New England's Dark Day - May 19, 1780

On this day in 1780, the sky in New England and parts of Canada turned unusually dark in an event remembered as the "Dark Day."

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. Here everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to This
Day in History Class, a podcast where I bring you
a little nugget of history every day. Today is May nineteen.

(00:21):
The day was May nineteen eighty. The sky in New
England in parts of northern Canada turned unusually dark in
an event remembered as the Dark Day. Several days before
May nineteen, people in New England noticed that the sky
appeared smoky and the sun and the moon appeared red.
On the morning of May nineteenth, the sky was cloudy

(00:43):
and still had a reddish hue throughout the morning. The
sky continued to get darker. By noon, people were using
candles for light. The darkness stretched from the skies over Portland, Maine,
to the southern coast of New England. It was so
unusual that many people panted. Some people went to church,
while others went to taverns. Birds reportedly suffocated from the

(01:05):
smoke and ash. Some people noted that the air smelled
like sood. The Connecticut legislature even moved to adjourn. Abraham Davenport,
a member of the Governor's Council, opposed adjourning the legislature.
He said that quote, the day of judgment is either
approaching or it is not. If it is not, there
is no cause of an adjournment. If it is, I

(01:27):
choose to be found doing my duty. Harvard professor Samuel
Williams collected observations about the darkness and wrote about the
day's events. According to his account, the darkness continued until
the middle of the next night. He said the following
candles were lighted up in the houses. The birds, having
sung their evening songs, disappeared and became silent. The fouls

(01:50):
retired to roost. The cocks were crawling all around as
at break of day. Objects could not be distinguished, but
at a very little distance, and every thing bore the
appearance and gloom of night. Williams reported that people saw
a layer of scum on the surface of water that
appeared to be the ashes of burnt leaves. From his observations,

(02:11):
he determined the likely cause of the darkness. He suggested
that fires had caused vapors to rise and collect in
the air, since the weather had been clear, the air heavy,
and the wind quote small and variable. But many people
dismissed the idea that wildfires caused the darkness. In the
weeks after May nineteenth, people proposed different theories about the

(02:34):
origins of the event. Some thought that sunlight was being
blocked by a huge mountain, Others believed that a biblical
prophecy was being fulfilled. Later research suggested that distant forest
fires caused the darkness. Researchers from the University of Missouri
and u S Forest Service examined tree rings and fire

(02:54):
scars and determined that a major fire occurred in seventeen
eighty in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. They concluded
that a low pressure weather system carryed to smoke from
the west or north to New England. The fires in
the Algonquin Highlands were the most likely cause of New
England's dark Day, but fires burning in the eastern US

(03:16):
could have also contributed to the darkness. I'm Eve Jeff
Coote and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. And if you want to
send us any kind notes or you have any other
comments are suggestions, please send them to us at this
day at i heeart media dot com. You can also
hit us up on social media. We're at t D

(03:38):
i h C Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks
so much for listening to the show and we'll see
you tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.