The Blizzard of 1888 --- and cleared by hand!
By Bill Pearsall,
Putnam Municipal Historian
When I set up my office as the Municipal Historian for the Town of Putnam in the new Municipal Complex, I had three large pictures hung on the wall. Two of the pictures were from the 1800s. One was of the town near where the Putnam Hotel used to be and shows the aftermath of a huge snow storm in 1888.
I did some research from the Aspinock Historical Society’s archives and found some articles in the Putnam Patriot Newspaper from 1888 about this storm. The paper related that it had been a very cold winter that year and everyone was looking forward to spring arriving soon. A huge storm had developed from out of Utah and moved across the country.
The storm reached New York City and then moved up the coast.
In town, the snow piled up very fast and very deep. The town selectmen dispensed crews to clear the streets. Since it was spring time, the town was transitioning cleanup of the streets from the needs of sleighs to wagons. After this storm, people continued to use their sleighs so the crews went back to winter procedures and shoveled the snow from the sidewalks to the streets to accommodate the sleighs a little longer and allowing citizens to get around town easily.
During that time, there were two railroads that came from New York heading to Boston. Both these lines intersected here in Putnam. As the storm developed, the trains became bogged down and stranded in the snow. Passengers were basically trapped in the trains without heat or food. The depth of the snow and gale force winds of this storm made huge drifts on the tracks. So the tracks had to be shoveled by hand.
I find it amusing that these days we get impatient when the snowplow doesn’t clear out the snow by our house or street in what we consider a timely manner. Imagine what it would be like to have to shovel the road by hand to go anywhere.
Aspinock Memories graces the pages of the Putnam Town Crier to keep Putnam’s history alive.