Howdy neighbor!
This week, we’re going back to the old days of the Bridgton News, to their issue of December 18, 1891 to review a very different season than we saw last week. While in 1873 winter came early in November, and came to stay; by this time in 1891 it hadn’t come at all, and there wasn’t a very good prospect of it coming anytime soon. To say nothing of the warm and snowless weather — in the 40s to 50s all December! — that year it hadn’t even rained since autumn; and to that end, wells were starting to run dry. For this was a year of a singularly pronounced Indian Summer, a term which I’m sure I don’t need to explain to any of our older readers, but if you’re young and don’t know it, it’s when it’s really warm all through October and November. But in 1891, Indian Summer stayed on through December! While in this issue there is no feature story on the warm December, scattered throughout we find many concerning notes, which when taken together paint a very discouraging yuletide picture 134 years ago. To begin with:
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