Year: 1871

blinded the eyes and almost stopped the
breath of any one who attempted to face
s.. No man could, for any considerable
length IF time, make his way on foot
against it.


The story of such d winter as this may
be pleasant enough to hear to one who
hopes never tn experience it; but the sit-
uation of the inhabitants of this country
was certainly rather alarming. The peo'
ple were almost wholly from regions more
southern that, this, and knew nothing by
experience Of dealing With such a depth
of snow and such cold. Indeed, had
then some experience Of New England
winter, and have had some since, but have
to this day never seen any other which
bore any comparison to this. Jacksonville
had then aboi't 400 people. We were de-
pendent chiefly for keeping warm on bav'
ing plenty of wood, for our Houses were
certainly far enough from being warmly
built; and yet our supply Of fuel for the
winter was not as is more commonly the
case now, piled at our doors before the be:
ginning Of winter. It is in the forest, and
must be brought us, through the snow,
and by people who were quite unaccus.
toned to it. Could it he done? It was at
first not quite apparent that it could: Our
corn was in the fields, over which this
covering of snow was spread, and to
great extent the wheat for our bread was
In sacke In like condition. Snow paths
could not be broken after the New Eng.
land fashion. There a few hours Of wind
blows all the snow from exposed places,
and deposits it in valleys and behind hills,
where the wind cannot reach it. A little
energy with OK teams and sleds
will break out road and there
is no more trouble till the
next snow-stofm. There Is no truer
picture than that given by Whittier in his
"Snow Bound" Of the frolic of breaking
the roads after great snow storm. But
nothing of that sort would have been of
much use in our case. In this level coun
try there is no end to the drifting as long
as the snow lasts and the wind blows.
There are no covered places in which the
snow can be driven, consequently the
path would fill behind team, or any
number of teams in few minutes, so that
its track could not be seen. The only
way in which snow paths were finally
made was by going as nearly as we could
in the same place, till the snow was trod-
den hard, and rounded up like turnpike.
The snow. fall produced constant sleighing
for nine weeks, and when at last warm
ram and sunshine prevailed, about the
first of March, in melting the snow from
fields and untrodden places, the roads re-
mained as lines of ice, which disappeared
but gradually. The New Englander has
scarcely any such experience Of winter as
this-certainly not unless it be quite in
Northern New England. We had no
railroads then, nor indeed any dream of
them. But our mail communication with
the rest of the world was quite interrupted
for several weeks continuously. we In
those days had one mail week, and that
on horseback from Springfield, and to
bring that through that snow required
more energy than mail boys in those days
were master of.


say we had no railways in those days.
But how little good they would have done
us if we had had them. am free to con-
fess that my memory of the deep snow
uro,iuces in my mind to this day an un-
conuuerable aversion to long journeys by
railway III the winter. Should such win
ter as that of 18yO.T occur again IN Cen
trail Illinois, our railways would be as use
lcsa to US for five or six weeks together, as
though they were buried thousand feet
in the earth. The cuts would ali oe nlleo'
and they would fill again in half an nCur,
behind any train that might dig its way
through. 1t is a consolation that such d
winter has never occurred but once in the
memory of man. But what has happened
once may happen again. If it does we
shall have a very definite idea how 1mpOr-
tant our railroads are to us, and we shall
be very glad that the snow is not over the
telegraph wire. cannot say, after all,
that in town there was any very serious
amount Of suffering we did get food and
fuel and good deal of fun and frolic out
of the deep snow, though at the expense
of not few frozen ears, noses and faces.
but the loss to the farmers in stock and
crops, was very considerable. Some va.
rieties of wild game were nearly exterm-
mated. Deer were entirely unable to pro-
tect themselves from the dogs and the
huntsmen.


1 think, then, my audience will agree
with me, that the line drawn by this asso-
citation to define an old settler is very
definite and palpab]e Ole.