Hometown History

March 16, 2023

135 Years Ago
The bright, spring-like weather of Friday and Saturday last, a warm sun shining on bare ground, was succeeded by a dark day Sunday, and that night began the heaviest snowfall of the season. The wind came up with the day, and the dry, powdery snow still falling, drifts formed very quickly. The scene on Main Street Tuesday morning was Arctic enough – nothing in sight but great heaps and long reaches of dazzling snow, with here and there a puzzled wayfarer; and nothing astir but the snow shovel. Toward noon things wore a livelier aspect, and many got out to enjoy the fine sleighing, while trade went on in a small way. But, it was a pretty dull day in the stores and business places. Not a stage or a train the whole day long and most of the telephone and telegraph lines down. Wednesday brought a marked change. The day dawned bright, the sun shone warm and the whole countryside was soon up and armed with shovels to clear the roads. The stage from Davenport was the first one to reach Oneonta, getting here about noon. That from Morris arrived toward night – having toiled through mighty drifts. The Hartwick stage pulls through today and perhaps that from Delhi, though the drifts on the hills are of fifty to a hundred feet at a stretch and six to eight feet deep.

March 1888