heal the wounds of the forepart of the yeah. The farmer and gardener again planted and patiently waited. Vain hope! for the May of 1916 was not like that of any other year. Jack Frost again issued from his northern stronghold and nightly swept over the land filling it with the victims of vegetable life, without diStinction Tn regard to age, sex or condition.
 Northerly winds swept over the country with dismal sweep and moan as II they were chanting the dirge of the buried
 hopes of the people. Instead Of the | brilliant hues of the month of flowers, | there was seen the somber cast of Mo- vember No bright. sunshiny mornings, greeted the generation of May. 1Sl6. No | delicate perfumes of fragrant flowers, no
 merry song of pretty little birds greeted | the early riser of that ill-fated year. ln- stead a sharp, cold wind met him at 1 his threshold, numbing his fingers and l chilling him to the bone and drove him
 back to seek warmth at his fireside Out
 of the thirty-one days in the month, l
 labor could be done in comfort. Corn was planted and replanted. only | to rot in the ground Gardens were made
 and remade. The buds and fruits that | had escaped the frost in April froze upon | the trees. Ice formed, and a melancholy
 hue appeared to seal the doom or all vegetable life.
 | The month of June was ushered in, | and the dropping hopes of the people again revived for surely they would | have some warm weather in this month l Garden and field crops were again planted
 and sowed. Vain delusion! There is no
 record of June so. cold. Again the frost | king rode over the land with his wintry minions, leaving broad trail or desola-
 summer In Vermont snow fell to the | depth of from six to ten inches; New
 York was covered to a depth of three inches, while Maine and New Hampshire had corresponding depth.
 Every green herb, every garden vege- table, every species of shrub and foliage
 was killed outright. Where you looked
 on the hillside for the crimson berry you | found the black frost; where on the tree for the blushing apple or pear, you found the dead and shIiveled fruit. while the harvest fields lay under canopy Of snow | and sleet
 Between eight and nine years ago an | old gentleman named James Winchester
 a resident of Vermont, gave an interest-
 ing account of the great snow storm on | June r. during the prevalence Of whlch 1 his uncle was frozen to death. Following | Is the old gentleman's version:
 | q was IA years old then, and lived In
 Vermont, where have always lived, ana | where that memorable season was at its very worst, as in the other New Eng land States. In June snow fell but hve | inches deep, and in New York, Pennsyl- | vania and New Jersey it was nowhere | deeper than three inches. In Vermont it | was ten inches on the level. l mean the l great snow of June r.. Snow fell several times during that month and the ice Iox fYn ho Ff1nn n
 there were snow and ice in every month
 of 1S16
 That snow storm of June F was one
 of the severest ones l ever saw, even m | the depths of winter, in that locality Of | severe snows. An uncle of mine had some
 sheep in a back pasture lot. To get 10 that lot he had to go through piece of
 woods for nearly a mile. The weather had been very cold all through June.s The big storm of the 17th began along about
 noon. and my uncle started to f1x up a
 shelter of some kind for the sheep; No one had any idea, cold and eccentric as the season had been up to that time, that we could have a fall of snow that would | amount to anything at that time of the
 year was at my my uncle Incies ot Then end ne lg, he
 went out he said to his wife in jocular
 way:
 neghbors and start them after me. June
 is a bad month to get buried in the snow,
 especially when it gets to be so near the
 month of July "A.
 Nothing more was thought of the mot-
 ter: The snow increased in fury. and by
 night it had drifted so that the roads
 were almost impossible, but even then,
 and when it grew dark, none of us felt
 uneasy about uncle. The weather had
 become bitter cold When night set in in
 earnest, and there was no sign of uncle
 return, his wife sent me and my cousin,
 who was two years younger than me. to
 alarm the neighbo-s and tell them that | we believed uncle had perl-ned.
 We had a hard time getting to the | nearest neighbors, less than. mile
 away, and there gave the alarm, but
 could go no farther. The neighbors sum moned others, and in spite of the sever-
 lty of the night they searched the woods
 until morning. but no sign of the missing
 man could be found, The search was taken up by others the following day. and all of the next night. without any trace of him being discovered. except that he reached the pasture and built a
 shelter of boughs in one corner of the l lot, under which the sheep were huddled On the forenoon of the third day the searchers found my uncle buried in the snow a mile from the pasture, in an al
 most opposite direction from home. He l was frozen Stin.
 } ''He had evidently become bewildered ir
 the binding storm and had wandered ! about until he succumbed to fatigue and cold It seems a most improbable thing , that a person ever fell victim to a snow storm in the middle of June in this latitude, but have this SorroWful knowl'