The Dakota chief. (Gann Valley, Buffalo County, S.D.) 18??-1913, 1907-06-20

The year 1916 was known throughout
| the United States and Europe as the
coldest ever experienced by any person
| then living. There are persons in north
ern New York who have been in the
habit of keeping diaries for years, and it
| is from the pages of an old diary begun
in 1910 and kept up unbroken until 1910
| that the following information regarding
| this year without q 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 cold days. but they were very few.
| Most of the time the air was warm and
springlike. 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 in
clined to be kindly. 1t came in IKE
| small lion and went out like veiy inno-
| cent sheep.
April came in warm. but as the days
| grew longer the air became colder, and
| by the first of May there was a temper
ature like that of winter, with plenty of
snow and ice. In May the youn,; buds
| We're frozen dead, ice formed half an inch
thick on ponds and rivers, corn was
killed, and the cornfields were planted
again and again, until it became too late
| to raise a 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 buttercups
usually are. Almost every green thing
was killed. all fruit was destroyed; snow
fell ten inches deep in Vermont. There
was a seven-inch fall in the interior Of
New York State, and the same in Mas
sachusetts. There were only few mod
erately 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. Planting and shivering
| were done together, and the farmers who
, worked out their taxes on the country
roads wore overcoats and mittens.
On June II there was a heavy fall Of
| snow. A Vermont farmer sent a flock of
| sheep to pasture on June 16 The morn
ing of the 1Ith dawned with the ther-
mometer below the freezing point About
o'clock in the morning the owner Of
the sheep started to look for his flock.
Hnfn L. =
wife and said, jokngly:
Better start the neighbors soon; it's
the middle of June, and / may get lost
in the snow"
An hour after he had left home ter
rifle snow storm came up. The snow fell
thick and fast, and as there was so rauch
wind the feecy masses piled in great
drifts along the windward side of the
fences and outbuildngs Night came and
the farmer had not been heard of.
His wife became frightened and alarm
ed the neighborhood. All the neighbors
Joined the searching party. On the third
day they found him. He was lying in a
hollow on the side hill with both feet
frozen; he was half covered with snow,
but alive. Most of the sheep were lost.
ooiy Ndh!t III WITH SllO" anu ICE. ou
the Fourth of July ice as thick as win
dow glass formed throughout New Eng
land, New 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
Europe was blasted with frost.
Snow fell at Barnet, thirty miles from
London, England, on Aug. 80. Newspa-
pers received from England stated that
1916 would be remembered by the exist
ing generation as the year in which there
was no summer.
Very little corn ripened in New Eng
land. There was great privation, and
thousands of persons would have perished
in this country had it not been for the
abundance of fish and wild game.-Dan.
bury Comm News.