Wild Animals, Fish, Etc., Of Delaware County.

On the 17th of March, 1760, the Gazette informs us, occurred "the greatest fall of snow ever known since the settlement." The roads in every direction were closed. The majority of the members of the Assembly were unable to get to Philadelphia, the snow, it is recorded, being in some places seven feet deep. Dec. 31, 1764, the river was frozen over in a night, and in 1770 the river closed on December 18th, and remained so until Jan. 18, 1771.

Capt. John Heinricks, of the Hessian Yager Corps, in his letter from Philadelphia in the early part of the year 1778, states, in reference to our climate and seasons, "The cold in winter and the heat in summer is quite moderate, but the thunder-storms in summer and the damp reeking air in spring and autumn are unendurable. In summer mists fall and wet everything, and then in the afternoon there is a thunderstorm. And in winter, when the trees are frosted in the morning it rains in the afternoon. Such phenomena are common here."¹

This officer of one of the crack regiments of the mercenary troops, in his comfortable quarters on the Schuylkill, might thus complacently write of the moderate cold of that winter, but the ill clad and ill fed Continental troops at Valley Forge, as they clustered about the camp-fires, record a different impression of the weather, although Capt. John Montressor of the British army, states in his diary, under date of March 14, 1778, "Weather very warm for the season; Layloche and Gooseberry leaves starting," while on the 17th of the same month he mentions, "Fine weather; frogs croaking in swamps, indicating spring."²

The summer of 1778 was intensely warm, while the winter of 1779-80 was bitterly cold, the Delaware remaining for three months closed. At Philadelphia an ox was roasted on the river, and the ground was frozen to the depth of five feet.

The strength of the ice can be imagined when we remember that that winter the British army crossed from New York to Paulus Hook, drawing their cannon and wagons as on the solid earth. The winter of 1784 was very cold, and on Feb. 6, 1788, the thermometer registered three degrees below zero. The midsummer of 1789 was very warm, but in August the weather was so cool that fires had to be lighted in houses for the comfort of the inmates. Jan. 2, 1790, the air and water were so warm that boys bathed in the river, while in the following winter the thermometer was five degrees below zero.

The winter of 1801-2 was milder than any which had preceded it since 1700, which it very much resembled, and Watson records that shad were in market on the 17th of February, 1802, while the early winter of 1805 was so mild that farmers plowed their land until within a few days of Christmas, but the new year ushered in intensely cold weather, while February of 1807 was extremely cold, extending even to the Southern Gulf States. On the 19th of February, 1810, the mercury at eight o'clock in the morning registered seven degrees below zero. The year 1816 is known as "the year without a summer," and it was equally remarkable in that respect in Europe as on this continent. Frost and snow were common in every month of the year. June was the coldest ever known in this latitude. Snow fell in Vermont to the depth of ten inches; in Maine, seven; in Massachusetts and Central New York, three inches. Fruit and vegetation was scarce and did not fully mature.

On the 20th of July, 1824. a noticeable storm of rain and hail is recorded as having occurred at Chester. Jan. 19, 1827, the Delaware was frozen over at Chester, and up to that date that winter no snow had fallen, nor did it snow until some time after the river had closed. The winter of 1824 was so mild that on the 9th of February a shad was caught at Bombay Hook.

On Friday evening, Jun. 12, 1831, one of the most severe snow-falls on record in this vicinity occurred. The storm continued all of the next day. The result was that the mail and stages were much impeded for three days on the roads from Philadelphia to Wilmington, but the cross-roads leading westward from the river were blocked with snow nearly to the tops of the fences, and in that condition was almost every road in the county. On Monday, Jan. 15, 1831, court began in Chester, and the juries and witnesses found their way across the fields, a few on horseback, but mostly on foot. The president judge did not arrive, and on Wednesday the associate judges, who transacted some business, adjourned the court.³ During the winter of 1833-34 the river was closed, and Theodoric and Hamilton Porter drove a pair of horses in a sleigh from Chester to the navy-yard, Philadelphia, on the ice, and returned in the same manner. On May 7, 1846, the snow fell for two days, blocking up the roads so that access to Chester by the highways was interrupted for several days. Trains on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad could not run for two days because of the great drifts, and during that time no mail passed north or south over that road.

The year 1838, Dr. Smith records, "was remarkable on account of a great drought that prevailed throughout a large extent of country, embracing Delaware County. From about the 1st of July till nearly the 1st of October, no rain fell except a few very slight showers. The earth became parched and vegetation dried up. All the later crops failed, and, what added greatly to the injurious effects of the drought, myriads of grasshoppers inade their appearance and vora-