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The first settlers were ill equiped with shelter, food, fuel and clothing. Had the " Mayflower " landed the Pilgrims in June instead of November so many deaths the first winter would not have occurred. During the three and one half centuries since the first settlers arrived in Chelsea, we have had the extremes of heat and cold. We have experienced periods of heavy rain and snow, and in the violence of wind, electricity and hail. Many startling occurrences with sometimes destructive results. We have had storms and events talked about for decades. All generations of Chelsea's Pratt family and others recorded some of these early weather events and unusual occurances of nature. Presented here are excerpts from those records and from various newspaper accounts. |
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1630 |
December 26, 1630: The rivers were frozen up, and they of Charlton could not come to the sermon at Boston till the afternoon at high water. |
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1634 |
At the end of January, three men had their boat frozen up at Bird Island as they were coming from Deer Island. They were compelled to spend the night. In the morning they came to Noddles's Island and then to Molten's Point in Charlestown and then over the ice to Mr. Hoffe's in Boston. At the same time, six others were kept a week at the Governor's Garden. During all this time there was no open place between the Garden and Boston, neither was there a break in the ice, nor was there any passage to Charlestown for two or three days. The wind was from the northwest with much snow and extreme cold for three weeks. February: About the middle of this month, a proper young man, a servant to Mr. Bellingham, passing over the ice to Winnisimmet, fell in and was drowned. Others fell in, in that and other places, but by God's providence, were saved. |
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1637 - 1638 |
The snow at Rumney Marsh and Lynn continued on the ground from the
16th of November |
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1642 |
The winter was exceedingly cold, with deep snow and Boston harbor was frozen in places making it possible for teams of horses to pass over it for five weeks. The Indians said it was the coldest winter in fifty years. |
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1680 |
The Charles River is frozen over to Noddle's Island. Extremely cold. |
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1686 |
January 24, 1686, Friday night and Saturday, the harbor is frozen up to the Castle. This day is so cold that the sacramental bread is frozen pretty hard and rattles sadly as it is broken into the plates. February 1, 1686. In the afternoon a great cake of ice came from Cambridge and jostled away the body of ice that lay between the outward wharfs and Noddles island. Now our harbour is open again. February 13, 1686, Saturday pretty well clear our docks of ice by a passage cut open. Shut up seven weeks. |
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1687 |
January 28, 1687, Mr. Moodey and I go to visit Mr. Morton at Charlestown, went on the ice from Broughton's Warehouse. I came home upon a straight line from his house to Boston. February 3, 1687, Spring tides shake the ice and carries away part, near night it suddenly breaks away to the outward wharfs more suddenly than hath usually been known. |
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1717 |
In this year occurred the greatest fall of snow ever recorded in New England. It started on the 20th of February and lasted four days and nights. Old Indians said their fathers had never told them of such a snow. It was many days before the County Road to the ferry could be made passable. In Prattville the small buildings were completely covered, and tunnels were dug under the snow to the barns, so the cattle could be fed. Some farms lost their sheep; and in some instances sheep and swine, which were saved, lived for days without food. Deer and other wild animals came out of the woods for food. This storm became a tradition all over New England, and old people in relating a story dated events by so many years before or after this great storm. Governor Winthrop's report says: "We lost at the farms 1100 sheep, besides some horses and cattle. It was very strange that twenty-eight days after the storm, the people of Fisher's Island, in digging out the remains of a hundred sheep, found two alive. They had kept themselves alive by feeding upon the wool of the others." |
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1741 |
The winter of 1741 was the coldest ever known. The quantity of snow was moderate and travelling was less interrupted than usual by drifts. Francis Lewis drove his horse the length of Long Island Sound on the ice to Massachusetts. The Boston Post Boy of January 12,1741, said: "For three weeks we have had a continued series of extreme cold weather, so that our harbors and rivers are entirely frozen up. On the Charles River a tent has been erected for the entertainment of travelers. From Point Allerton along the South Shore the ice is uninterrupted for more than twenty miles." Governor Belcher, writing to the Lords of Trade on January 14, 1741, says: "I should sooner have written your Lordships on all these heads but that the severe season for some weeks past has made a land of ice from this town into the ocean and blocked up all the shipping." The Boston News Letter of March 26 (same year) said: "We hear that great numbers of cattle and sheep famnishing for want of food. Three hundred have died on Slocum's Island, and 3000 on Nantucket. Some farmers offer half their cattle for the support of the rest till the last of May, but in vain." On April 2 the same paper said: "People from Thompson's Island, Squantum and the adjacent neighborhood, have come fifteen Sabbaths successively upon the ice to a meeting at Dorchester." |
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1749 |
The drought of the summer of 1749 was severe. There was very little rain from the sixth of May until the last of July. Extreme hot, dry weather so scorched the pastures that animals could barely live. Immense multitudes of grasshoppers appeared in some localities. They were so thick on Nahant that the inhabitants, forming a line, marched with bushes in their hands, and drove them in vast numbers into the sea. |
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1765 - 1780 |
Boston Harbour was closed by ice on January 1, 1765; December 21, 1767; February 9, 1769; January 23, 1774 and in 1780, 1844, 1856 and 1857. Many people went on foot to their business in Boston from Chelsea, crossing at the point of the ferry. |
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1780 |
Samuel Breck (Recollections of Samuel Breck) writes, "The winter of 1780 was colder than any that has occurred since. I was then a scholar at Chelsea, and perfectly well remember being driven by my father's coachman, in a sleigh with two horses, on the ice directly across the bay of Boston, starting from the north part of the town, and keeping for many miles on the ice, which we left to trasverse farms, without being stopped by the stone fences, which were all covered with snow."
The 19th of May 1780 was the celebrated dark day all over New
England. At midday it was so dark that people could not see to read
or eat without lighted candles. It began at ten in the morning, at
eleven it was so dark that fowls retired to their roosts and the
cattle collected about the barns as at night. The darkness continued
until the next morning. It was afterwards |
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1806 |
On Monday, the sixteenth of June,1806 the residents of Chelsea witnessed a total eclipse of the sun near midday. It commenced a few minutes after ten and continued about two and a half hours. The sun rose clear and the morning was unusually pleasant. As the eclipse advanced the air became cool, like the approach of evening. The birds at first flew about in astonishment, and as the stars appeared, retired to their roosts. The shadow of the moon traveled across the earth from west to east, and at the moment when the last ray of the sun was intercepted, all things around appeared to waver, as if the earth was falling from its orbit. It was a scene of unparalled interest and grandeur. Some of the more impressionable fainted, and many took hold of objects near them for support. The total darkness lasted for about three minutes. |
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1810 |
The 19th of January 1810 was a memorable day to Daniel Pratt. The
temperature dropped from 47 above zero at sunset to twelve below in
eight hours. It was accompanied by a violent piercing wind which
destroyed trees and overturned buildings, and some of his cattle were
frozen. Many wild animals perished and travelers and stage drivers
received earmarks which they wore |
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1816 |
THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER On April 5th 1815, a massive volcanic explosion occurred, causing global climate changes for more than a year after the event. Mount Tambora, located on the island of Sumbawa in southern Indonesia, violently erupted, and instantly killed about 15,000 people. Another 65,000 people died soon after of disease or starvation. Many tons of ash and debris were thrown up into the stratosphere, which blocked sunlight and slowly lowered the temperature globally. 1816 became known as The Year Without a Summer in Chelsea and in the Northeast. On June 6th and 7th 1816, a significant snowstorm hit northern New York and New England, with several localities recording 6 inches of snow. It is believed that on June 7th snow flurries occurred in Chelsea, which is likely the latest seasonal instance of snowfall in Chelsea history. In July and August, the unprecedented cold weather pattern continued, with temperatures dropping to 40 degrees Fahrenheit on certain days as far south as Connecticut. The average temperature reduction for the entire summer was about 3-5 degrees. The impact of the Mount Tambora explosion was far reaching. In New England alone, the event caused a large drop in crop yields for 1816, and has been attributed as a cause for the historic migration of many farmers from the Northeast to the Midwest in the 1820s. |
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1833 |
Near the close of 1833, in November, a phenomenon occurred never
before witnessed in this country. Soon after midnight on the morning
of the 13th meteors were noticed to be unusually frequent. At four
o'clock the heavens presented an extraordinary and sublime aspect.
Small meteors of surprising brilliancy, as numerous as the stars,
were seen flying from the zenith in all directions, through a clear,
unclouded sky, leaving luminous trails behind. Often one larger and
more brilliant than the rest would shoot across the heavens, causing
a light similar to a flash of lightning. In whatever direction the
eye was turned the scene could be compared to a shower of burning
stars falling to the earth. Thousands of people scattered over North
America, from Nova |
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1851 |
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1861 |
On February 8, 1861, Caleb Pratt writes in his memorandum book: "Very cold, the mercury fell in less than 20 hours 65 degrees. At three o'clock yesterday it was 48 above zero, and this morning at seven it was 20 below." |
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1862 |
March 8, 1862, Pratt writes that it is the fifty-third day of good sleighing. |
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1869 |
On 8 September 1869 occurred the Great Gale. At half-past four a heavy wind with rain blew up from the south and did much damage, increasing in violence till about seven. Everything was shaken thoroughly and devastation followed. When the hurricane was at its height, so Henry Mason, Sr., of the Telegraph and Pioneer records, he saw the roof of the four-story brick block on Beacon street, near the ferry, taken up bodily to the height of one hundred feet, where it swayed like a balloon for a minute, collapsed and then fell on the small brick block opposite, on the same street, causing much destruction of property. The people vacated their homes and fled for their lives. Chimneys fell in all directions, and trees were laid level with the earth. The upper part of Ballard block on Park Street was carried away and deposited upon the vestry of the Broadway Church, smashing in the roof and endangering the life of Mr. Tenney, the sexton. The steeple of the Baptist Church oscillated fearfully, and that of the Universalist suffered a sprain or twist which has spoiled its equilibrium. The roof of a fine new building on Beacon Street, Boston, was blown off and carried away so that it could not be found. The Boston coliseum became a ruin. The hurricane finished the question, " What shall we do with it? " The roof was blown in, covering up and destroying the organ. |
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1869 |
20 October 1869 the visitation of an earthquake was very perceptible in Chelsea as in other places. About eleven in the morning the walls of the houses began to tremble, being shaken by the vibrations of the earth. All inanimate things were in motion. The shock lasted from one to two minutes and came from north and south. In the Pioneer printing office the employees were much alarmed; the cases moved violently, the iron presses swayed from their moorings, so that all who were inside ran out fearing the building would colapse. Bells in houses on Chestnut Street rang, and several schoolhouses were shaken more or less |
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1888 |
Chelsea was burried under the deepest snow ever recorded during the Blizzard of March 11th through March 14th, 1888. This storm brought death and destruction from Maine to Virginia. More than 400 died. Some suffocated in the fine snow or froze in the streets in temperatures as cold as 40 below zero. Winds gusting at 70 miles per hour piled up drifts 30 feet deep. |
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1909 |
On December 26, 1909 a tidal wave hit Boston and Chelsea. Under a full moon a sixteen foot tidal wave flooded much of Chelsea. This event was known as the Great Chelsea Flood. Close to the Everett line on Locust Street a man and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Harkins, were trapped in their home by the flood and drowned. See article on Chelsea Flood. |
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1936 |
Chelsea suffered in mid-March of 1936 from flooding brought on by days of heavy rain and thawing. Throughout New England, loss of life was small, but damage estimated in excess of $100 million made the floods the costliest weather disaster up to that time. |
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1937 |
On Friday evening, July 9, 1937 a fierce electrical storm came through Chelsea striking four homes with lightning and unleashing marble sized hailstones that smashed windows. Trees were uprooted, flag poles were toppled, and the streets were turned into rivers. |
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1938 |
The Hurricane of 1938 struck Chelsea almost without warning and with unprecedented force on the afternoon of September 21. In all of New England at least 494 were killed, 10 in Boston, and nearly 2000 injured. Winds exceeded 100 miles per hour. The storm roared through Chelsea in about five hours at a speed of 50 miles per hour. The greatest damage and loss of life was caused by the tidal surge along the coast. Flooding was especially severe. Many trees were uprooted and buildings damaged. |
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1950 |
On November 25, 1950, 100 mile an hour winds blew through the city, scattering litter and smashing store fronts. |
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1955 |
On August 17-19 Hurricane Diane hit Chelsea and all of New England. Hurricane Diane caused comparatively little damage as a windstorm, but as a rainstorm she was a record breaker and brought the worst flooding ever experienced in Chelsea. The area had been saturated less than a week earlier by the rains of Hurricane Connie. The Hurricane hit Chelsea with a sneak punch. Residents went to bed with a forecast of showers. They woke to over 15 inches of rain and floods. |
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1978 |
It was 5 a.m. on Sunday, February 5, 1978. The message from the National Weather Service at Logan Airport stated "Snow was expected to spread into the region tonight and continue on Monday....Increasing northeasterly winds tonight and on Monday may cause considerable blowing and drifting....A substantial snowfall may come from it." Something was brewing, something big. Just how bad that something would be, however, no one could know that sunny, quiet Sunday in February. Early Monday, the snow began to fall and grow in force. By a tragic coincidence, the storm became stalled over Massachusetts just as it had reached its peak intensity, trapped by a ridge of cold polar air to the north. The winds and the seas were to converge in a combined assault that was to wreak havoc in Chelsea and the Massachusetts coastline. Additionally, there was a full moon. The earth, the sun and the moon had moved into relative positions creating their strongest pull on the tides. To the people of Chelsea, this monster only became visible as its Sunday punch hit them on Monday afternoon. For 32 hours and 40 minutes the wind driven snow would fall creating a record depth of 27.1 inches with a record 24 hour snowfall of 23.6 inches. Wind gusts were recorded at 69 miles per hour with tides more than 16 feet above normal. This storm claimed 54 lives in New England including 29 in Massachusetts. The area was declared a state of emergency. |
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And so it went, year in and year out, hardly a day without some reference to the weather being recorded. The condition of the atmosphere-the constantly changing weather - is a theme that still forms a large part of our daily conversations, as it has from the time Noah hurried into the ark.