AN UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENON.
By D. T. Taylor
Or, the Darkness over New England in 1780. “’Twas on a May day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness like the night
In day of which the Norland sages tell—
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
The crater’s sides from the red hell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable law.” —Whittier. On the 19th day of May, 1780, the inhabitants of New England and the adjacent parts were the trembling witnesses of an event in nature which has never been fully described nor analyzed. We refer to the wide-spread and mysterious withdrawal of the natural sunlight, which so startled our ancestors and covered the land with gloom on that memorable occasion; a phenomenon in its kind never experienced before nor since in the country, and which, while religion attempted to account for it as a fulfilled prophecy, yet science has not unfolded its quality nor discovered its cause. Ninety-one years have passed away since the extraordinary darkness transpired; the living witnesses are getting to be few, but still our sources of information concerning all the features of the day and night are ample, and before us as we write are over forty different testimonies relating to the scene we seek exhaustively to depict. They are mainly from persons who saw what they describe, and embrace evidence from historical collections, histories of States and towns, histories of the Revolution, journals of Legislatures, newspapers of the day, sermons of the ministry, personal memoirs, memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Professors in colleges, poets, philosophers, physicians, scientists and savans; among them Noah Webster, LL. D., who wrote, “I stood and viewed the phenomenon, for which no satisfactory cause has been assigned.” The year we have named was celebrated for its numerous auroral exhibitions in this latitude. They covered the midnight heavens with coruscations of red and silver, and streamed out like lightning, seeming, says one writer, fairly to flash warmth in the face. A single sun spot over 50,000 miles in diameter was seen with the naked eye by Wm. Herschel the previous year, and in 1780 others were visible and recorded by Lelande. The winter preceding May was marked by extraordinary severity. Snow lay on the ground from the middle of November to the middle of April four feet deep everywhere. In December and January, a snow storm continued seven successive days, and the snow fell to the depth of four feet on a level in this single storm, with drifts eight and ten feet high. Sheep were buried in the drifts for many days, and even men and animals perished with cold. Long Island Sound was crossed by heavy artillery on the ice.
Narragansett Bay froze over so hard that men traversed the ice from Providence to Newport in skating parties, and from Fall River to Newport, loads of wood were conveyed on the ice through Bristol Ferry. The journal of the House of Representatives of Connecticut records it as “the severest hard winter within the memory of man,” followed by “the most backward spring recollected by aged and observing citizens.” War, too, added its rigors to the dreary aspect of nature.
The month of May was dry and cold. Previous to the 19th, a vapor filled the air for several days. There was a smell of sulphur in the air, and on the day of the great darkness, Etna discharged lava from a new mouth, and the eruption was accompanied with violent earthquakes in Southern Italy. The morning of the 19th was overcast with some clouds, and rain fell over the country, with lightning and thunder. The sun on rising shone not with its accustomed clearness. Its face seemed veiled, and the aspect somewhat lurid. Scarcely any motion was in the air; what there was of wind came from the south-west; vanes were not stirred, and sails and flags hung idle. By nine o’clock in the forenoon, without previous warning, the darkness stole gradually on, with a luminous appearance near the horizon, as if the obscuring cloud had dropped down from overhead. There was yellowness of the atmosphere that made clear silver assume a grass green hue. Then a dense, undefinable vapor settled rapidly and without aerial movement over all the land and ocean from Pennsylvania to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the darkness it caused increasing by degrees until the sunlight was effectually shut out. Ordinary cloud it was not. The rapidity with which so large an extent of country was enveloped, precludes the possibility of supposing this to have been a natural cloud moving laterally. Besides this, the day was too calm to imagine such a thing. Down came the darkness, thicker and thicker. By ten o’clock, the air was loaded with a heavy gloom. The heavens were tinged with a yellowish or faint red; the lurid look increased; few, if any, ordinary clouds were visible. The sun, in disappearing, took on a brassy hue. The lurid, brassy color spread everywhere, above and below. The grass assumed the color of the sky, and all outdoors wore a sickly, weird and melancholy aspect, a dusky appearance as if seen through a smoked glass. Nature donned a frightful look. No one had seen the like before, and the hearts of thousands grew faint with fear. So low was the overhanging vapor that it appeared to rest upon the very earth, and the hills in some places could not be seen at the distance of only half a mile. Especially was this true at Pepperell and Groton in Massachusetts. By eleven o’clock it was as night itself, and from this time until three in the afternoon, the darkness was truly extraordinary and frightful. Some reported that the sun’s disk could be seen dimly through the murky gloom at the period of the deepest darkness, but this seems hardly probable. At sea, the air was thick and had an unusual smell and a most unnatural appearance. Generally there was a sooty smell prevalent, and in a few places some drops of rain fell. Dr. Tenney, with a philosophic eye to turn the sable curtain into gold, wrote that all nature wore a resplendent and beautiful tint, the earth and trees appearing as if adorned with an enchanting glow! Mr. Temple of Boston saw things in somber color, and in a letter to friends in England, described the scene as if a veil was drawn over all things, which he seemed to look through and see the heaven beyond it; while at Newburyport, a pious woman wrote: All nature seemed hushed, as though Jehovah was about to make himself known by some mighty act. Every eye was turned upward, every one inquiring: What is going to take place? At three o’clock, the light came on from the west, and the heavens, at its coming, looked more brassy than at any previous time, while there were seen in some places quick flashes or coruscations, not unlike the Aurora Borealis. Gradually, and to the immense relief of more than half a million of people, the darkness passed off. Such was the general appearance of the earth and atmosphere.
The extent of the darkness was greater than is related of any other similar phenomenon on record, not excepting the celebrated dark days over Egypt and Judea. It reached south to the northern half of Pennsylvania, and from thence along the coast north-east to the wilds of Maine, eastward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and out at sea, 120 miles south-east of Boston, and undoubtedly much farther; west to the valleys of Lake Champlain and the Hudson river, and north into undefined regions in Canada. Portland, Boston, Hartford, New York, West Point, and Albany were affected by it. But the degrees of darkness differed in different places—the deepest night settling over New England. A tract of land and sea 800 miles in length and 400 miles in breadth, embracing an area of 320,000 square miles, was known to be covered by the cloud, and so far as can be ascertained, a population of 700,000 souls sat for a portion of the day and night in a gloom more or less profound and inexplicable.
Just how dark the day was is attested by indisputable evidence. The hour and minute could not be discovered on the face of a clock or watch by persons of unimpaired eyesight. Candles became an absolute necessity both out of doors and in, as it was impossible to transact ordinary business without them. Fires on the hearthstones shone as brightly as on a moonless November evening, and all dinner tables were set with lighted candles upon them as if it were the evening repast. The keenest eyes indoors could not see to read common print. So far beyond any ordinary fog was the effect that stages on the road either put up at the nearest hotel during the mid-day hours, or carried candles or lanterns to enable the perplexed driver to well see his way. This in many instances was performed as it invariably is at night. At Haverhill, N. H., at twelve at noon a man could not be seen in the road at a distance of only twenty rods, while an hour or two later the captain of a ship forty leagues at sea south-east of Boston was compelled to light a large candle to enable him to perceive his instruments and thereby steer his vessel. “It was so dark at noon,” writes Dr. Adams, “that we could not tell one person from another in a room with three large windows in it.” A writer in the Massachusetts Spy informs us that at the time of the greatest obscurity the light was less than the volume of light from the moon, while many other eye-witnesses assert unequivocally that the greatest darkness was fully equal to what is the season of “candle lighting” in the evening. No London fog ever equaled this. The astronomer of Paxton, Samuel Stearns, calculated that the ratio of light borne by the moon at its full, as compared with the full light of the sun, is as 1 to 100,000. Later French savans make the difference as 1 to 300,000 and even 1 to 800,000. But if Stearns was right, the sunlight of that remarkable day was immeasurably less than that of a common, clear, sunny day, the ordinary sunlight being reduced below the light of the full moon. Connecticut went totally under the cloud. The journal of her House of Representatives puts on record the fact that “none could see to read or write in the House, or even at a window, or distinguish persons at a small distance, or perceive any distinction of dress, &c., in the circle of attendants; therefore, at eleven o’clock, adjourned the house till two o’clock afternoon.” At Ipswich, Mass., at half-past eleven, several educated gentlemen tested the depth of the darkness by attempting to read large print in a room with three windows of twenty-four panes, each, facing the south and east; but, although their eyesight was good, they could not at all distinguish the words. At twelve, with the three windows still uncovered and open, substances, by the light of a candle, cast well-defined shadows on the wall, and shadow profiles and images were as distinct and sharp in their outlines as in the evening. At one o’clock, a single gleam of light, coming hitherto from the east, was wholly withdrawn or shut out, and it became darker than at any previous time. The amazement of the party was very great. At two o’clock, the gleam which had disappeared in the east shone faintly in the west, as if the obscuring cloud had uplifted or passed over; but the gentlemen, with the three windows still open, found it necessary to have two candles on the table to enable them to appropriate the dinner now set before them. At four, the company said they had passed a very unexpected night together, and then parted, each musing on the strange adventure. With all these facts before us, we can discover no extravagance in the language of the Boston Gazette, when its editor exclaimed, “In short, there was the appearance of midnight at noonday.” Men were awe-struck; all busy sounds of labor ceased; and a calamity of some kind, none knew what, was confidently imagined to be approaching. It seemed, says one, like a great roof closing down upon the earth, and shutting out the glorious sunlight forever.
The general results of the darkness afford an interesting study both for the scientist and the divine. The natural world was singularly affected. All the brute and feathered creation seemed puzzled and agitated. The birds ceased to fly, and hid themselves in the branches of the trees. As the darkness increased, they sang their evening songs as they do at twilight, and then became silent. Pigeons on the wing took to the shelter of the forest as they do at night. The whip-poor-will, as if it were truly night, cheerfully sang his song through the gloomy hours. Woodcocks, which are night birds, whistled as they only do in the night time. Bats came out of their hiding places and flew about. The fowls marched solemnly to their roosts as they do only at nightfall, and after cackling for a while over the mystery of so short a day, became still. Cocks crowed as is their custom at nightly intervals and the early breaking of day. Frogs peeped their evening concert,130and dogs whined or howled and ran away as on the approach of an earthquake. The herds of cattle on New England’s thousand hills sought the shelter of the shed or barn-yard, lowing as they came to the gate, and sheep huddled around in a circle with their heads inward—the invariable token of apprehended danger. On the human family, the effect was still more curious and terrifying. The mechanic left his tools in the shop, the farmer, his plow in the furrow, and each moved in silent and marveling mood toward the barn or dwelling. On the home threshold, they were met by pale and anxious women, who tremblingly inquired, “What is coming?” The alarmed traveler, seeking the sympathy of his fellow-man as one impressed with a sense of impending peril, put up at the nearest house, and mingled his anxious questionings and forebodings with those of the family. Strong men met and spoke with surprise on their countenances, and little children peered timidly into the deepening gloom, and then sought the sheltering parental arms. Schools broke up in affright, and the wondering pupils scampered homeward with many expressions of childish fear. The inevitable candle shone out at the windows of all dwellings—every countenance gathered blackness—all hearts were filled with fear of an approaching, unparalleled storm, or the occurrence of a terrestrial convulsion; but it was not the blackness of the storm cloud, such as sometimes with frightful agitation breaks over a single city; it was the silent spreading of the pall-cloth over the earth by strong, invisible hands. Many anecdotes of terror are related. Men well remembered the earthquake of a quarter of a century before, but this darkening of the earth at noonday—what could it portend? In Boston, from the hours of 11 or 1 till 3 o’clock, business was generally suspended and shops were closed. Those who had the courage to continue them open, illuminated them artificially. At Groton, a court was in session in a meeting-house full of large windows, as was the old style of houses of worship; but at half-past eleven all faces began to wear a somber hue, whereupon magistrate and people followed suit with all New England, and called for lighted candles—gas and kerosene being then unknown in the land.
Very little of jesting or humor concerning the day was indulged in. Indifferent persons who were enthusiastic and anxious during the darkness gave way to some raillery as soon as the shadow disappeared before the welcome shining of the sun. When the news was carried to England, gentlemen who were prone to laugh at the expected discomfiture of the then revolutionary colonies interpreted the darkness allegorically of the gloom thrown over the minds of the “Boston rebels” by reason of the reduction of Charleston, the defeat of Clinton, etc.; but when subsequent letters confirmed the tidings and asserted the event to have been a sober, literal fact, astonishment knew no bounds. Meanwhile the jeering tories sent home word that “it was the devil spreading his wings over the northern rebellious colonies, and if they do not repent, the next time he will certainly fly off with them all.” But the answer from England was: “I do not believe all the wise men of Boston will be able to explain it.”
But it cannot be denied that the predominating feeling on that day was awe and fear. At many a dinner table no food was eaten; the family sat pale and often silent. Amazement hushed all boisterous sounds. If any spoke, it was in a low, subdued tone. Pious fathers took down the family Bible, read it reverently, and then kneeled and prayed. Prof. Samuel Williams of Harvard College testified years after that the terror “surpassed description.” The bells were rung in the large towns, and the people in masses forsook their toils and crowded into the churches. Thousands sought the minister for an explanation of the darkness, who, in response, took Matt. 24: 29, 30, or Rev. 6: 12, or Isa. 13: 10, or Eze. 32: 7, or Joel 2: 31, or some other sacred prediction of the darkening of the sun, and improved upon them in sermons on the Last Day. The neighbors flocked around holy men, who calmly pointed them to the Lamb of God as their only refuge at all times. Some, with lanterns, went from house to house with warnings on their lips. The darkness was compared to that which overspread Judea at the crucifixion of our Saviour, and it was asserted to be not a whit less divinely caused. Sober men, unaccustomed to such a freak of nature, deemed the Day of Doom at the door. We cannot sneer at these alarms; they were legitimately born. President Dwight, an adult eye-witness, asserts this to have been “the general opinion.” Even the gathered wisdom of the Council of Connecticut waited and listened, writes Whittier, “To hear the thunder of the wrath of God / Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud.” The darkness of the day having been succeeded for an hour or two before evening by a partially clear sky, and the shining of the sun, still obscured by the black and vapory mist, this interval was followed by a return of obscuration with greater density, that rendered the first half of the night hideously dark beyond all former experience of probably a million of people who saw it. From soon after sunset till midnight, no ray of light from moon or star penetrated the vault above. It was pronounced “the blackness of darkness.” Horses in numerous instances, when wanted for service, could not be compelled to quit the stable. Others on the highway, unable to see for the darkness, seemed to be seized with fear, and moved their feet cautiously and with bewildering hesitation, as if apprehensive of plunging into an abyss. Travelers on foot, who supposed themselves acquainted with every foot of the road, lost their way in familiar localities. Some, totally bewildered, shouted for aid but few rods from their own door. Lost persons in some instances felt their way home, being guided by the fence. Dr. Adams says almost everybody who was out that night got lost. Sharp eyes could not distinguish between the heavens and the earth, the line of the horizon was totally invisible, and large, white substances placed before the eyes could not be discovered either in their color or outline. At nine o’clock the moon rose at her full, but had not the least effect to dispel the death-like shadow. At between nine and ten, a sea captain more than a hundred miles from New England coast, ordered his men to take in some sails, but they could not find their way without light of candles from one mast to another. Like a chain, this blackness bound the whole coast line for more than 200 leagues. It was compared to a solid wall, impenetrable and forbidding, and had an oppressive, choking, overpowering effect on all who tried to brave it. At Salem an intelligent writer said: “Perhaps it was never darker since the children of Israel left the house of bondage.” Dr. Samuel Adams and Hon. Wheeler Martin, as also others, testify that “it could be felt” on waving the hand in the air; language used by Moses concerning the supernaturally and miraculously produced cloud that shut down over Egypt, causing a “thick darkness” of three days’ duration. But lest this description may be considered exaggerated by the excitement engendered by the immediate occurrence of this phenomenon, we here reproduce the strong language of Dr. Samuel Tenney, written in calm mood to the Historical Society five years subsequent to the scene he is describing; the language of a philosophic mind deeply impressed. He says: “The darkness of the following evening was probably as gross as ever has been observed since the Almighty first gave birth to light. It wanted only palpability to render it as extraordinary as that which overspread the land of Egypt in the days of Moses. And, as the darkness is not substantial, but a mere privation, the palpability ascribed to that by the sacred historian must have arisen from some peculiar affections of the atmosphere, perhaps an exceeding thick vapor that accompanied it. I could not help conceiving at the time, that if every luminous body in the universe had been shrouded in impenetrable shades, or struck out of existence, the darkness could not have been more complete. A sheet of white paper held within a few inches of the eyes was equally invisible with the blackest velvet.” What was the cause of this darkness? Here the wisdom of New England was baffled. Newspaper men, who are generally regarded as competent to explain all passing events, gave up in despair, and said: “It is to be desired that curious and philosophical gentlemen would favor the public with a solution of this phenomenon.” They said, “There was nothing terrible in it,” but nevertheless nearly everybody was terrified. It was pronounced a lusus naturæ, past the vulgar comprehension, and which it was requested that the Royal Society of England should be consulted to frame a solution. But this learned body never explained it. Dr. Tenney, in 1785, wrote the Historical Society that the ability of the learned had endeavored to present a cause, but, said he, “You will agree with me that no satisfactory solution has yet appeared.” In similar language wrote Noah Webster in 1843. The theory of some, that it was smoke and ashes from forest fires, extensively raging, is overturned by Dr. Webster, who argued that “no fires in our forests could have been sufficient to spread a dense cloud over the whole of New England and even some parts of the Middle States.” He might have added: “And this in so short a time, when the swiftest clouds move but ten miles an hour.” The theory of Webster himself, that it was the “smoke of some volcano in the northern regions of this continent, wafted in a vast volume by the wind,” is equally untenable. No great density of smoke was observable, and in Boston, as elsewhere, “there was,” says a Bostonian, “not the least appearance of fog, smoke, or haziness.” The old poems declare that smoke from the burning of every town and forest in the land would not create so dismal a gloom. And all analogies teach they were right. The notion of some, that Venus or Mercury intercepted the sun’s rays, is refuted by the fact that there was no transit of either of these planets during that year. Some said it was a solar eclipse—a conclusion rendered impossible by the moon’s having been full the day before. And very aptly does the astronomer of Paxton ask: “If the darkness of the day was caused by a solar eclipse, what then darkened the night, as the moon was more than forty hours’ motion past her opposition?” Others said a comet interposed the baleful shadow of its nucleus between men and the sun, or flung its tail upon the earth. Dr. Tenney attributed the darkness to a substratum cloud of vapor of great thickness and density, the sun’s rays getting lost in the struggle to penetrate the dusky shield. And Stearns regarded it as caused by exhaled particles of various qualities of matter highly condensed and impervious to sunlight. It is possible these views were borrowed from Dr. Thomas Burnet, the English geologist, who, more than a century earlier (in 1667), had written that in the “Latter Days,” in accordance with our Lord’s prediction, “The sun and moon will be darkened, or of a bloody hue or pale countenance, produced by an infectious and corrupt air, filled with thick vapors and fumes or turbid exhalations, atmospheric obscurities to a great extent intercepting the sun’s rays, causing it thus to appear, and proportionably diminishing the light of the moon.” (Vide Theory of the Earth.) To say the least, many of the views of the New Englanders coincided with those of Burnet respecting the modus operandi by which an unusual solar obscuration could take place. Far more likely is the view already hinted at, that the secondary cause was not at all in the body of the solar orb or in the earth, but of cosmical origin, and traceable to cometic or meteoric material consuming in the upper regions and falling in a great cloud into the atmosphere in the form of cosmic dust. The sooty and sulphurous smell in the air, the faint electrical flashes, and the black dust seen on the surface of water in many localities, favor this view. The cause was evidently cosmic, cometic, and celestial. But while New England admitted a secondary cause, her Christian people, sharing the feeling of the devout and philosophical Stearns, imputed the flinging of this black shadow “like a funeral pall” over the land inhabited by nearly one-third of the people of the United Colonies, to the direct interposition of the God of the Universe, who himself, by means unknown to mortals, darkened both the sun and the moon, both the day and the night, as a token of his indignation against every prevailing iniquity, and an omen of a future day of universal destruction and wrath! It made no difference that it was not supernatural, or that secondary causes had produced the result witnessed. The effect only was sought for; the sacred Scriptures had announced a darkening of the sun and moon, and these signs had been fulfilled before their eyes—locally, to be sure—but so were all physical and moral signs. The gravest minds reverently went behind all secondary cause and declared it was the immediate hand of God. The ministry insisted it was occasioned by a divine arrangement of nature, and in the spirit of the sacred Hebrew writers, who ascribed all remarkable and unaccountable acts of the natural world to the working out of the vast designs of the Infinite, said: “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!” In more modern times, men would doubtless have said: “Oh! it is only a temporary obscurity of the light by a cloud of exhaled vapor, or by terrestrial contact with cosmic particles, and nothing more. Few minds would see God in the mysterious cloud. Not so with our fathers. They saw in the strange sun-darkening shroud a sure celestial token of the approaching consummation, and so proclaimed it in all ways. The impression was most profound, and was not effaced during the remainder of that century. The view was reiterated seventeen years later by the orthodox Spaulding in the pulpit of the Tabernacle at Salem, and was indorsed in the first religious paper in the world, published at Portsmouth in 1808. Indeed, it was opposed by none. To-day, nearly the entire body of believers, comprising the sect of Advent Christians in the United States and Canada, sustain the views of the New England Christians of the last century concerning the significance of the darkness of Friday, May 19, 1780. We argue nothing here pro or con., but only state facts, and should be unfaithful chroniclers of historical fact did we omit to record this abiding conviction of nearing Judgment on the old New England mind, and transmitted to hundreds of thousands of their posterity by the scenes of the never-to-be-forgotten Dark Day.
We may learn lessons of good from these recollections of the famous Black Friday. Individually, the multitudes who live in 1871 may not feel that such old-time and far-off events, however ominous, at all concern them. Nevertheless, there was wisdom in the words, and a certain heroic principle in the conduct of Abraham Davenport, Colonel, and afterward Judge of Stamford, Conn., and State Counsellor in the Legislative Chamber at Hartford—a wisdom and a moral worth remembering. The providence of God found him serving his day and generation when the great darkness fell. Amid the deepening gloom that wrapped about the city, darkened the rooms of the State House, and set the law-givers trembling and many of them to exclaim: “It is the Lord’s Great Day,” and move to adjourn, Davenport refused to be frightened from his post, but when all eyes turned to him, boldly said: “I am against the adjournment. Either the day of Judgment is at hand, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I wish to be found in the line of my duty. I wish candles to be brought.” Men will lose nothing while in the true line of present duty. In the words of the poet Whittier in allusion to the scene we here describe: “Simple duty hath no place for fear.” The line of duty is the true path for all to walk in, come what may.—D. T. Taylor, in Boston Journal.