What follows appeared in the March 26, 1896 edition of the RANGELEY LAKES newspaper. It shares the cataclysmic year-long weather phenomenon known as the “Year without a Summer”. This was caused by the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora which, at the time, was a 13,000 foot volcano located in present day Indonesia. The eruption killed an estimated 90,000 people within a 1,000 mile radius and spewed millions of tons of ash into the earth’s atmosphere. Global average temperatures plummeted as a result and regional agriculture was rendered virtually fruitless as the article shares. The toll on birds and wildlife must have been significant as well. The Rangeley Lakes article below was published 81 years later, and shares no theories as to what caused this hellish year of suffering and hunger. The total number of lives lost due to starvation and diseases as a result will never be known.
(All text reprinted just as it appeared in 1896. Contemporary commentary printed in italics)

A Year Without A Summer

Talking of extraordinary and unseasonable weather, the following is an extract from a newspaper of the year 1816, and may be interesting: January was mild, so much so as to render fires almost needless in sitting rooms. December, the month immediately preceding this, was very cold. February was not cold; with the exception of a few days it was mild, and same as January. March was cold and boisterous the first half of it, the remainder of it was mild; a great freshet on the Ohio and Kentucky rivers caused great loss of property. April began warm and grew colder as the month advanced, and ended with snow and ice, with a temperature more like winter than spring. May was more remarkable for frowns than for smiles; buds were frozen; ice formed half an inch in thickness; corn was killed, and the fields were again and again replanted until deemed too late. June was the coldest ever known in this latitude; frost, ice and snow were common; snow several inches often. Almost every green herb was killed, fruit nearly all destroyed; snow fell to the depth of ten inches in Vermont, and also in Maine and three inches in the State of New York and in Massachusetts. July was accompanied by frost and ice on the 4th. Ice formed throughout New England, New York and Pennsylvania; Indian corn killed; this was true of some of the hill farms of Massachusetts. August was more cheerless, if possible, than the summer months already passed; ice was formed half an inch thick; Indian corn was so frozen that the greater part of it was cut down for fodder; almost everything green was destroyed, both in this country and Europe. Papers received from England said, it will be remembered by the present generation that the year 1816 was a year in which there was no summer. Farmers supplied themselves from corn produced in 1815 for seed in the spring of 1817. It sold for four to five dollars a bushel. September gave two weeks of the mildest weather of the year, but soon after the middle it became cold and frosty, ice forming a quarter of an inch in thickness. October produced more than its usual share of frost, cold and ice. November came in cold and blustering; snow fell and good sleighing.  December was mild and pleasant. Thus the summer of 1816 was noted for its frosts every month of the year. The sun’s rays seemed destitute of heat, through the summer; all nature was clad in a sable hue, and people exhibited no little anxiety concerning the future of this life. If the remainder of the year follows as closely as this much of ’96 has, we’ll have two “years without summer.”

Evidently there were some complaints about a bad winter back in 1896 as well, but nothing even close to the hardships and cold have occured since. They say that Krakatoa, which produced the largest sound ever heard on earth (10% of the earth’s surface experienced it), is due to explode in an eruption again. Glad I have a root cellar and I might build a small greenhouse! Have a good week everyone and enjoy some spring weather.