Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1895 — We Had Cold Weather Then. [ARTICLE]

We Had Cold Weather Then.

“Thirty-five degrees below zero! Great Scott!! The above is a reprint of an item in The Republican of Jan .25 1885. It referred to the weather of the night previous, which was, undoubtedly, the coldest ever experienced here by white men. Some thermometers in-indicated-38 below,and even 40. AtMonticello, a government weather bureau thermometer indicated about 30 below. The winter of 1884-1885, just ten years ago, was indeed a terror. As early as Dec. 14, the temperature reached 25 below zero. Time and again it was 20 below. The snow fall was immense, and the roads and lanes were drifted to the fence tops. In town, for weeks together, the sidewalks were abandoned, and- the only pathway was in the_iftiddle_ol_the streets. Oh Sunday, Feb. 22, 1885, the first freight train for nearly three weeks, pissed Rensselaer. On the ’night of Feb., 18th'the first mail train for five days, got through. The snowing up of the railroads for three or four days at a stretch was a common occurence. Last Wednesday the Inter Ocean published a record of all the cold winters since that of 1855- ’56, up to thejpreseat, kept by N S. Young, of Batavia, 111. There are 15 hard winters described in this record, and the figures for 1884-85, far surpass ' all the others. The thermometer was below zero 33 days. The greatest number of such days in any other winter was 29. The lowest ! temperature recorded by Mr. Young, for ’B4 ’BS, was 32 below. Lowest of any other winter, 28 below, and the winters preceding and following this hard one, were the only ones so low as 28 below. The aggregate number of degrees below zero was 438. The only other winter that came anywhere near that figure, was that of 1855-’56, when it was 324. The third in that list was 1874-175 with an aggregate below zero of 254 degrees. The worst single cold spell ever recorded in this country was that beginning Jan. 1, 1864, with continuous zero weather for 11 days ushered in by the famous “cold New Years.”