Search
  
 
  1682 Strange Appearance1716-1717 Winter  
THE list of dark days in New England must begin with that of Sunday, October 21, 1716. The people were gathered in their respective houses of worship, when about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the outlines of things about them lost their distinctness. It soon became so dark that the members of the congregations could not recognize each other across the small meeting houses of those days, and shortly after the forms of the people could not be seen except by looking at them toward a window. A writer says that "one could not recognize another four seats away, nor read a word in a psalm book." Some ministers sent to the neighboring houses for candles, unwilling that anything of this kind, preternatural though it might be, should interrupt the services. Others, believing it would soon pass away, sat down and waited. Some were ready to believe that the darkness of the last day was settling like a pall over nature before its dissolution. In fact, all people were in a state of more or less excitement.

The darkness continued about half an hour, and when it grew light enough the waiting clergymen rose and finished the services. The people gathered at the close of the meeting, and discussed the probable cause and meaning of what seemed to be a supernatural occurrence. The air had been more or less murky for several days, being, as a writer of that time said, "very full of smoke." It descended near the earth constantly, when the wind was from the southwest. On this Sunday dark clouds of smoke had passed over; and it was thought that the wind, which had changed to the eastward, had brought the smoke back again in a dense body, thus darkening the land. That was the explanation accepted at the time by many of the people, while others believed to the end of their lives that it could not be explained. Mather deemed the occurrence of sufficient importance to send an account of it to the Royal Philosophical Society in England, who soon after published it in its Transactions. This dark day was probably surpassed only by the famous May day of 1780, of which have very full accounts. When we consider how much more superstitious the people were seventy years before, we can in some degree imagine their thoughts and feelings. Darkness always produce peculiar feeling, probably from its dampness, and the mystery which seems to be involved in it. Unnatural darkness, or what seems to be such, certainly produces a wierd and gloomy feeling, which would turn a superstitious mind into channels of fear and alarm.

Source: Historic Storms of New England by Sidney Perley, 1891
Comments (0)Don't be shy, tell us what you think!   →
Colonial Sense is an advocate for global consumer privacy rights, protection and security.
All material on this website © copyright 2009-26 by Colonial Sense, except where otherwise indicated.
ref:T5-S3-P508-C211-M