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There is an old saying in these parts that goes, “If you don’t like the weather wait 10 minutes, it’ll change.”
That was certainly the case 175 years ago this week. That change had deadly consequences for at least two Woodford County residents, accounts claim.
Sudden change
Keith Heidorn, at Islandnet.com, discusses what is known locally as “Butler’s Snap.” However, this storm which left men frozen to their saddles and much worse, was very widespread.
What we now call a cold front — was back then called a “sudden change.” The “sudden change” that rolled into Illinois Dec. 20, 1836, was no ordinary storm system.
“At 2 p.m., the thermometer of Dr. Samuel Mead of Augusta had recorded a drop from 40 to zero in less than eight hours. Many say that drop was nearly instantaneous,” Heidorn writes.
The days leading up to the “sudden change” had been mild for December.
Heidorn, using data from David M. Ludlum’s book “Early American Winters II” Heidorn reconstructed what was happening weather-wise.
On Dec. 19 weather observations at Fort Leavenworth (Kansas); Fort Des Moines (Montrose, Iowa); and Fort Snelling (Minneapolis) lead Heidorn to believe a Colorado low was advancing across the northern Plains. All three forts were in a location below the bitter Arctic air.
“Temperatures were above freezing or a few degrees below over much of the region. In Illinois, snow which had been falling the day previous, turned into a slow, drizzling rain that changed the ground snow cover to slush,” Heidorn said.
On Dec. 20 the “sudden change” began hitting the Plains.
With sunrise on the 20th, a change was beginning. Fort Leavenworth reported in the a.m. temperatures dropped from 33 to 3 below; Fort Snelling went from 28 to 2 below.
Ludlum said the storm path likely began in the central Great Plains and then moved north-northeast through Iowa and to southwestern Wisconsin by dawn.
“It then likely turned and raced due northward across that state, likely deepening in the process. The trailing cold front was observed to pass through Burlington, Iowa, on the western bank of the Mississippi River at 10 a.m. and near Springfield, by 2 p.m., a speed of around 50 mph. It reached the Indiana border by 6 p.m. and Cincinnati by 9 p.m. that evening,” Ludlum wrote.
The cold front advanced from the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico in about 12 hours.
“Behind the front, the frigid Arctic air plunged the temperatures to bitterly cold conditions across the region, but nowhere was the change as extreme or sudden as that experienced across much of western and central Illinois,” Heidorn writes.
There is an old saying in these parts that goes, “If you don’t like the weather wait 10 minutes, it’ll change.”
That was certainly the case 175 years ago this week. That change had deadly consequences for at least two Woodford County residents, accounts claim.
Sudden change
Keith Heidorn, at Islandnet.com, discusses what is known locally as “Butler’s Snap.” However, this storm which left men frozen to their saddles and much worse, was very widespread.
What we now call a cold front — was back then called a “sudden change.” The “sudden change” that rolled into Illinois Dec. 20, 1836, was no ordinary storm system.
“At 2 p.m., the thermometer of Dr. Samuel Mead of Augusta had recorded a drop from 40 to zero in less than eight hours. Many say that drop was nearly instantaneous,” Heidorn writes.
The days leading up to the “sudden change” had been mild for December.
Heidorn, using data from David M. Ludlum’s book “Early American Winters II” Heidorn reconstructed what was happening weather-wise.
On Dec. 19 weather observations at Fort Leavenworth (Kansas); Fort Des Moines (Montrose, Iowa); and Fort Snelling (Minneapolis) lead Heidorn to believe a Colorado low was advancing across the northern Plains. All three forts were in a location below the bitter Arctic air.
“Temperatures were above freezing or a few degrees below over much of the region. In Illinois, snow which had been falling the day previous, turned into a slow, drizzling rain that changed the ground snow cover to slush,” Heidorn said.
On Dec. 20 the “sudden change” began hitting the Plains.
With sunrise on the 20th, a change was beginning. Fort Leavenworth reported in the a.m. temperatures dropped from 33 to 3 below; Fort Snelling went from 28 to 2 below.
Ludlum said the storm path likely began in the central Great Plains and then moved north-northeast through Iowa and to southwestern Wisconsin by dawn.
“It then likely turned and raced due northward across that state, likely deepening in the process. The trailing cold front was observed to pass through Burlington, Iowa, on the western bank of the Mississippi River at 10 a.m. and near Springfield, by 2 p.m., a speed of around 50 mph. It reached the Indiana border by 6 p.m. and Cincinnati by 9 p.m. that evening,” Ludlum wrote.
The cold front advanced from the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico in about 12 hours.
“Behind the front, the frigid Arctic air plunged the temperatures to bitterly cold conditions across the region, but nowhere was the change as extreme or sudden as that experienced across much of western and central Illinois,” Heidorn writes.
Illinois’ Sudden Change
During the daylight hours of Dec. 20, ,an arctic blast swept across Illinois.
Some historical records from those who took measurements indicate the temperature fell from 40 degrees to 20 below in minutes.
In Woodford County, Thomas Dixon of Kappa recorded that in the passage of five minutes, “the weather suddenly changed from quite warm to the severest cold. Ducks and geese were frozen in the mud before they could get out ....Hundreds of animals and many persons were frozen to death during this sudden change.”
Spencer Ellsworth, in Lacon Township, north of Peoria, wrote this account: “The morning was mild, with a settled rain gradually changing the snow on the ground into a miserable slush. Suddenly a black cloud came sweeping over the sky from the northwest, accompanied by a roaring wind as the cold wave struck the land, the rain and slush were changed in a twinkling to ice.”
John Moses recalled the water in the little ponds in the roads froze in waves, sharp-edged and pointed, “as the gale had blown it. The chickens, pigs and other small animals were frozen in their tracks.”
Moses also reported ice in streams thicken to between 6 inches and a foot in a few hours.
It was reported in Creve Coeur, temperatures changed so quickly, man and cattle were frozen in their tracks, and the ice had to be cut away or melted before they could walk.
George Price of McLean County reported the mercury must have fallen from 40 degrees above zero to 20 degrees below in less than 15 minutes.
“By the time Mr. Price could run two hundred yards to his house the slush was so frozen that it bore his weight. The change was so sudden and severe that some geese, which had been playing in a nearby field, had the points of their wings frozen in the ice, and it was necessary to cut them free,” Heidorn wrote.
Woodford’s trauma
In Woodford County when the “sudden change” occurred it took a deadly turn.
The name “Butler’s Snap” came from two Woodford County victims of the storm, according to a 1989 Journal Star story quoting Spencer Ellsworth’s “Records of the Olden Time,” published in 1880.
A laborer named Butler and his daughter, died in the storm according to Ellsworth’s account.
“The crowning horror happened just across the line of Woodford County in Black Partidge Township. A laborer named Butler lived there, his family consisting of himself and wife, a grown-up daughter named Margaret and a son about 10 years old. They were in very destitute circumstances and frequently objects of public charity, the neighbors providing them with clothing and provisions.
“That fatal afternoon, Mr. Butler and his daughter left the house in search of a stray cow. When they started a light rain was falling and the ground was covered with mud and slush. How far they had journeyed is not exactly known, but from circumstances it is presumed when a mile or two from home on their return, the fearful change began.
“They were most thinly clad, the girl’s clothing consisting of a calico dress, a sickle undergarment and an old shawl thrown across her shoulders.
“They traveled as fast as possible but the intense and piercing cold so affected the girl that she could go no further. They were less than a mile from home and her father removing his coat and putting it around her and put his boots upon her feet, and placing her in a sitting position against a tree, he left hoping to return and save her.
“He started home coatless and barefoot and reached a running stream where appearances indicate he tried to restore circulation to his frozen feet by placing them in the water.
“On the following morning, neither of the unfortunate people having returned, the search was made and he was found in the creek frozen stiff, his feet encased in a sheet of ice. The girl was found sitting against the tree, dressed as stated and so frozen that it was impossible to compose her limbs in an ordinary coffin. They were buried a couple of days afterward, the unusual spectacle attracting people from long distances.”
