Weather rambling — March 30, 1875

“Little Robin Redbreast sang a song of spring on Saturday last,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported on March 30, 1875. “The happy songster seemed quite out of season as he sat perched upon a tree overlooking a snow bound field.”

The editor seemingly was drawing on the Norse muses to put a happy face on a March that was going out more like a penguin than a lion or lamb.

“Twelve degrees on Monday, seventeen on Tuesday and eight on Wednesday — all below zero — was the sort of weather enjoyed in Glen’s Falls last week.”

In late March the previous year, the ice was pretty much broken up on the Hudson River.

In 1875, it was still two-and-a-half feet thick.

“Ice in Lake George is three feet thick but hopes are entertained that there will be less of it by July or August.”

Late winter weather was delaying traditional spring recreational activities.

“Trout fishing is legal now, but there is little prospect of a trout showing his nose above the snow drifts of Warren County.”

The editor predicted it would become a winter of legend.

“Eighty years hence, when a youth of fourteen summers asks his great-grandfather if he ever saw such a cold winter and so much snow, the oldest inhabitant will place his hand on the boy’s head and reply, ‘My son, you should have lived in the winter of 1874–75.’”

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