Welcome to Kent County, Maryland Weather Event Stories from Kent County   Some Weather Records submitted by Brenda Duckworth The Coldest Winter and Summer - Men Wrapped in Overcoats Drove Reapers July 4 - A Year When Snow Fell and Sheep Froze to Death in June - Ice and Frost in July - and Crops Were Chilled in August            All are prone to look upon the “olden times” as being remarkable for weather, as well as for many other happenings.  The record summer of 1816 stands as the most distressing of the nineteenth century.  June, 1816, was the coldest ever known in this latitude; frost and ice were common.  Almost every green thing was killed; fruit was nearly all destroyed. This was the year when farmers were glad to wear overcoats and gloves when cutting wheat July 4 and fires on the hearth were welcome.            Snow fell to the depth of ten inches in Vermont, seven in Maine, three in the interior of New York, and also in Massachusetts. There were a few warm days. All classed looked for them in that memorable cold summer.            It was called a dry season. But little rain fell. The wind blew steadily from the north cold and fierce. Mothers knit extra socks and mittens for their children in the spring, and wood piles that usually disappeared during the warm spell in front of houses were speedily built up again.  Planting and shivering were done together, and the farmers who worked out their taxes on the country roads wore overcoats and mittens.             In a town in Vermont a flock of sheep belonging to a farmer had been sent, as usual, to their pasture.  On the seventeenth of June a heavy snow fell; the cold was intense, and the owner started away at noon to look for his sheep.             “Better start the neighbors soon, wife,” he said in jest before leaving; “being in the middle of June I may get lost in the snow.”            Night came, the storm increased, and he did not return. The next morning the family sent out for help and started in search. One after another of the neighbors turned out to look for the missing man. The sow had covered up all tracks, and not until the end of the third day did they find him on the side of the hill, with both feet frozen, unable to move.            A farmer who had a large field of corn in another New England village, built fires around it to ward off the frost; many an evening he and his men took turns watching it. He was rewarded with the only crop in the neighborhood.            Considerable damage was done in New Orleans in consequence of the rapid rise of the Mississippi River: the suburbs were covered with water and the road was passed only in boats. Fears that the sun was cooling off abounded and throughout New England all picnics were strictly prohibited because of the danger to health.            July was accompanied with frost and ice. On the fifth, ice was formed of the thickness of the common window glass throughout New England, New York, and some parts of Kent County. Corn was nearly all destroyed; some favorably situated fields escaped.            August was more cheerless, if possible, than the months which preceded it. Ice was formed half an inch in thickness. Indian corm was so frozen that the greater part was cut down and dried for fodder. Almost every green thing was destroyed in this country and in Europe.            On the thirteenth snow fell at Barnet, forty miles from London. Papers received from England stated the “it would be remembered by the present generation that the year 1816 was a year in which there was no summer.” Very little corn ripened in England and the Middle States farmers supplied themselves corn produced in 1815 for seed in the spring of 1817. It sold from four to five dollars per bushel. Chestertown’s oldest citizens state that the winter of 1899 was the worst in their recollection. The thermometer reached nine degrees below zero, and for a week hovered around the zero mark, with excellent sleighing. Snow to the depth of three feet fell during the week, and the train was six days getting the mail to or from Chestertown. A blizzard raged for two days, roads were blocked and but little business was transacted. Navigation closed on Thursday, February 9, and remained so until the 23rd.  History of Kent County Maryland 1630-1916, Fred G. Usilton   ©2007 Genealogy Trails