Amherst and the Great Blizzard of 1888

Downtown Springfield, MA, Blizzard of 1888

Today is the anniversary of The Great Blizzard of 1888, which started on March 11 and continued through March 14.  Three to five feet of snow fell across a wide swath of the northeast, from New Jersey to Massachusetts (and somewhat less to our north), and intense sustained winds (in excess of 45 mph) left snowdrifts as much as 50 feet deep. The snowdrifts actually topped roofs across New England, with reports of drifts covering three-story houses. It was the worst snowstorm ever recorded in the region up until that point. Indeed, in most areas around here, The Blizzard of 1888 still holds that “worst ever” record.

And if you think three days of snow was nothing compared with Snowtober 2011 or what we’ve had to endure this winter, think again. Weather forecasting was primitive; there was no National Weather Service and no technology to signal what was to come (and for sure no cell phones). In fact, when residents awoke on Sunday, March 11 to a mild 50 degree day, the forecast was for slightly warmer temperatures and fair weather, followed by rain.  There was no mention of an extreme drop in temperature, or a substantial snowfall.

Snow began falling lightly on Sunday evening, and continued through Monday and Tuesday. Towards the end of the storm, on March 13, a fire that started at Amherst’s Palmer Block destroyed Austin Dickinson’s law office and many old town records housed within. (Incidentally, Palmer Block was situated where the current Amherst Town Hall stands.) This is how the entire 1888 blizzard scene in Amherst is described in the 1896 publication, The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, Volume 1, written and self-published by Edward Wilton Carpenter and Charles Frederick Moorhouse.

New England’s great and only blizzard began on March 11, 1888 and continued through two nights and one day. In Amherst, snow began to fall lightly on Sunday evening, continuing through the night and Monday morning with increasing vigor. By Monday noon the wind was blowing a gale and the air was filled with sharp ice crystals that cut into the flesh of those who were exposed to the fury of the storm. As night drew on the storm increased in violence and nearly every road in town was rendered impassable for teams. The mingled snow and ice was piled by the wind in drifts reaching in many cases to the second-story windows of dwelling-houses. During the night, while the storm yet raged, an alarm of fire was given and in less than an hour Palmer’s block and the “Cooper house” were in ashes. Snow was banked about the engine-house so that it was impossible to open the doors, but the hose was dragged out through the windows and an attempt made to stay the flames, but this was impossible. The storm continued through the night and, the following morning, residents of Amherst “looked upon the world unknown.” The whole outline of the landscape had been changed in a day and night. Teams were at once set at work breaking out the highways but full communication was not established between the central village and the outlying districts until late on Wednesday afternoon. Some drifts at East Amherst measured over twenty feet in depth. Travel on both railway lines passing through Amherst was suspended from Monday noon until Wednesday night. A passenger train on the New London Northern road was stalled near the Amherst depot, while on the Massachusetts Central road an engine was wracked while trying to force its way through the snowdrifts in the “cut” to the west of the station. No mails and no daily papers were received in Amherst for two days. Telegraph wires were down, and news of the fire in Palmer’s block reached the New York papers by way of long-distance telephone from Northampton to Boston, and then by cable via London, England, to New York. Milkmen were unable to cover their routes, and the supply of fresh meat in town was nearly exhausted ere the blockade was broken. The expense of opening the highways for travel was more than $1,000. Many persons attempting to reach their homes from their places of business Monday evening, had narrow escapes from death by exposure or exhaustion. There were no fatal accidents caused in the town by the blizzard, but many persons were rendered ill by exposure.