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THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY BULLETIN VOL. XIX JULY, 1935 No. 2 STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON IN FRONT OF THE SUB-TREASURY WALL STREET, AFTER THE BLIZZARD OF 1888 Photographed March 13, 1888, by Frank Hegger NEW YORK: 170 CENTRAL PARK WEST PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY AND ISSUED TO MEMBERS THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 170 CENTRAL PARK WEST (Erected by the Society 1908) Wings to be erected on the 76th and 77th Street corners OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY For Three Years, ending January 4, 1938 PRESIDENT FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY JOHN ABEEL WEEKES ARCHER MILTON HUNTINGTON FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY ARTHUR H. MASTEN ERSKINE HEWITT SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT RECORDING SECRETARY R. HORACE GALLATIN B. W. B. BROWN THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT TREASURER ROBERT E. DOWLING GEORGE A. ZABRISKIE FOURTH VICE-PRESIDENT LIBRARIAN WILLIAM D. MURPHY ALEXANDER J. WALL The New York Historical Society is not responsible for statements in signed articles. THE GREAT BLIZZARD AND THE BLIZZARD MEN OF 1888 By HUGH M. 'FLICK The fabric of man's memory is woven from strange materials. The unusual, the exotic, and the bizarre experiences of life linger in the mind and form the general pattern of the memory. The daily struggle for existence, the commonplace transaction of busi ness or search for pleasure, important as they may seem at the moment, are soon forgotten. It is equally true that man as an individualist is engrossed in the solution of his own problems and is liable to forget that he is an integral part of the community in which he lives. It is when he participates in some great com munal adventure that his preoccupation with his own affairs is lost. Such titanic manifestations of nature as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and the like leave in their wake poignant and lasting memories for whole sec tions of a country. The eastern seaboard of the United States, from Pennsylvania to Maine, gained such a common heritage of memory as a result of the great blizzard which in the early morn ing of March 12, 1888, swept down furiously on an unsuspecting people and buried the hopes of an early spring in an arctic smother. Certainly those who were caught in its icy grasp will never forget the experience. The thousands who shared in this great adventure were united by a common bond of understanding. The phrase "The Blizzard of '88" has become a part of our national vocabulary to denote the worst of winter weather. It had its tragic side, but, curiously, left in its wake mainly good will, and to its survivors it has become almost a household symbol standing not only for the storm itself but also for all that was best in the "good old days". As mechanized civilization whirls on with ever increasing speed and faster and surer methods of transportation come into general use the stories of the devastating effect of the great blizzard and how it completely paralyzed the commercial activities of a great 23 24 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY city like New York will seem ever more astounding. If these tales at times seem a bit tall it must be remembered that the blizzard which roared down on New York in March, 1888, found a vastly different city than it would find to-day. Although, indeed, a bliz zard of the magnitude and fury of that of '88 would have dis astrous effects even now. The year of 1888 was by no means one of slight activity which might account, at least in part, for the persistence of the memory of the March storms. There was a presidential election of more than usual excitement and bitterness and the country was convulsed by hard persistent strikes and railway wars. A partial failure of the wheat crop caused that commodity to touch $2.00 per bushel in New York. Typhoid fever devastated many of the northern cities, the cause being attributed at the time to the unusually rainy summer and autumn which followed the "famous March blizzard". In France the collapse of the Panama Canal Company wiped out the savings of some 800,000 shareholders and in Germany two Hohenzollern emperors died and a third, William II, ascended the throne. In Italy Pope Leo XIII celebrated his jubilee. Yet to the survivors of the blizzard all these events, important as they are in themselves, are overshadowed by the memory of the hard ships and adventures of the blustery days of March. Even the news that John L. Sullivan, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, had been unable to subdue his English rival Charlie Mitchell in their epochal fight at Creil, France, could not hold the headlines. After its break in the Herald on Sunday, March nth, it was relegated to an inferior place to make room for the news of the great storm which started that night. Ask any New Yorker who was living in or around the city what of importance happened in 1888 and the answer will invariably be the great blizzard. All other events have been forced into a position of secondary impor tance and may be found only by reading the pages of history. This is eloquent testimony to the impression which the blizzard made on the minds of New Yorkers. In circles where the blizzard is discussed one often hears the question raised as to where the blizzard came from and what caused such a furious outburst. A study of the reports of such men as General A. W. Greely, Chief Signal Officer of the Army (1890) QUARTERLY BULLETIN 25 MADISON AVENUE AFTER THE BLIZZARD From about 46th Street looking south toward Holy Trinity Church 26 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY and Everett Hayden who was in charge of the division of Marine Meteorographic Office of the Navy Department, and Elias B. Dunn who had the honor of being the "weather man" in New York City during March, 1888, has revealed the following information in regard to the history of this storm of storms. It seems,to have been first noticed on March 6th over the north Pacific'Ocean moving in a southeasterly direction. By the 9th, it had:passed over Oregon and reached northern Texas and by Sunday, the nth, the barometer trough, or line of storm center extended from Lake Superior southward to the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico. The southern storm center, with which we are concerned, moved slowly eastward and passed off the Atlantic coast somewhere near Cape Hatteras. If it had continued its easterly course all would have been well, but on the evening of the nth, the pressure, which had been about 29.07, decreased and the storm center shifted, moving almost directly north. In the early morning of the 12th it was central off the New Jersey coast, and the full force of the blizzard descended on New York. A blinding northeast gale roared across the unsuspecting city, car rying with it a mass of stinging, needle-like snow which whooped up the side streets and swirled around the back courts. The progress of the storm had been watched by the govern ment Weather Bureau in Washington. At 10:35 A.M., on the morning of the nth, that office had issued a "cautionary southeast storm warning" but at 6150 P.M. this was changed to a "northwest storm warning" with the additional information that a cold wave was to be expected. These warnings apparently did not reach the weather bureau in New York in time to be handed on to the daily papers, for although Sunday's paper stated that "tomor row it promises to be colder and generally clear" on Monday the incredulous New Yorkers who were fortunate enough to get a paper read to their amazement that "The weather today in New York and vicinity (including points within thirty miles of the city) promises to be generally fair and colder, preceded by partial cloudiness near the coast. Tomorrow it promises to be slightly warmer and generally fair." No forecast of weather appeared in the Herald for Tuesday, March 13, 1888. QUARTERLYBULLETIN 27 In reality by 7 A.M. Monday, March 12, the storm was raging in all its fury with the barometer at the storm center down to 29.20 and steadily dropping. The storm remained nearly stationary, moving only as far as a point midway between Block Island and Wood's Hole by midnight of the 12th, and here it remained nearly stationary throughout the whole of Tuesday, the 13th. By Wed nesday, the low pressure area had gradually filled up and the storm abated. Throughout these three days real blizzard conditions prevailed in New York and vicinity. The gale which roared across the city ranged from forty-eight miles an hour on Monday to fifty on Tuesday. The temperature fell from thirty-one degrees on Sunday to eleven on Monday to five above on Tuesday. It rose to thirteen on Wednesday. This sudden decline in temperature resulted in the precipitation of by far the greater portion of the aqueous vapor which had been drawn by the easterly and northeasterly winds from the Atlantic Ocean and was responsible for the almost unprecedented snowfall which in three days amounted to a total of over twenty inches. The daily snowfall for the three days of the blizzard is as follows: sixteen and one-half inches on Monday, three and one-half inches Tuesday, and 1.4 inches Wednesday. If any of these three conditions had prevailed in more or less normal times or if the precipitation had been in the form of rain the amount of damage would have been inconsiderable, but the combination of high winds, low temperature, and a heavy fall of snow practically paralyzed the activities of New York and the surrounding cities.