64. A Hard Winter
BY THOMAS JONES (1779)
THE winter of 1779 was the severest ever known in the middle
colonies. It may not be amiss to take some notice of it. The snow began
to fall about the loth of November, and continued almost every day till
the middle of the ensuing March. In the woods it lay at least four feet
upon a level.
It was with the utmost difficulty that the farmers got their
wood, and all the wood upon New York Island was cut down. The
forest trees planted in gardens, in court-yards, in avenues, along lanes,
and about the houses of gentlemen by way of ornament, shared the
same fate. Quantities of apple trees, peach trees, plum trees, cherry
trees, and pear trees were also cut down. The situation of the army and
inhabitants in this distressful season was a sufficient justification for
the proceeding; necessity required it.
This winter was intensely cold; the rivers, creeks, harbors,
ports, and brooks were all frozen up. The bay of New York, and from
thence up the North River to Albany, was mere terra
firma.[172] It was equally so in the East
River for a long way up the Sound. It was so strong that deserters went
upon the ice to Connecticut from Lloyd's Neck, upon Long Island, the
distance more than twelve miles. The Sound at New Haven, which is
thirty miles from Long Island, was frozen over, about two miles in the
middle excepted, and these two miles were congealed and filled with
particles of ice.
From New York to Staten Island the distance is about ten
miles. From Long Island to New Jersey the bay is about six miles wide.
The tide from Sandy
Hook to New York, through the Narrows and the bay, is violently
rapid. No man living ever before saw this bay frozen up. Yet so intense
was the cold this winter, and the bay so hard frozen, that two hundred
sleighs laden with provisions, with two horses to each, escorted by two
hundred Light Horse, passed upon the ice from New York to Staten
Island in a body.
In many places large quantities of water-fowl were picked up
by the inhabitants, so frozen as not to be able to take wing. A very
remarkable story, if true, was told. I do not aver it as a fact; the report
was current, and as the man bore a good character, it was generally
believed. He was a substantial farmer upon Staten Island, his name
Goosen Adriance. The case was this: He went out in the morning upon
his farm, which adjoins the water, and going along the shore he
observed a parcel of ducks sitting erect and in their proper posture. Not
moving as he approached, it surprised him. He walked up to them,
found them stiff, and, as he supposed, perfectly dead.
He carried them home, threw them down upon the table in his
kitchen, where a large wood fire was burning, and went into the next
room to breakfast with his family. Scarcely was the breakfast over
when a great noise and fluttering was heard in the kitchen. Upon
opening the door, how great the surprise! The supposed dead ducks
were all flying about the room.
A gentleman who had been a prisoner in Connecticut, and
returned from thence the very last of April, said that the snow on the
north side of the fences, from Middletown to New Haven, was more
than a foot deep. This was never known in that part of
America before, at least after the English settled there. The harbors,
rivers, and waters about New York were frozen up. Not a ship could
move.
Had the rebels[173] thought of
an attack, now was their time. The ice was strong, hard, and firm. The
Continental army, with their heaviest artillery, stores, provisions, and
baggage, might have passed the Hudson with as much ease as they
could have marched the same distance upon dry land.
[[173]]
Rebels, i.e. the patriot Americans.