On December 20, 1836, what Illinois pioneers called “The Sudden Freeze” occurred. About eight inches of snow fell on Dec. 19, but it got warm enough for the snow to turn to rain the next day, which melted the snow on the ground into slush and water. At 2 p.m. Dec. 20, the sky darkened, and a heavy, black cloud rolled in from the northwest. Early settlers recorded that then a strong, icy-cold wind, estimated to be blowing at 70 mph, swept over the landscape, instantly freezing everything in its path. Jacksonville, Illinois resident John Lathrop described the sudden freeze. “The cold wave struck me, and as I drew my feet up the ice would form on my boots. When I reached the square, the ice bore me up, and when I returned to Mr. Turner’s, a half hour afterwards, I saw his chickens and ducks frozen into the ice.” Some farmers who had walked from their homes to their barns in slush and water made the return trip on ice a few minutes later. Travelers caught out on horseback were frozen to their saddles, and had to be lifted off and carried to a fire to be thawed apart. “Two young men who were traveling for Philadelphia merchants were frozen to death not far from Rushville,” Lathrop recalled. “One of them was found with his back against a tree with his horse’s bridle over his arm and his horse frozen in front of him. The other young man was partly in a kneeling position, with a tinder box in one hand and a flint in the other — with both eyes open, as though attempting to light the tinder in the box — that being the usual mode of lighting a fire before the days of friction matches.” Reports also came from several places of travelers resorting to killing their horses, and, after disemboweling them, crawling into the carcass to escape the bitter cold. No record was left of how far the mercury dropped, but various reports said 6 to 12 inches of ice formed in frozen streams in just a few hours. For decades, survivors reckoned dates of birth, marriages, deaths and other important events from the Deep Snow, or the Sudden Freeze. Survivors prided themselves on having borne nature’s fury, considering themselves true settlers — the ‘Old Settlers’ —and regarding later arrivals as untested upstarts.”
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