Winter of 1780
The winter of 1780 was the most severe winter to hit this country. It started snowing in November and it didn’t stop until March. By the end of January, Erwinna had been hit by a half dozen storms and had accumulated over 3 feet of snow. Roads, fences and streams were obliterated. In places, the drifts were piled 10 to 12 feet high.
All the harbors, rivers, creeks and brooks were frozen. Long Island sound was frozen solid for 5 weeks so no ships could pass in and out of New York Harbor. The Chesapeake was frozen from head to mouth. The Delaware froze on December first and didn’t thaw until March.
That was the year Timothy Matlack, the patriot who had inscribed the official copy of the Declaration of Independence, complained that “the ink now freezes in my pen within 5 feet of the fire in my parlour, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”
Winter of 1888
A century later modern technology had significantly changed the way people lived. Railroad tracks, electricity, telegraphs and telephones began webbing the countryside connecting people and places. Those same fragile tracks and wires could not stand the battering of howling winds of 36 hours of nonstop snowfall in March of 1888.
Locals called this storm the, “Storm King.” One Hunterdon County paper’s headlines exclaimed, “Deaths and Destruction Mark the Path of the Storm, Travel Stopped and General Cut-off Communitcation…None have ever experienced such a wild, furious, driving snow storm, accompanied by such extreme cold as that which set over this region at 11 o’clock on the night of the 11th. And continued to sundown of the 12th without the least sensation.”
Imagine experiencing snow and cold with no modern amenities.
No plows clearing the roads
No central heat
No supermarkets filled with supplies
How did past generations of Erwinna residents survive?
Farmer's were hired to dig roads out by hand or to drive their teams of horses back and forth along the roads to stomp down the snow so horse drawn vehicles could pass.
People could travel in winter on horse drawn sleighs but there were risks. At best, if the snow thawed too quickly, you might find yourself stranded. At worst, sleighs were subject to accidents, flipping over and injuring or killing its occupants.
The County’s picturesque covered bridges presented another transportation problem. The bridge roofs kept the road beneath snow free, making them impassable for sleighs. The same farmers hired to clear the road of snow, had to shovel snow onto the road of the covered bridges so sleighs could pass.
The bridges which crossed state lines charged a toll for every chaise, riding chair, sulky, cart, sleigh or sled that traversed the Delaware. In 1842, when the Milford-Upper Black Eddy covered bridge first opened, the toll was 25 cents for every two horses pulling a sleigh. At 681 feet long, it would take a lot of farmers to fill this bridge with snow.
However when the river froze over, residents took advantage of the free transportation, crossing over on foot or sleigh to save the toll!
20th Century Winters
Travel was just as harried after the advent of the automobile. The roads had to be completely cleared and the danger of black ice loomed, with no system in place to sand or salt the roads.
By the 20th century, Pennsylvania had cut down over 18 million acres of forest to make way for farms, to fuel homes and major industries: iron and steel, shipping, tanning, railroads and mining concerns.
Winter Business Opportunities!
Every time the Delaware froze it was a boon for ice harvesting. Ice blocks were cut from frozen lakes and rivers. The blocks usually had a thickness of 16-18 inches and were 22 inches square. Each block weighed about 250-300 pounds. Workers would sometimes work 24 hours straight to make the most of a cold snap.
An horse drawn plow would cut a grid on the river’s surface. Men would then cut the individual blocks by using breaker bars and hand saws. The blocks were floated to the shoreline where they were stored in ice houses, buildings insulated with either sawdust or straw.
Winter Wonderland
In Victorian times, coasting (what we call sledding today) became a winter pastime and the rolling hills of Bucks County were the perfect landscape for young coasters to gain speed.
One of the most famous sleds of all time, The Flexible Flyer, was patented in 1889 by Pennsylvania Quaker, Samuel Leeds Allen.
Anecdotes and photos indicate that a favorite spot for local sledding in Erwinna was the ramp at the Stover Barn.
Skating on the Rivers, Creeks and Canals of Tinicum Township
From time to time a The Milford Leader, a local newspaper, shared tidbits about skating on the Delaware River. In 1887, it sited Chas Dimmick as the “Champion Skater” of Erwinna writing, “Recently he undertook to skate from Erwinna to Point Pleasant and back, the distance being five miles, and made it in an hour and a half. Well done, Charles!”
Credits:
Photos from Tinicum Township, Bucks County - (Images of America (Arcadia Publishing)) by Patricia Valentine Whitacre & Richard A Plank