USA > New York > The natural, statistical, and civil history of the state of New-York, v. 1 > Part 33
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The following observations and remarks, in relation to the climate, we think, cannot fail to interest most readers :-
January 7th, 1815, the Mohawk river was covered with ice for the first time. On the 10th, loaded carriages passed and
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repassed. The snow in the valley of the Mohawk was two in- ches deep ; at Johnstown, four miles north, and about three hun- dred and fifty feet higher, four inches; at Kingsbury, five miles northeast of the latter place, six inches ; on the summit of May- field mountain, or Clip Hill, six miles northwest of Johnstown, ten inches ; and at Caroga lake, about three miles farther, fif- teen inches. Clip Hill, hereabouts, is about one thousand feet above the level of the ocean. This part of the country borders on the forest, and is imperfectly cleared. At the latter place, the snow had covered the ground for more than a month, and the ice the streams.
Between the thirteenth of January and the first of March, the snow at Johnstown, and its vicinity, had accumulated to the depth of about two feet on a level. The weather during this time was pretty severe, and the sleighing very good.
On the second day of March a heavy thaw commenced, which did not entirely abate before the fourteenth ; the Schoharie creek broke up on the third, the Mohawk on the sixth, and the Hudson between the eighth and ninth. Sloops sailed from Albany for New-York . between the eleventh and fifteenth .- This thaw was so violent, and of such continuance, that it swept away all the snow at Johnstown, and in the clearings, through- out the Mohawk country, except such as lay along fences and other situations, where it had been heaped by the winds. But . it did not sweep off the snow in the woods at Stratford, fourteen miles northwest of Johnstown, and ten or twelve north of the Mohawk river ; nor did it break up the streams and ponds.
Stratford is within the forest already noticed, and consists of two settlements, the east and the west, which are separated by a wood eight miles broad.
The sleighing in the eight mile woods, after the thaw, was excellent. The streams were covered with ice, and there were no symptoms of spring. The thaw, although it had lasted twelve days, and had carried off all the snow in the cleared parts of the Mohawk country, had had no other visible effect on the snow in the eight mile woods, than to settle it, the quantity
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being about the same. The snow, we would remark, was be- tween three and four feet deep when the thaw began.
On the twenty-ninth day of March, the snow at Benson, eighteen or twenty miles north of the village of Johnstown, · was two and a-half feet deep on the low grounds, and from . three to three and a-haif on the northern slopes of hills. The ponds and streams were still covered with ice, and there was no indication of spring.
On the fourth of April the snow was as deep as ever. The quantity on the seventh was about the same, with this difference, that it had settled down.
Between the third and seventh it rained almost all the time at Johnstown, yet no rain fell at Benson, it only misted or fell in sleet. During this time, deuse clouds continued to pass over from east northeast, to south southwest.
The snow was still about two feet deep in the eight mile woods, at Stratford.
April tenth, it was upwards of twenty inches deep in the eight mile woods : spring, however, had begun to announce itself.
Even as late as the eighteenth the ground in the eight mile woods was mostly covered with snow, but spring was advancing a pace.
The snow, at Benson, on the tenth day of April, was about two feet deep, and the streams and ponds were locked up with ice.
April twenty-third, the ground in the woods at Benson was . still covered with snow, but the streams and ponds were mostly , freed of ice. The snow had chiefly disappeared in the cleared lands.
Benson is situated in the forest which we have before noted, but it is less cultivated, more elevated, and at a greater distance from the improved country than Stratford, which seem to be the causes of the difference in depth and the duration of the snow.
Now, during the whole period comprised between the four- teenth day of March and the twenty-third day of April, the ground at Johnstown, and its vicinity, and generally speaking, all the improved parts of the Mohawk country, were, with two
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or three exceptions, in which the snow fell three or four inches deep, and remained two or three days, and then went off as bare as in summer.
Such extraordinary differences in the depth of snow, its con- tinuance and disappearance in places so very near, and differing only a few hundred feet in elevation, and in some instances not any, will appear almost incredible to persons unacquainted with the facts and circumstances attending them. But extraordina- ry as they may appear, they are true, and are to be accounted for by the clearing away of the woods, and the cultivation of . the lands.
December 5, 1815, the Mohawk was mostly shut up with ice.
On the twenty-sixth the snow was two inches deep at the village of Johnstown, and the neighbouring parts, which was the greatest depth that had fallen. At the same time is was three inches deep at the foot of Clip Hill, six inches on its summit, and nine or ten in the forest, and just within its fron- tiers, and thence to Stratford, and through the eight mile woods. But there was no snow in the valley proper, or ra- vine along the river.
About the same time the Mohawk was entirely closed with ice. The cold was not, nor had it been, very severe.
There was no sleighing between the first and eleventh of January 1816, in the valley of the Mohawk, and its vicinity ; but at the same time it was good from the top of Clip Hill, four miles northwest of the village of Johnstown, to Lowville, in the county of Lewis, a distance of upwards of eight miles. The road from the summit of Clip Hill to Lowville, runs along, or near the borders of the forest, on high ground.
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The ground was frozen to a considerable depth, and it was very good wagoning from the foot of Clip Hill to Albany, and from Johnstown to Utica, by the valley of the Mohawk.
On the eleventh the snow fell ten inches at Albany, and : about seven at Johnstown, but none fell at Onondaga. It came from the east. The cold was not severe.
The sixteenth a thaw began, which lasted to the twenty-third. This thaw carried off all the snow at Albany, and in the cleared
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parts of the Mohawk country, nearly as far back as the forest, and occasioned partial breakings up in the Mohawk and Hud. son.
From January twenty-ninth, to February twenty-second, there was no sleighing east of Anthony's Nose, which is the termination of Clip Hill, and west of the mouth of West Canada creek ; but within these two places there was some, . although quite indifferent. The sleighing, however, from the top of Clip Hill, four miles northwest of Johnstown, to the West Canada creek, at the head of the noted Trenton Falls, and from thence to Martinsburgh, in Lewis county, was good. . The snow, at no time, during the months of January and - February, exceeded ten inches in the valley of the Mohawk, nor fifteen on the hills, at the distance of four or five miles, but along and within the forest, at the distance of from nine to sixteen or eighteen miles, it was from one foot ten inches to three feet ; and between Trenton Falls and Martinsburgh. in Lewis county, from three to three and a half feet ; at Red- field, in the county of Oswego, twenty-five or thirty miles northwest of Utica, it was still deeper, being about four feet.
On the twenty-fifth of March, the snow was from three to four feet deep in Salisbury, Stratford and Benson.
A thaw, accompained with a heavy rain from the southwest, commenced on the twenty-sixth day of March. This thaw carried off the snow in the open country, and broke up the Mohawk river on the twenty-eighth.
On the eleventh day of April the snow fell six inches deep in the valley of the Mohawk, but the fall, a few miles back, on the high grounds, was much greater. The cold was very sc- vere for the season of the year, so much so, that ice was form- ed two or three inches thick.
The snow, on the twentieth, was two and a-half feet deep in the woods at Salisbury, Stratford and Benson, and the streams and ponds were covered with ice, which had been formed the preceding December.
The snow on the south side of the river, at the distance of six or seven miles, was one foot deep in the woods, on the
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twenty-first day of April ; but there was very little in the fields, and none in the valley.
The months of April and May were very cold, so much so, that vegetation did not commence before June, upwards of a month later than usual ; and it was so tardy after it had com- menced, owing to the cold, that the forest trees along the valley were not perfectly clothed with leaves before the twenty-second.
The cold was so great, during the night of the eighth and ninth of June, as to form ice the eighth of an inch in thickness, in the valley of the Mohawk.
On the ninth it snowed most of the day in the county of Courtland, as we were assured by a person of veracity, who happened to be then in that county, but it melted soon after it had reached the ground. At the same time, the snow fell at Cabot and Montpellier, in the State of Vermont, to the depth of eighteen inches ; and at Williamstown, in the north- western corner of Massachusetts, twelve inches, as was shortly after announced in the newspapers. These places are situated within the Green mountains, and are elevated ; the snow, however, was considerably deeper on those mountains.
The extreme cold, during the months of April, May and June, and the fall of snow, and the formation of ice in the Mohawk country, in the latter month, are unparalled in the annals of the State, and cannot serve as data in making an estimate of the climate and its changes.
In truth, the whole summer of 1816, and the autumnal months of September and October were uncommonly cold, and very dry. In the Mohawk country, the cold was such that the Indian corn did not ripen, a thing altogether unheard of before. Very few fields had a single ear of ripe corn, and for an extent of sixty or seventy miles, enough did not come to maturity for seed the ensuing spring. The frost came be- tween the fifteenth and twentieth of September, when the corn was in the milk, and destroyed it.
We find a similar order of things in other parts of the State. We shall subjoin two extracts from Mr. David Thomas' Travels :-
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" On the shore of Lake Erie, at Buffalo, in 1816, the ice did not disappear till the twentieth day of May. Vegetation was two weeks later than at Cayuga. The elm, the beach and sugar maple had not leaved out. Page 16.
" The influence of the lake, in retarding vegetation in the spring, is rendered strikingly visible. On the 27th of May 1816, the trees were leafless along the shore, but in the thick woods, back of the bluffs, at a short distance, the beaches were green." , Ilid. 25.
. Notwithstanding the coldness of the summer and fall, no snow of consequence fell before the twenty-fourth day of No- vember, on which day it fell about five inches in the valley of the Mohawk, and somewhat deeper on the adjoining hills.
The cold, between the seventh and fourteenth of December, closed the Mohawk and its dependants, with ice; but between the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth of the saine month, they were all broken up by a sudden and violent thaw.
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The Mohawk closed a second time, between the tenth and fourteenth of January 1817. The ice, formed in this short period, was so thick and strong, that wagons, carrying from two to three tons, were drawn over by horses.
The snow, between the 14th of January and the first of March, accumulated to the depth of two feet and a-half in the ', valley of the Mohawk ; three feet on the hills, at the distance of five or six miles ; on the borders of the forest three feet and a-half, and within the forest four feet, as we were assured by some of the inhabitants.
The cold, between the 14th of January and the 16th of Feb- ·ruary, was unusually severe. At one time, as we learned fromn the New-York city papers, East river closed up so, that many persons passed from the city over to Brooklyn. New-York bay, which is eight miles long, and from two to four broad, and agitated by very strong tides, was, literally speaking, covered with loose floating ice, which threatened to combine and be- come fixed.
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At New-York the thermometer was 25 degrees below zero, and 30 at Utica.
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This severe cold lasted but one or two days, and cannot be compared with that of the winter of 1780, 1781, when East river, Hudson's river, and New-York bay, were froze over for forty or fifty days, so strongly that heavy pieces of cannon were transported over the ice to Staten Island.
The month of March, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, in the two preceding months, and the great depth of snow, was mild, the snow dissolved gradually, and the Mo- hawk broke up between the 3d and 6th of April. The fields . were bare, some few places excepted, where the snow had been drifted.
November 19th, the snow fell between one and two inches, between Johnstown and Oppenheim, but along the valley of the Mohawk it melted as soon as it came to the earth.
On the fifth day of December, the valley was covered, for the first time, with snow, and to the depth of two inches.
The Mohawk, between the eleventh and sixteenth, was chain- ed with ice. The snow along the valley, and thence back for several miles, was inconsiderable. During this month the weather was not severe.
On the second day of January 1819, the ground at Albany, was as bare as in summer ; the Hudson, however, was covered with ice, so that carriages passed.
Between the seventeenth and twenty-third, there was a great thaw, accompanied with such heavy falls of rain as to occasion partial breakings up of the Mohawk and Hudson.
We had not one day's sleighing during this month, either in the valley of the Mohawk, or in the open country, lying in its vicinity, nor was there until the twenty-fifth day of February, in the subsequent month. The weather was mild, but very va- riable ; rains were frequent and heavy. They came either from the east or southwest.
Those from the southwest were accompanied with loud thun- der and copious lightning.
On the first day of March, the snow in the valley was about six inches deep, and on the hills, within six or seven miles, from · eight to ten inches.
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The snow increased throughout the month, to such a degree, that on the first day of April, it was two and a-half feet deep in the valley, and from three to three and a-half, and even four, at the distance of from ten to twenty miles on the north side. Between the fourth and seventh, there was a heavy thaw, at- tended with considerable rain, which swelled the Mohawk, and freed it from ice.
The cold returned on the abatement of this thaw, and as the snow remained in large quantities, the sleighing was pretty good along the valley to the eleventh. This cold was followed by a succession of warm days, which lasted till the snow went off, and the ground was settled.
The weather had been so inild, and the heats so considerable, that by the ninth of May, apple trees, and other fruit trees, were in full blossom, an occurrence which had not happened in this part of the country for thirteen years before.
May twenty-fifth, the fields and forest trees were covered with verdant carpets.
The weather, during the fall, in the improved parts of the Mohawk country, was very mild, so much so, that we had not one cold day.
On the seventeenth of October, the snow fell an inch deep in the valley, but went off in twenty-four hours. More fell on the hills. According to the newspapers, the snow fell, on the same day, in the town of Redfield, in the county of Oswego, fifteen inches, and in the counties of Chatauque and Alleghany one foot.
The cold began on the third of December, and was so con- siderable, that by the sixth it closed the Mohawk, but the ice was not sufficiently strong to allow sleighs to pass before the seventeenth.
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On the first day of January 1820, the suow along the valley ' had attained the depth of a foot. It continued to increase to the thirteenth of February, when it was three feet in the valley. Between Trenton Falls and Martinsburgh, it was four feet and upwards, as we were assured by persons who had been out into those parts. On February thirteenth, a violent thaw ensued,
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which carried off the greater part of the snow in the improved lands. The Schoharie creek broke up, and likewise the Mo- hawk, from the mouth of that creek, downwardly.
The weather was mild throughout March, but there were some heavy falls of snow. The Mohawk had broken entirely up by the twenty-eighth.
During April, the weather was regular and mild, occasion- ally hot. The snow went off gradually, and by the heat of the sun, but the fields in the cultivated country were not entirely bare before the twentieth. Although the snow had left the cleared lands, it still remained in large quantities in the forest, overspreading the country around the upper parts of East and West Canada creeks, because those creeks were very much swelled on the twenty-fourth, and were on the rise. The rising of those creeks must have been wholly occasioned by the melt- ing of the snow by the sun, because the sky had been clear for ten days, and no rain had fallen during that time.
The rise was so great, that those streams filled the banks of the river, and produced partial inundations.
The Canada creeks have annually two or more breakings up. The first are confined to their lower parts, seldom extending upwardly over twelve or fifteen miles, and are usually later than the breakings of the Mohawk. The second, or last breaking up, is in their upper parts, bordering and within the forest, and is commonly from three to five, and sometimes six weeks after that of the Mohawk. The first breakings up in West Canada creek, often reach as far as the foot of Trenton Falls, twenty- two miles, and are mostly to be attributed to the country being more cleared than it is along the East Canada creek.
Between the twenty-fourth day of April 1821, and the eighth day of May, in the same year, we witnessed the same occur- rence. The West Canada creek rose and was very high. The rise began about the twentieth of April, and did not reach its achme before the seventh of May.
There was no rain from the tenth of April, to the eighth of May, except some gentle showers, limited in extent and du- ration, and which could have had no agency in raising the stream.
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The Mohawk, above the mouth of West Canada creek, had abated six or seven feet, and still continued to abate every day.
On the seventeenth of April 1822, the West Canada creek commenced rising, and continued to rise to the morning of the nineteenth, when it had reached its maximum. It was higher than we had ever known it before. This rise was likewise occa- sioned by the melting of the snow, in the woody country, above Trenton Falls. The weather, previous thereto, had been set- , tled for about two weeks. The thermometer, on the eighteenth, rose to seventy degrees.
The Mohawk, as usual, above the junction, was low, and was on the decrease.
It would be useless to adduce more examples, because the same happens almost every year, between the sixteenth and twenty-fifth of April, and will until the country, above Trenton Falls, is cleared up to the sources of this creek.
On the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of April 1820, the sugar maple began to put out leaves, and so rapid was vegeta- tion, that by the third of May, apple trees were in blossom. However, from the eleventh to the end of the latter month, the weather was cold. The snow fell so as to cover the ground on the twenty-sixth, a mile or two from the valley of the Mo- hawk : from the newspapers we learned, that the snow fell at the same time in considerable quantities on the Kaatskill and Green mountains. The frost, which came on the twenty-eighth, destroyed most of the fruit, and killed the leaves of the walnut, and some other trees.
The snow, between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of Oc- tober, fell to the depth of four inches in the valley, and six inches at the Osquake, eight miles south of the river. The depth was proportionably deeper back of this. A rain ensued and carried it all off.
. Between the seventh and thirteenth of November, the cold was such, as to shut the Mohawk in many places : on the latter day, there was a fall of six inches of snow in the valley. It came from the northeast. The papers announced, that it fell to the depth of one foot at Poughkipsie, and that the sleighing
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was good throughout the county of Dutchess. There was an- other fall of snow on the twentieth, of three inches.
On the first of December, the Mohawk was entirely shut up, and remained so during the month. Sleighing was pretty good.
The weather, from the thirtieth of December, to the twenty- ninth of January 1821, was very severe, and snow came in abundance.
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Intense cold weather pervaded all the northern and middle states. On the eighth and ninth the snow fell eighteen inches at Philadelphia. The Niagara river closed as far up. as Lewis- town, at the foot of the heights, on the second of January, an occurrence which had not happened for fourteen years before. On the twenty-sixth, New-York bay froze over, and persons passed over on the ice, to Staten Island and Long Island. The ice extended some distance below the narrows. The ice, how- ever, remained but a short time in East river and the bay.
The floating ice, precipitated down the Falls of Niagara, was stopped and accumulated to the heighth of one hundred and twenty-five or thirty feet, and almost filled the chasm be- low those falls.
The weather, during February, was rather mild than severe. . Several thaws.occurred, which swept away most of the snow in the valley of the Mohawk, and those parts near it ; but back towards, and within the forest, it still remained.
March was so mild that the Mohawk had become entirely freed from ice by the twentieth.
April the ninth, the ground throughout the valley of the Mo- hawk was entirely bare, and had been for some time before. On the twelfth, the snow fell at Albany seven or eight inches, at Duanesburgh one foot, and at Charlestown, on the high lands, fifteen inches. A thaw, however, soon carried it away.
May tenth, apple, cherry and plumb trees were in full blos- som. They were several days forwarder west of Oneida creek. We have noticed a marked difference between the country east and west of this creek. And this difference is so striking that we discover it in travelling less than four miles, and that in a fat country.
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. The snow fell on the 25th of November 1821, seven inches in the valley of the Mohawk. This was the first fall, of any moment, in this section of country, although it had fallen to a considerable depth on the Highlands, between the Mohawk and Black rivers.
The Mohawk shut up between the fourteenth and seventeenth of December : sleighs passed on the latter day.
On the nineteenth, the snow between Trenton and Martins- burgh, exceeded three feet in depth.
The snow, on the twentieth, was sufficient to make good sleighing throughout the Mohawk country.
The winter of 1821, 1822, had considerable mildness. The Mohawk was freed from ice by the second of March, and the ground along the valley, and for some miles back, was as bare on the twentieth as if it had been summer.
The snow, on the first of November 1822, fell eight inches deep in the valley, but it was all swept off by a rain that ensued the falling.
The cold weather began on the first, and lasted to the tenth of December. The Mohawk closed in some places. The thaw, between the tenth and eighteenth, released it from ice. The Mohawk was entirely locked up with ice by the thirty-first.
Loaded wagons passed on the first of January 1823.
On the first of April the ground along the Mohawk was mostly covered with snow, but it had disappeared by the twelfth.
The winter cold began December fifth, and by the sixteenth, the snow along the valley, had attained the depth of ten inches.
The Mohawk shut up. The stages from the city of Albany, arrived at Utica on runners, before four o'clock in the after- noon, a distance of ninety-four miles. The weather was not scvere. A succession of gentle thaws, gentle rains, and gentle freezings, covered the Mohawk country with ice. The whole was a glade, and continued so for fifteen days. The like bad never been known before.
"A thaw, between the ninth and twelfth of January, broke up the Mohawk, and the lower part of West Canada creek.
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