Norwich bulletin., 1920-12-24
ODD INCIDENTS IN AMERICAN
 HISTORY
OUR GREATEST sNowsTonM

The climate of America is undoubtedly undergoing gradual change for neither are the winters as severe at present, nor the summers as torrid, as they were in the early history of our country. It is only rarely that We are treated to biiz- gard. and yet a century ago they were not of unconn1on occurrence In Feoru- ary, 1717, occurred what is considered 10 have been the greatest snow storm that has ever visited this country-or perhap5 any other So deep was the fall that practically all through the New England states people were barricaded in-their homes and it was considerable time be- fore that section was opened up for trat- fic.
 Accompanying this snow there was terriffic tempest aud very low tenn Dersture It was not only in sectlons nut all over the north and at many places IL drifted to the extent that It may De said that whole villages were showed under.
 The blizzard caused a. very heavy loss in property. and especially to live stock | Thousands of cattle perished throughout | the country, because their owners were unable to go to their assistance. ana many remarkable instances were related of rescues. On one New England sneep | farm it is said that eleven hundred sneep | the property of one man, were found dead 1 and one flock of hundred on Fishers 1 island were Iound buried sixteen feet in the snow, Two of them only were alive. 1 thev having subsisted on the wool of their l companions for twenty-eightF days after the storm.
 While there are records in history of this. remarkable storm they are based a:- most entirely upon the account that was written by Dr. Cotton Mather, and which l is preserved amongst the manuscript volumes of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is not only 8 curious /relic, but it's reading will give a good idea Of | the style of writing of the eminent Co., lonial New England divine. The manu- script is dated December 10, 1717. and was written at Boston. It is as follows 'sTho' we gott so far as the begin ming of another winter, yeti we have moi
 forgott ye last, which at the latter end
 whereof we were entertained and over
 wfelnled with a snow, which was attend I cd with some things which were uHcom- mon enough to afford matter for a letter
 from us.
 "Our winter was not so bad that where | in Tacitus tells us that Corbtflo made hi'
 expedition against the Parthians, no that which proved 50 fatal to ye beastl and birds in ye days of ye Emperor Jus tinian, /and that the very fishes were killed under ye freezing sea when Phoca , did as much to ye men whom tyrant
 treat ye fishes of ye sea.
 "But ,ye conclusion of our winter wa
 hard enough and was too formidable t
 be easily forgotten. The snow was y chief thing that made it so. On the 20t l of last February there came on snoN
 which, being added to what had covere
 the ground few days before, made S thicker mantle for our mother than wha was usual And ye storm with it wa.
 for the following day, so violent as t
 make all communication between y 2 neighbors everywhere to cease. People :. for some time, could not pass from on
 side of ye street unto another.
 "But on ye twenty-fourth day of y a | month, another snow came and whic
 almost buried ye memory of ye forme
 with a storm so famous that Heave : laid an interdict on ye religious assemi flies throughout ye country on this Lord
 day. ye like thereunto had never bee O seen before. The Indians near an hundre l. years old, affirm that their fathers nevt l. told them of anything that equalled it.
 For no less than eight and twent
 days after the storm the people pullin l. out the ruins of above an 100 sheep o, if of a, snow bank, which lay sixteen-fot I.I high, drifted over them, which lay sixtee
 foot high, drifted over them, there wei
 two found alive by eating the woRl