Introduction to Hub History

Jake intro-outro:

[0:04] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 298 eclipse, Fever. Hi, I’m Jake.
This week. I’m excited for the total eclipse that’s coming on Monday, April 8th eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the earth during the daytime, briefly blocking the light of the sun from the face of the earth.

Observing Solar Eclipses in the US

Jake intro-outro:

[0:34] Over the past few years, observers in the US have been treated to every flavor of solar eclipse.
A partial in 2021 when part of the sun’s disk remained unobscured.
A total eclipse in 2017 when viewers in the narrow path of totality experience daytime darkness, and an annular eclipse just last fall in October 2023 when a ring of fire hung in the cold bright sky, in honor of the 2017 eclipse, co-host Emerita Nikki and I released a show within the first year of this podcast about some of the earliest experiences of eclipses here in Boston, most notably in 1780 1806.

Jake intro-outro:

[1:18] Not quite a year later, we explored an unrelated phenomenon that darkened the skies over Boston for a second time in 1780.
Then again, in 1881 1950 several times in the past five years, this was no eclipse, however, but a much more terrestrial effect, we’ll replay both of those stories this week as well as discussing an exciting new exhibition at the Boston Athenaeum.

A Request for Support

Jake intro-outro:

[1:45] But before we talk about Boston’s early eclipses and dark days, I just want to pause and ask for your support.
This is the segment of the show when I usually thank our Patreon sponsors and I do have some new sponsors to thank next week.
But I also want to ask for your help with something else this time, you might recall that about a year ago in the podcast, I mentioned that I was leaving a job where I had been for almost 18 years and trying something new.

Jake intro-outro:

[2:12] It didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped. And just over a year later, it’s time for me to look for something new again.
I’m confident that I’ll be able to find another job in my usual field before too long.
But I also want to use this opportunity to see if there’s any chance that could break into paid work that’s in any way related to history in Boston.
I know a thing or two about digital humanities, so I could create a podcast or some other digital programming for your site or you could just buy out hub history and make it part of your organization’s portfolio or in a dream world, an angel investor could set me up to create a podcast for America 250 kicking off in early 2025 and running through the semiquincentennial or beyond.
Getting back to reality. I have a deep it background so I could be a valuable database administrator.
I can help with your archive’s digitization projects.
I’m a decent researcher and writer for all your content creation needs as well as a former tour guide and tour operator with a passion for sharing our city with locals and visitors alike.
So if you have any leads or if you know someone or you know someone who knows someone well, get in touch.

Unexpected Passion for Eclipses

Jake intro-outro:

[3:25] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic. I never thought I would end up as an eclipse. Nerd.
I was never the sort of kid who got super into astronomy or the space program or even science more broadly.
I was always a bit more of a humanities type guy as you can tell from my current incarnation as a total history nerd.
I can remember my parents waking me up and going out in the yard in the wee hours of the morning to watch meteor showers a couple of times and there was that one time when we saw the northern lights.
I also remember how excited my grandfather was to see Halley’s comet for the second time in 1986.
He had faint memories of seeing it as a kid on the farm and for its return, he and my grandmother went all the way to Chile to have the best chance of seeing the comet from the southern hemisphere where it was more visible and under dark skies.

Jake intro-outro:

[4:18] I can remember making a crude pinhole viewer to be able to watch an eclipse one time as a kid.
It definitely wasn’t a total eclipse where I was, but it may have been total elsewhere in the US in 1991 or possibly it was an annular eclipse.
If I’m remembering 1994 where I was, the sun was probably between 30 maybe 80% occluded, which I could see by projecting an image of the crescent sun on the back wall of a shoe box.
I didn’t think that much about eclipses again for over 20 years in September 2015, there were a lot of headlines about a super moon eclipse.
Nikki and I used the excuse to throw a lunar luau.
We invited a bunch of friends over and we watched through my camera and a cheap telescope as the earth’s shadow slowly covered the full moon turning it a dark dull orange, then emerged again a few hours later.

Jake intro-outro:

[5:15] I guess I caught the eclipse bug in 2017 that August, a total eclipse swept across the US from coast to coast and Nikki and I traveled with friends to Nashville to have a chance to see it.
It was about 98 degrees and humid, but we found a park and set up shop under the shade of a tree for hours.
We watched the disk of the moon slowly black out the sun and then just moments before totality, a single cloud came up over the sky and obscured the view.
We had friends on the other side of Nashville who didn’t have any trouble seeing the moment of totality, but we missed the best part of the show.
We did get to see 360 degree twilight. The birds all flew home to roost and the day suddenly went cool and quiet.

Jake intro-outro:

[6:03] I had a chance to see another eclipse in 2021 that June when I just got my second dose of vaccine and public masking was still the norm.
The sun was predicted to rise in a partial eclipse. One morning, I decided to climb to the top of Great Blue Hill and watch it from the observation tower there.
And I was shocked to find that the tower was already packed with sky watchers.
By the time I got there at about 4:30 a.m.
I got some pictures of the sunrise over Boston Harbor and the quarter crescent of the sun poking out from the clouds before hiking back down and going to work.
Having missed the moment of totality. In 2017, we decided to go to the desert for the annular eclipse.
Last October I’m no expert but an annular eclipse happens when the relative distance of the sun, earth and moon end up positioning the moon directly over the center of the sun, but it’s not big enough to completely block out the disc of the sun.
So there’s a ring of fire left in the sky.
We watched that annular eclipse of the New Mexico desert with no clouds to intrude upon the view this time around, we’re headed up to northern Vermont to chase that moment of totality.
Now, there are a lot more clouds in Vermont in April than there are in New Mexico in October.
But that’s as far a field as our lives will allow us to go right now.
Wish us good luck in clear skies.

Harriet Hayden Exhibit at Boston Athenaeum

Jake intro-outro:

[7:28] Now, before we get back to eclipses, let’s talk about a fantastic new exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum celebrating Harriet Hayden, OG listeners might remember that.
Back in February 2017, the first Black history Month for this podcast, we profiled Harriet Hayden and her husband Lewis.
The Hayden were enslaved in Kentucky before escaping to Canada in 1844 and finally settling in Beacon Hill around 1846, here in Boston, they quickly became some of the most active conductors of the Underground Railroad personally hosting dozens or perhaps even hundreds of fugitives on their journeys of self liberation.
While they secretly helped fugitives. The Hayden’s publicly became a prominent family in Boston’s black community with Lewis operating one of the most successful black owned businesses and Harriet earning a reputation as a hostess and as an abolitionist organizer.

Jake intro-outro:

[8:23] A new exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum that opened on March 20th, gives us an unprecedented look into their lives titled Framing Freedom.
The Harriet Hayden albums. This exhibit presents two carte de visit albums that belong to Harriet.
These are small leather bound books with decorative metal clasps which are designed to hold small photographs which were just about the size of a business card.
These photos could be produced in bulk and visitors especially women would leave them as a calling card.
When visiting another home, Harriet Hayden’s albums contain carts to visit from black and white abolitionists, prominent Black Bostonians and other visitors to the Hayden home from 1860 to the early 18 seventies.
The new exhibit includes not only the albums and the portraits they contained but also portraits of Lewis and Harriet Hayden that are on loan to the Athenaeum.
After all, Harriet wouldn’t have put their own portraits into her albums.
It also includes artifacts like the handcuffs that carried Anthony Burns from Boston back into bondage and a Billy Club that was once carried by a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee perhaps by Louis Hayden himself.

Jake intro-outro:

[9:38] I may have another episode coming up that involves this fascinating new exhibit.
The at and AM reached out and offered interviews and other access.
But with the exhibit open, I wanted to be sure to mention it before returning to our eclipse story.

Jake intro-outro:

[9:54] Speaking of eclipses much like this year’s eclipse, the one in 1780 missed Boston to the north at the time, the war for independence was still raging and the path of totality was going directly over British held territory.
How would Harvard scientists be able to study this scientific phenomenon while steering clear of the British?
That’s the question that this podcast attempted to answer while our co-host Emerita and I were on our way to Nashville to see that 2017 eclipse.
This brief clip originally aired as episode 42 back in August 2017.

Eclipses:

[10:30] Now we’re down in Nashville this weekend hoping for good brother to catch the first total solar eclipse of our lives.
Back in Boston, you’ll be able to see the eclipse but it won’t be total as we were getting ready for the trip.
We wondered whether Bostonians had ever been treated to a total eclipse.
And if so when the first one was, I’m sure there were earlier eclipses, but the documentation isn’t great before the revolutionary War.
First one, I could find a record of that was visible from Massachusetts was on November 14th, 1659.
Now, just as a reminder, a solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth casting its shadow on the earth and causing darkness during daytime, an eclipse can be annular where the moon appears to be smaller than the sun and causes a ring of fire effect or it can be total where the moon appears to be the same size as the sun and completely obscures it because of the relative orbits of the earth and the moon.
The path of totality during an eclipse tends to be just a few miles wide and hundreds or thousands of miles long.
The 1659 eclipse was partial, meaning that the sun was not entirely obscured.
The records of the town of Salem say an eclipse of the sun began presently after seven o’clock in the morning continued till half past nine.

Eclipses:

[11:48] There were a couple of important eclipses during the American revolution.
During an eclipse on June 24th, 1778 the path of totality stretched from Mexico across the American Southeast and even into northern Africa.
Here in Boston, we were outside the brutality but still treated to a partial eclipse in an 1806 book on eclipses.
The author uses a scale of digits to measure partial eclipses with each digit being equal to 1/12 the diameter of the sun.
He says in the year 1778 June 24th, there was a great eclipse of the sun as seen from Boston. It was about 11 digits.
The north side of the sun being visible in the middle of the eclipse that’s over 90% obscured, which must be a very dramatic sight.
The only solar eclipse I can remember happened in the nineties and I don’t think the sun was over half obscured from where I was at the time.

Eclipses:

[12:43] The path of totality in 1778 passed right over Virginia.
But those of us who are on team Adams will be satisfied that Jefferson did not have the pleasure of observing it.
He wrote in a letter to a friend. We were much disappointed in Virginia generally on the day of the great eclipse which proved to be cloudy in Williamsburg where it was total.

Early Eclipses in Boston’s History

Eclipses:

[13:04] I understand only the beginning was seen at this place.
11 digits only were supposed to be covered as if not seen at all till the moon had advanced nearly one third over the sun’s disk.
Afterwards, it was seen at intervals through the hole. The egress particularly was visible.
It proved however of little use to me for want of a timepiece that could be depended on.

Eclipses:

[13:28] Things will get a little bit more interesting. Just two years later, the eclipse of October 27th, 1780 was expected to be about 10 digits or 80% obscured when viewed from Boston.
However, that time, a party from Harvard set out to do exactly what we’re doing this week, they would travel from Boston to chase the path of totality for them that meant going north.
Totality was expected to be visible from the Penobscot Bay along the coast of Maine.
Unfortunately, we were still in the middle of our war for independence at that time.
And even more, unfortunately, the Penobscot Bay was being held by a strong British garrison just a year before the Massachusetts Navy and Militia had taken a large party to Maine and laid siege to Fort George in an attempt to dislodge the British forces there.
If you listen to episode 25 about the court martial of Paul Revere, you know that the siege ended in disaster.
Every American ship was sunk or burned and the militia was scattered into the forest and forced to walk back to Boston over land.
Needless to say the British were not dislodged.

Eclipses:

[14:35] Now, a professor of mathematics named Samuel Williams convinced John Hancock to write a letter to the British commander of that same Fort Colonel Campbell asking for safe passage for Williams and his party to observe the eclipse from that area.
Surprisingly, Campbell agreed we placed strict limits on where the party would be allowed to land as he didn’t entirely trust any ships from Massachusetts.
After the hijinks. The pre summer, Williams was also able to convince the Massachusetts Board of War to fit out the state galley with proper stores and accommodation for the conveyance of the Reverend Samuel Williams Holy and Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.
And such attendance as he may think proper to take with him to make the aforesaid observation on the central and total eclipse of the sun upon arriving in Maine.
Colonel Campbell refused to allow the party to set foot on the mainland instead forcing them to land on a large island in Penobscot Bay.
Though disappointed that he wouldn’t have freedom of movement.
Williams calculated that the island was within his desired area.
Unfortunately, the maps he had been given to work with contain a slight inaccuracy and he was actually just a few miles outside the path of totality.

Eclipses:

[15:52] The longitude of the place of our observation agrees very well with what we had supposed in our calculations, but the latitude is near half a degree less than what the maps of this part of the country had led us to expect.
On this account, our situation instead of falling within the limits of total darkness proved to be very near the southern extremity.

Eclipses:

[16:14] Despite this setback, he made detailed scientific observations of the eclipse that would be useful for geographers and to improve ocean navigation.
He also took a moment to step back and reflect on the magnificence of the event.
From the beginning of the eclipse unto the time of the greatest obscuration, the color and appearance of the sky was gradually changing from an azure blue to a more dark and dusky color until it bore the appearance and gloom of night.
As the darkness increased, a chill and dampness were very sensibly felt, in one hour and 19 minutes when the light and heat of the sun were rapidly decreasing, there fell two thirds as much due as found the night before or the night after the eclipse.
To this, we may add so unusual a darkness, dampness and chill in the midst of day seemed to spread a general amazement among all sorts of animals.
Nor could we ourselves observe such unusual phenomena without some disagreeable feelings.
Finally, in 1806, Boston was treated to a total solar eclipse.
The first since Europeans settled on Massachusetts Bay, it came on June 16th just after 11 am.

Eclipses:

[17:29] Nasa’s eclipse calculator tells me that at my house totality would have begun at 1110 and lasted for four minutes and 42 seconds.
An 1860 article in the New York Times describes the event probably no eclipse that has happened since the settlement of the country caused as much excitement as this.
And even now, it is frequently alluded to by the fortunate theaters of the phenomenon.
Indeed, it took place under a rare coincidence of favorable circumstances.
The day was cloudless. The total obscuration occurred near noon when the augmentation of the moon’s diameter for its altitude is the greatest and its apparent motion from the sun and longitude, the slowest.
And also at a time when the sun was about at its greatest distance from the earth, the duration of the total eclipse was therefore very long and nearly as long as it can be much as Williams had observed amazement among all sorts of animals.
During the 1780 eclipse, the cows on Boston Common seemed pretty amazed by the 1806 eclipse.
Benjamin Bussy, founder of Harvard’s Bussey Institute of Biology recorded that the cows on the common.
We are told discovered sensible marks of agitation.
Some of them left the ground and proceeded homeward rest gathered around a person who was crossing the Common at the time and followed him with apparent anxiety as if soliciting protection.

Eclipses:

[18:51] A month before the eclipse, Andrew Newell had published a booklet called darkness at noon telling people what to expect during the eclipse in it.
He recommended eclipse viewing methods that would make your mother cringe.
These are definitely not NASA recommended safe techniques.
Newell first says that if you don’t have access to a telescope, perhaps best substitute is one of the dark glasses of a common quadrant.
Editor’s note, don’t use common sunglasses to view the eclipse, you will burn your retinas out, only special solar glasses are safe.
Newell then goes on to recommend using a mirror to reflect the sun into the dark glass of a common quadrant, don’t do this either.

Eclipses:

[19:37] The author then goes on to offer perhaps the worst advice of all, those who are not possessed of any of the contrivances above mentioned must have recourse to a piece of common window glass smoked on both sides sufficiently to prevent any injury to the eye.
The glass should be several inches square to be used with good advantage and it will be much more convenient than a small piece.
The smoke of a common lamp is probably the best for this purpose.
As the glass will not be so liable to crack if you want to observe Monday’s eclipse a little more safely.
Boston public Library is making solar eclipse glasses available at most of their branches on a first come first served basis.
Many branches will also have educational programs about eclipses call your local branch to see what they have planned.

Eclipses:

[20:29] You can also make a safer viewer. If you’re crafty, an improvised pinball camera will work and the lens of your binoculars can be used to project an image of the sun onto a piece of cardboard.
If all else fails, stand under a tree and look down between the shadows of the leaves, tiny images of the partially eclipsed sun will be projected onto the ground.
Our partial eclipse will begin at 128 on Monday, August 21st.
The maximum extent of the eclipse will be reached at 2:46 p.m.
And at its peak, the sun will be 63% obscured.
That’s just about eight digits less than both the 1778 and 1780 partial eclipses we discussed but still a dramatic sight to see.
We wish you clear skies and safe retinas.

Dark Days and Smoke Events in Boston

Jake intro-outro:

[21:21] We’ve had three chances to experience eclipses in North America over the past few years, but none of them were total in Boston never blacking out the sun.
What we have seen in the skies over Boston over the past few years has been a repeat of the dark days that Boston witnessed in 1780 1881 and 1950.
These were extreme smoke events which we’ve seen reflected in days of orange skies and dim sun several times in the past five years back in 1881 people called it the yellow day.
And in 1780 the skies turned dark enough that people mistook the event for an un forecast eclipse in each of these past events.
Some people’s thoughts turned to judgment day but in the end, science prevailed.
Learn how in this classic clip from episode 85 which aired in June 2018.

Dark Days:

[22:18] Writing from her home in Braintree, our old friend Abigail Adams describes a phenomenon that would come to be known as the dark day of 1780.
In a letter to James Lovell, we have had a strange phenomena in the natural world.
On Friday the 19th of May, the sun rose with a thick smoky atmosphere indicating dry weather which we had for 10 days before, soon after eight o’clock in the morning, the sun shut in and it rained half an hour after that, there arose light luminous clouds from the north and west. The wind at southwest.
They gradually spread over the hemisphere till such a darkness took place as appears in a total eclipse.
By 11 o’clock, candles were lit up in every house, the cattle retired to the barns, the fowls to the roost and the frogs croaked.
The greatest darkness was about one o’clock. It was three before the sky assumed its usual look.
The luminous clouds disappeared and it rained gently for an hour or two, about eight o’clock in the evening.
Almost instantaneously.
The heavens were covered with Egyptian darkness objects.
The nearest to you could not be discerned though the moon was at her full, it continued till 12 at night and then disappeared without either wind or rain.

Dark Days:

[23:45] The clouds pass to the south and east.
I have given you only my own observations.
I hope some of our philosophical geniuses will endeavor to investigate so unusual an appearance.
It is a matter of great consternation to many. It was the most solemn appearance. My eyes ever beheld.
The philosophical eye can look through and trust to the ruler of the sky.
An anonymous poet set the events in verse saying in part 19th of May, a gloomy day when darkness veiled the sky, the sun’s decline may be a sign.
Some great event is nigh, let us remark how black and dark was the ensuing night.
And for a time, the moon declined and did not give her light.

Dark Days:

[24:34] A letter in Boston’s continental journal from someone writing under the name.
Viator adds a detailed account of the darkest part of the day.
About 11 o’clock, the darkness was such as to demand our attention and put us upon making observations at half past 11 in a room with three windows, 24 panes each all open towards the southeast and south.
Large print could not be read by persons of good eyes.
About 12 o’clock, the windows being still open a candle cast a shade so well defined on the wall as that profiles were taken with as much ease as they could have been in the night.
About one o’clock, a glint of light which had continued till this time in the east shut in and the darkness was greater than it had been for any time before.
Between one and two o’clock. The wind from the west freshened a little and glint appeared in that quarter.
We dined about two, the windows all open and two candles burning on the table, in the time of the greatest darkness.
Some of the Dunghill fowls went to their roost cock crowed an answer to one another as they commonly do in the night woodcocks which are night birds whistled as they do.
Only in the dark frogs peeped.
In short, there was the appearance of midnight at noonday.
About three o’clock, the light in the west increased the motion of the clouds more quick. They’re a color higher and more brassy than any time before.
There appeared to be quick flashes or coruscation. Not unlike the aurora borealis.

Dark Days:

[26:03] Abigail. Adams hilariously named Uncle Cotton Tufts noted the reaction of the less enlightened residents of the area.
The vulgar considered it some was pretending great calamities, others as a prelude to the general dissolution of all things.
Writing over 100 years later, historian Sidney Perley also colored his version of the events with an apocalyptic tint saying, the light of the sun seemed to be almost taken away from the earth, and a strange darkness filled the hours that should have been brightest, bringing fear, anxiety and awe into the minds of the people who generally believed that it was the darkening of the sun and moon preparatory to the day of the consummation of all things.
Some perhaps expecting the appearance in the clouds of the son of man.
It was undoubtedly equal to the darkness that overspread Judea during the hours that our savior was dying upon the cross in Boston.
One of Reverend Dr Bile’s parishioners sent her servant to him when the darkness was grossest, asking whether or not in his opinion, it did not pretend an earthquake, hurricane or some other elementary commotion.
Give my respectful compliments to your mistress. Facetiously replied the doctor, and tell her I am as much in the dark as she is.

Dark Days:

[27:31] People knew of the prophecy of the darkening of the sun and moon and ignorant and learned alike were not certain that this was not at least a token of the dreadful day of universal destruction, melancholy and awe filled most minds, many thinking that the Son of Mercy had set and that the night of despair of judgment and the end of all things was at hand, people gazed upon each other in wonder and astonishment.
It was popularly believed that the revolutionary war which for more than five years had been waged was the fulfillment of that other prophecy that announces wars and rumors of wars as coming before the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
A sort of superstitious horror brooded over all the people.

The Superstitious Horror of the Dark Day of 1780

Dark Days:

[28:21] It influenced the minds of all classes of the strong and learned, as well as the weak and ignorant.

Signs of the End Times

Dark Days:

[28:29] Though Purley may have overstated things somewhat. There certainly were folks in New England who believe the end was at hand.
An 1839 article in Hayward’s New England gazetteer recalls the reaction of Senator Abraham Davenport when the skies began to grow dark in Hartford.
The 19th of May 1780 was a remarkable dark day.
Candles were lighted in many houses. The birds were silent and disappeared and the fowls retired to roost.
The legislature of Connecticut was then in session in Hartford.
A very general opinion prevailed that the day of judgment was at hand.
The House of Representatives being unable to transact their business adjourned.
A proposal to adjourn the council was under consideration. When the opinion of Mr Davenport was asked, he answered, I am against an adjournment.
The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not.
If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment. If it is I choose to be found doing my duty, I wish therefore that candles may be brought.
Davenport was truly living up to the message of that old bumper sticker.
Jesus is coming. Look busy.

Dark Days:

[29:41] Hundreds of miles away in New Jersey where the effect wasn’t as strong.
George Washington recorded the event in his journal, heavy and uncommon kind of clouds dark and at the same time, a bright and reddish kind of light intermixed with them brightening and darkening alternately, this continued till afternoon when the sun began to appear.
Further evidence that Sidney Pearly did not give nearly enough credit to the people of the 18th century, especially the strong and learned people comes from Samuel Williams.
He was the Am Hollis professor of Mathematics and Philosophy at Harvard and he tried to give an exhaustive and objective description of the event.
The time of this extraordinary darkness was May 19th 1780.
It came on between the hours of 10 and 11 a.m. and continued until the middle of the next night.
But with different appearances at different places as to the manner of its approach, it seemed to appear.
First of all, in the southwest, the wind came from that quarter and the darkness appeared to come on with the clouds that came in that direction.
The degree to which the darkness arose was different in different places in most parts of the country.
It was so great that people were unable to read common print, determine the time of day by their clocks or watches, dine or manage their domestic business. Without the light of candles.

Dark Days:

[31:03] In some places, the darkness was so great that persons could not see to read common print in the open air for several hours together.
But I believe this was not generally the case.
The extent of this darkness was very remarkable. Our intelligence in this respect is not so particular as I would wish.
But from the accounts that have been received, it seems to have extended all over the New England states.
It was observed as far east as Falmouth. And at that time, Falmouth referred to the city we know as Portland Maine to the westward.
We hear of it reaching to the furthest parts of Connecticut and Albany to the southward.
It was observed all along the sea coasts and to the north.
As far as our settlements extend, it is probable it extended much beyond these limits in some directions, but the exact boundaries cannot be ascertained by any observations that I’ve been able to collect with regard to its duration.
It continued in this place at least 14 hours, but it is probable this was not exactly the same in different parts of the country.
The appearance and effects were such as tended to make the prospect extremely dull and gloomy candles were lighted up in the houses, the birds having sung their evening songs disappeared and became silent.
The fowls retired to roost. The cocks were crowing all around.
As at break of day, objects could not be distinguished but at very little distance and everything bore the appearance and gloom of night.

Dark Days:

[32:28] Being a scientifically minded. Professor Williams also took lots of measurements of temperature and barometric pressure, observing that they were experiencing what we would call a high pressure system, and that the temperature was slightly lower than normal.
He noted reports that there was a broad strip of black scum left behind on the banks of rivers in the seashore.
After the dark day, there were scattered showers throughout the area.
And Williams quotes a resident of Ipswich as saying, he found the people much surprised with the strange appearance and smell of rainwater which they had saved in tubs, upon examining the water, I found says he a light scum over it which rubbing between my thumb and finger.
I found to be nothing but the black ashes of burnt leaves.
The water gave the same strong sooty smell which we had observed in the air.

Dark Days:

[33:26] Williams confirmed that he also thought the residue on the waters was black ashes of burnt leaves without any sulfurous or other mixtures.
Continuing his observations, he recounted, I put out several sheets of clean paper in the air and rain.
When they had been out four or five hours, I dried them by the fire.
They were much soiled and became dark in their color and felt as if they had been rubbed with oil or grease.
But upon burning them, there was not any appearance of sulfurous or nitrous particles.

Dark Days:

[34:05] Now, what we have going on here is some po heck that would be problem observation, hypothesis experiment and conclusion 1780 wasn’t the first time that a dark day was recorded in Boston.
And it wouldn’t be the last on October 21st 1716. A Sabbath day.
A similar event was recorded though it’s not nearly so well documented as the one that occurred almost 64 years later.
Several sources we found said that Cotton Mather was so intrigued by the dark day that he sent an account of it to the Royal Philosophical Society in London.
But we haven’t been able to track down a copy of the account itself.
One of the only primary sources we could find was this diary entry from Stephen Jacques of Newbury mass.

Dark Days:

[34:53] On the Sabbath day, about 11 o’clock in the sermon time, it grew so dark that one could not see a person from one end of the meeting house to the other except it was against a window nor could no another four seats off nor read a word in a psalm book.
It continued near half an hour.
Some ministers sent for candles. Some sat still till it was lighter.
Some was ready to think the world was at an end. All seem to be concerned.
It was a time when the air was very full of smoke. It came daily down when it was a southwest wind and the wind being now as I remember at east, which might bring the smoke back and dark clouds pass over as it being cloudy weather.
I was an eyewitness of this myself.

Historical Dark Days

Dark Days:

[35:40] A 1912 US forest service report about forest fires gives a list of dark days affecting New England that had entered the historical record up until that time.
It includes dark days of varying intensity in 1706, 1716, 1732 1780 1814, 1819 1836 1881 and 1894.
As we’ll see, there was at least one more in 1950. But the next day of historical interest is what we know as the yellow day of 1881.

Dark Days:

[36:16] On September 6th, 1881 Emily Dickinson opened a letter to Mary Bowles with the words I give you only a word this mysterious morning in which we must light the lamps to see each other’s faces.
On September 7th, the Boston Globe described what that mysterious morning was like yesterday.
Boston was shrouded and nature’s gloom soon infusing itself into the hearts of all made it a day long to be remembered.
Reminding one vividly of that famous dark day of years ago.

Dark Days:

[36:52] About seven o’clock in the morning, the golden pall shrouded the city in its embrace and the weird unreal appearance continued throughout the day.
As one approached a doorway from within and glanced out upon the sidewalk and street, it was difficult to dispel the illusion that an extensive conflagration was raging near and that it was the yellow gleaming light from the burning houses that produced the singular effect, before long darkness began to fall and lamps had to be lit as Harper’s magazine relates, the singular light, which to many persons seemed to be brassy rather than golden, produced extraordinary effects.
Although the air appeared to be unusually bright, the light was painful to the eyes and it was difficult to read or write without artificial light.
One person busily writing found himself gradually moving out upon the Piazza into the open air.
His neighbor reading by the open door, found his eyes tired as if reading in the late twilight and he abandoned his book.
The village merchant nearby could not see to attend to his business.
And at 11 o’clock in the morning lighted his lamps which burned with a white spectral glare like the electric lights.

Dark Days:

[38:14] Writing and forgotten. New England. Ryan W Owen continues the tale.
By noon, the skies had darkened to the point that the birds were seen roosting and people so accustomed to relying on natural light.
During their 19th century days, reached for artificial lights to light their offices and homes.
Early afternoon trains left Boston with lamps lit and the railroad men were seen leaving the depots with their lit lanterns in hand.
A scene usually only seen on evening and night trains, people were already on edge because a great comet had dominated the skies from late May to late September, C slash 1888 K 1 as it’s scientifically designated was first spotted from the southern hemisphere in May then viewed from the northern hemisphere starting in mid June.
It was the first comet to be successfully photographed and it’s sometimes described as the brightest comet in recorded history.
It was so bright that the long tail could be seen sweeping across the sky even in the middle of the day.

Dark Days:

[39:19] Just a few weeks after the comet had passed out of view, the skies turned yellow.
Was this some terrible side effect of passing through the comet’s tail or was it something worse?
A few people worried that the world might be ending as they remembered the prophecy attributed to 16th century soothsayer, Mother Shipton that said the world to an end shall come in 1881.

Dark Days:

[39:45] However, that prophecy had been invented for an 1862 book and it wasn’t something she ever said.
However, that didn’t stop people from worrying. Ryan W Owen describes how Bostonians reacted as light receded from the world.
So many Bostonians rushed to the equitable building to view the strange day from its high roof that the roof had to be closed.
At further visitors in the afternoon, people sought explanations for what they were witnessing the calmest theories, blamed forest fires raging in Canada or Michigan combining with fog and overcast skies in New England.
Others attributed the yellowish stew to large amounts of pollen in the air from pine and fir trees.
Many fretted about the skies and more than a few feared that the judgment day was at hand.
Some took this even further groups of second adventists in Worcester, Woonsocket and Hartford were seen wearing their ascension robes to local schoolhouses where they awaited the world’s end.
More than a few whispered that the saffron curtain was the sign of a divine judgment for the July 1881 shooting that had left President Garfield ailing in New Jersey.

Dark Days:

[40:58] Harper’s describes the perhaps apocryphal religious concern in one neighboring community, a royal deacon pallid with terror declared that he believed the end of the world to be at hand.
But he was evidently overcome with fear.

Dark Days:

[41:15] Brother Jheel said a neighbor, I suppose tis.
But what then you always said you wanted to be in heaven and I guess you’ll be there before dinner.
You ought to be happy anyway.
But it was evident that even Brother Jheel did not wish such happiness to be thrust upon him too suddenly.

Dark Days:

[41:34] This time, the cause was quickly known. Observers again, smelled smoke and saw the sooty residue left behind by the yellow Air, telegraph operators reached out across the country and soon heard news of the great thumb fire, in far away Michigan in a corner of the map that looks like the thumb on a mitten.
A forest fire was burning that would consume over a million acres of woodland before it burned itself out.
Almost 300 people were killed. Thousands of buildings were destroyed and tens of thousands of people were left homeless.
The Boston Globe describes the bizarre visual effects caused by the smoke, saturated atmosphere from almost every store and dwelling lights flashed and gleamed with the dazzling brightness and distinctive whiteness.

Unusual Effects of the Yellow Day

Dark Days:

[42:26] Why gas should be thus affected is a question for the scientists to decide by some.
The opinion is held that the additional yellow rays in the atmosphere cut off those from the gas flame and thus give it additional clearness.
While others assert that it is accounted for by some peculiarity of combustion in the charged atmosphere.

Dark Days:

[42:48] The public garden seemed to have taken on an additional charm with its display of varying greens and vivid colorings.
Far stranger freaks were played with the colors there than those in the pictures of the human family in a photographer’s gallery, flowers of pink turned pure white and the serene blue of Lobelia became a deep bronze.
While flowers of yellow became pearly in their whiteness, the grass became a wonderful blue in many places and the trees varied in their colors from deep sea green to Prussian blue.
While here and there where the specks of autumn had tinged them with its hue.
They stood out from their places grave dark and rusty.
A description from Professor Williams of the colors visible on the 1780 dark day makes it appear that the dark day and the yellow day were merely different degrees of the same phenomenon.

Dark Days:

[43:46] The color of objects that day was also worthy of remark.
It is mentioned in the observations made by the gentleman here that the complexion of the clouds was compounded of a faint red, yellow and brown.
And that during the darkness, objects which commonly appear green were of the deepest green verging to blue and that those which appear white were highly tinged with yellow.
Much the same observation was pretty, generally made almost every object appeared to me tinged with yellow rather than with any other color.
This I found to be the case with everything I held up to view, whether near or remote from the eye.
That 1912 Forest Service report that we’ll go into more detail within a few minutes makes the connection clear.
Most dark days might more properly be called yellow days.
Even black Friday May 19th, 1780 which was the most memorable of all the dark days of modern times was preceded by a gradually increasing yellowness and an odor.

Dark Days:

[44:51] Unlike in 1881 after the 1780 dark day, people were left guessing what had happened.
The Boston gazette attempted a bit of cy a by saying the printers acknowledge their incapacity of describing the phenomenon which appeared in this town on Friday last and shall therefore leave it to astronomers whose more particular business it is, Cotton Tufts Abigail Adams Uncle recorded one possible explanation for the 1780 dark day.
This uncommon darkness greater in degree and longer in duration than had ever been before.
Amongst us occasioned much speculation.
Some attributed it to the influence of the planets, some to the effects of a comet and some toward the eruption of a volcano, a close attention to what appeared before.
And during this event will help us to at least a probable solution of this matter without having recourse to the planets, et cetera. For a cause.
Prior to this, the woods from Ticonderoga for 30 miles downwards had been for some time on fire.
No rain for many days. Winds chiefly at west and northwest.
By these, the smoke and vapors were carried to a great distance insomuch that in our vicinity, the sky was, at times obscured the air crowded with smoke and vapors.
A disagreeable smell like what proceeds from swamps on fire.

Dark Days:

[46:18] Our professor Williams got very close to the truth and the cause from whence, the uncommon quantity of these vapors was derived is easily ascertained.
It is well known that in this part of America, it is customary to make large fires in the woods for the purpose of clearing the lands in a new settlement.
This was the case this spring in a much greater degree than is common in the county of York in the western part of the state of New Hampshire in the western parts of this state.
And in Vermont, uncommonly large and extensive fires have been kept up a large quantity of the vapors thus collected in the atmosphere.
On the 19th of May were floating near the surface of the earth, wheresoever the specific gravity of any vapor is less than the specific gravity of the air.
By the laws of fluids. Such a vapor will ascend in the air, where the specific gravity of a vapor in the atmosphere is greater than that of the air, such a vapor will descend, and where the specific gravity of the vapor and the air are the same, the vapor will then be at rest floating or swimming in the atmosphere without ascending or descending.

Dark Days:

[47:37] Williams then references his barometric readings to theorize that the specific gravity of the vapor on the 19th of May was greater than the surrounding air because the smoke particles in it made it more heavy.
And that was why the day turned so dark.

Dark Days:

[47:54] Williams was right about the general cause. It was in fact, smoke from forest fires, but he had some of the details wrong, the mechanism that caused the smoke to concentrate, causing the 1780 dark day and the 1881 yellow day wouldn’t be fully explained until 1912.

Uncovering the Source of the Smoke

Dark Days:

[48:14] And the source of the smoke wouldn’t be discovered until 2005.
225 years after Williams published his paper in 1912, Henry S graves of the US.
Forest service published a report called forest fires.
Their causes extent and effects with a summary of recorded destruction and losses in it.
There’s a whole section on the smoke phenomena of forest fires which delves into dark days and by extension, yellow days, the tendency is for smoke to spread out and to be dissipated.
But if the volume is great, it may be identified for hundreds of miles.
Even when the cause of it is unknown at greater distances where the smoke is more attenuated, there is only a slight obscuration of light.
Though if the smoke is descended to the earth, it may interfere with vision.

Dark Days:

[49:08] At still greater distances from the fire.
When the smoke has been further mixed with clear air, its presence can only be noted by a yellow or pearly haze about the horizon or by the discoloration of rain.
These phenomena observed from time immemorial have been known by various names in this country.
As dark days, dry fogs, Indian summers and colored rains.

Dark Days:

[49:34] Days have been recorded for centuries. Usually there’s a gradually increasing gloom until it becomes so dark that artificial light is necessary.
This darkness may last a few hours or several days and decrease as gradually as it came.
We are now able to show that dark days are due to dense smoke in the atmosphere.
And that in this country, forest and prairie fires have been the causes in other countries, peat fires and volcanic eruptions have also furnished smoke to produce dark days.
But such cases are more rare theories advanced in olden times that dark days are caused by solar eclipses or by the transit of inferior planets across the solar disk are ridiculous since a total solar eclipse seldom lasts over five minutes.
And a transit of Venus, the largest and nearest of the inferior planets is barely visible to the naked eye and would not cause a diminution of light or heat that would be measurable.
If any consideration of such theories were necessary, it would be sufficient to point out that the dark days of modern history have not been coincident with either eclipses or transits.

Dark Days:

[50:43] Graves. Then goes on to talk about the evidence that historic dark days were caused by fire, mostly by citing some of the same sources that we’ve already shared, having demonstrated the cause.
He then lays out an argument for why New England and Boston in particular have experienced more dark days than other areas of the continent.
New England easily leads in the phenomena of very dark days and several of the most pronounced have affected practically the same area.
The tracks of many air currents and storm centers converge toward this area from all over the United States and sometimes meet an opposing storm from the east or northeast.
It therefore seems that dark days are caused by the banking up of smoke laden air.
The greatest forest fires have occurred in the northern states and the winds transporting the smoke eastward flow over the New England States at such a time.
If a nor’easter flows in from the ocean and banks up a smoke laden stratum, increasing its thickness and density.
It is evident that obscurity and perhaps darkness will result.

New England’s Dark Day Patterns

Dark Days:

[51:51] In the paper graves included a map of the Northeastern United States stretching from Michigan to Maine and from Kentucky to Delaware over the New England States.
A series of concentric circles outlined the extent of the historically recorded dark days from 1706 to 1910.
If you’ve ever looked at a weather report during the middle of a classic nor’easter, you’ll recognize the sweep of the jet stream down from Canada and the swirling pattern.
The map of New England’s dark days traces with the bull’s eye directly over Boston pulling a quick description from Wikipedia.
A nor’easter is a macro scale cyclone.
The name derives from the direction of the strongest winds that will be hitting an eastern seaboard of the northern hemisphere.
As the cyclonic air mass rotates counterclockwise winds tend to blow northeast to southwest over the region covered by the northwest quadrant of the cyclone.
They thrive on converging air masses. The cold polar air mass and the warmer air over the water and are more severe in winter where the difference in temperature between these air masses is greater.

Dark Days:

[53:04] If a fire happens particularly late in the season or a nor’easter happens particularly early, the two can coincide.
In that case, the smoke from the fire won’t blow out over the ocean and dissipate.
Instead, the smoke carried on the cold jet stream runs into the wet, heavy air circulating over the ocean like a car running into a tree.
It keeps on piling up heavier and denser until the day turns dark.

Dark Days:

[53:33] With modern fire control policies and techniques. Northern forests are less likely to be torn by fires that consume tens of thousands or even millions of acres.
Less uncontrolled fires means fewer chances for dark days.
But modern science allows us to see which fires of old led to the dark days.
We’ve discussed a 2005 paper in the International Journal of Wild and fire.
Finally pinpointed the source of the 17 eighties smoke by combing through the written records of the day and then overlaying that data with modern techniques for interpreting fire scar evidence.
A group of experts believe they located the 1780 fire in the remote Algonquin highlands in Southern Ontario in 1950 smoke from an even more remote source would cause another dark day in Boston.
The last one we could find in the historical record.
This time, we had the technology to know what was happening and where it came from.
Yet there were still people who refused to believe the science dark day truther. If you will.

The Mystery of the 1950 Dark Day

Dark Days:

[54:41] It all started in a remote corner of Canada as the Edmonton Journal recollects.

Dark Days:

[54:47] The beginning of what some people thought was the end of the world started on June 2nd 1950 with a small wildfire in the northeast corner of British Columbia.
It had been an exceptionally hot spring and forest fire managers were too busy with other fires in BC Alberta and the southern Yukon to do anything about a blaze that was remote and so far away from human settlement.
The policy back then was to ignore fires that were 15 kilometers away from roads or human settlements within a few days though the fire crossed into Alberta’s Chincha Wildlands, fueled by a tender dry forest that seemingly went on forever.
The relatively small blaze developed into a wildfire of such monstrous proportions that the thickness of the smoke led some to believe that an atomic bomb had exploded and that the Western world was at war with Russia.

Dark Days:

[55:39] The blaze burned for 222 days and torched a stretch of forest that was 245 kilometers long.
It was and still is the biggest forest fire to hit Canada.
In modern times, it ended up burning 4.2 million acres of forest with the worst of the damage occurring when a strong steady wind blew from September 22nd to 24th, on the 24th and 25th.
That cool steady wind ran into the warm wet breeze circling off the coast of New England.
This time, Boston was on the northern edge of the affected area becoming just dark enough to cause street lights to come on. During the daytime.
The deepest darkness stretched from Virginia to New York.
A resident of upstate New York wrote it was not until noon that I first noticed the strange yellow light outside.
It kept getting darker and darker.
The strange hot tawny color at the zenith had the quality of a yellow august afterglow yet different.
By 2 p.m. It was almost like night in the west, deep blue black clouds.
Then the sky went from Mars violet up to tawny orange, lower clouds, white and cold in the southeast brilliant yellow light at the horizon.

Dark Days:

[57:00] Another upstate New Yorker said, we noticed that the sky was becoming dark but with a strange color, a yellowish or greenish or even orange brown.
Having been to Sunday school and church that morning, my brother and I wondered if the hellfire and brimstone preacher had been right about the impending end of the world.
Mother and daddy being a bit more aware of the larger world and its escalating politics of the Cold War with the US sr atom bomb tests and so on, speculated it might have been some sort of horrible weapon or bomb test perpetrated by the Soviets.
A small sample of the explanations for the dark day on one online message board gives one a glimpse into the fever dreams of a populace that is no longer tethered to the concept of scientific truth.

Dark Days:

[57:51] No one had an answer for what caused the unusual day. They set a fire in Canada.
The army was testing a new weapon. A spaceship had covered the sun and it was the end of the world. And on and on.
Very few people remember that day, I would really like to know what happened.
We didn’t have cell phones, computers or much TV. We really were in the dark.
Let me know what you know about this day. One thing, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Dark Days:

[58:19] My father always told us that the cloud was from a nuclear test in the Ural mountains and the US sr gone wrong and it was the debris from the Ural mountains and not simply a forest fire.
The forest fires at Fort mcmurray do not act the same way as the one that Sunday in 1950 that same cloud went around the world before it finally dispersed.
I found an interesting article that indicates the military was conducting bioterror exercises on September 20th, 1950 on the West coast.
Do you think it would have taken four days for that to reach us in the East?
It would explain why the one woman who posted it on your thread said that there was a high incidence of women having mentally retarded Children during that time.
Just a thought. I was born in 1971 and I just heard about Black Sunday today. So strange.
I know there are us government air force theories about USA f using cloud seed cover weaponry and trials and also the approval of NBA trials given that year in January.

Dark Days:

[59:23] There was no odor of smoke and I don’t recall any stars visible.
It seemed to take a lot longer than two minutes for the darkness to return to daylight.
The only explanation I ever heard was the forest fire story which I never believed, my own thoughts are of a government experiment to try to hide the carbon plants from the area from the view of aircraft from above.
Surprisingly, none of these commenters left evidence of their phd credentials, and that my friends is where Pizza Gate climate denial and the Trump presidency come from.

Jake intro-outro:

[59:58] Well, that about wraps it up for this week to learn more about Boston’s experiences with eclipses and dark days.
Check out this week’s show notes at hubor.com/two 98.
I’ll have links to a ton of primary sources for both of our stories this week including letters diaries and historic maps.
I’ll also include some pictures that I’ve taken of past eclipses and some more pictures of recent smoke events that affected Boston over the past few years.
We’ll also have a link to more information about the new exhibit framing Freedom, the Harriet Hayden albums, which is now on view at the Boston Athenaeum.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubor.com.
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Jake intro-outro:

[1:01:20] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.