Woodstock's Weather

In early times, when most people were farmers and their livelihoods were directly dependent on the weather, people watched and recorded weather events carefully.

In his history of Woodstock, written in the late 19th century, Henry Swan Dana, dedicates a section of his book to discussing the weather. Dana notes:

“Winter begins in Woodstock about the 1st of December, and continues four months, with good sleighing all the time. This is the orthodox rule, but it is subject to strange variations and exceptions at times. Captain Jacob Wilder used to relate that the year he first came to Woodstock, Christmas day, about 1791, as he went up what is now Central Street and Court Street, he saw a team harrowing in the rye on the ground where the Judge Hutchinson house and the stores on Elm Street now stand, and that the ground was in good condition for sowing grain.

Captain Jacob Wilder. © Woodstock History Center.

Above: Circa 1901 image showing the location of Judge Hutchinson’s house in the middle of the photo. A hundred and ten years earlier, this area had been a crop field with rye.

The December and January of 1847-48 were equally mild, when the ground was bare and no frost almost constantly till the 1st of February, and the plowing of lands and laying stone wall, with other farm work, were going on in every direction. Still more singular was the winter of 1857-58. Through the previous summer and autumn there had been abundant rains and rather cool weather. The season continued mild till February, 1858, when there was a moderately cold snap; spring was early, the summer very pleasant, attended by “golden harvests.” On the other hand, winter sometimes sets in abnormally early. On the 23d of October, 1843, snow fell six inches on the Green and much deeper on the highlands, and did not disappear till the next spring. Saturday, the 18th of October, 1823, it snowed steadily all day; Sunday morning the snow was six inches deep in the village; in Barnard, nearly a foot deep. A week later, another snow came, twelve inches in depth, and Saturday evening the stage went to Royalton on runners. Nineteen years previous to this, it being the 9th of October, 1804, about 9 o’clock in the forenoon, the temperature changed from mild to a violent snow-storm. Wednesday everything was white with the new fallen snow, fourteen or fifteen inches deep. Along the highlands the wind blew strong, covering fences and blocking up roads with the drifted snow. Great damage was done to fruit trees and shade trees in various places, and the forests resounded with the noise of the branches of the trees breaking under the weight of the snow. Tradition does not preserve the memory of a storm so severe as this, occurring any other year so early in the autumn…

Our springs, it must be granted, are apt to be tedious and unpoetical, yet experience proves it is better they should be so. Two feet of snow the 1st of April is more promising than bare ground, and a warm April is almost surely to be followed by a cold May and June. The spring of 1842 affords a good illustration. The season opened early; robins appeared the first days of March, and by the 19th the snow was all gone; gardens were partly made before the end of the month. April was very warm, - so warm as to cause Farmer Blake to groan with apprehensions for the future. By the first week of May, vegetation was forward, and there was every promise of a splendid season. Then came a change. Cool weather set in, which culminated, the 11th of June, in a snow-storm, and the next morning (Sunday), ice formed in this village, and the frost cut down everything. The spring of 1859 was another of the same sort; early, warm, and promising, followed by a frosty summer. On the morning of the 5th of July, after several days of cold north wind, the air was so sharp that ice formed, and a field of grain growing on Charles Marsh’s hill looked in spots as though fire had passed over it. Judge Collamer expressed the opinion that the summer was colder than the phenomenally cold season of 1816, which was the year he settled in Royalton, and the uncomfortable experience of the hour caused many to say that the seasons were growing colder every year. But the next summer restored the equilibrium, and by its warmth, beauty, and fertility, revived drooping spirits and gave hope once more to the despondent.”