Antrim, New Hampshire, USA (Clinton) (North Branch) (South Village)
May 19, 1780 - "Dark Day" in Antrim

"For several days previous the air was full of smoky vapors, as if fires had been burning in the woods, the sun and moon appearing red and somewhat obscured. The early morning of May 19 was cloudy and showery and cool, with some thunder and lightning. But about ten o'clock, when the artisans were busy in the shop and mill, the women spinning and weaving, and the farmers hurrying with their spring work in the field, it began to grow dark. The wild birds screamed and flew to their nests, — the hens went to their roosts, — the cattle came up, uttering strange cries, to their stalls, — the sheep, bleating woefully, huddled under the fences, — the buds and small leaves on the trees were colored almost to an indigo blue, — robins and blue-birds flew into the houses as if they sought the protection of man, — the rain that soon followed was full of a substance like burnt vegetable matter, forming a scum, with smell of soot, over everything, collecting on the Merrimack river here and there to the depth of half a foot, — and this strange darkness increased until by noon people had to light candles to eat their dinners by! Lights were seen in every window, and, out-of-doors, people carried torches to light their steps. Everything took a different color from what it had by sunlight, and consequently the strange reflections of the torch-lights were in keeping with the marvelous and changed appearance of everything. Hosts of people believed the end of the world had begun to come ; men dropped on their knees to pray in the field; many ran to their neighbors to confess wrongs and ask forgiveness; multitudes rushed into the meeting-houses in towns where they had such, where pious and aged ministers, pleading repentance, interceded with God in their behalf; and everywhere throughout this day of wonder and alarm, the once careless thought of their sins and of their Maker!...
So much were the whole population affected by this event, that, at the succeeding March meeting, the town voted, March 9, 1781, to keep the next 19th of May as a day of fasting and prayer."

History of the town of Antrim, New Hampshire, from its earliest settlement to June 27, 1877, with a brief genealogical record of all the Antrim families by W. R. Cochrane, 1880



History of the town of Antrim, New Hampshire... by W. R. Cochrane, 1880

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