Introduction: They say truth is stranger than fiction – and in this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find stories that seem unbelievable, yet really happened. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”
Every once in a while something happens that defies explanation. For our ancestors, what seemed like something supernatural might easily be explained with today’s advances in knowledge and technology. Other things remain inexplicable.
Old newspapers reported not only the incidents that happened but also people’s reminiscences and first-hand accounts – and reading those newspaper articles tells us about our ancestors’ experiences and the times they lived in. Whether reporting on a weather anomaly or a person exhibiting supernatural powers, newspapers documented our ancestors’ stories.
Here are a few examples: an extraordinary weather event, and some tales of incredible strength under duress.
New England’s Dark Day
It’s easy to understand how, in a time before modern technology and a comprehensive knowledge of meteorology, that a strange weather phenomenon might be seen as supernatural – especially when you don’t have the ability to easily communicate with people and places more than a few miles away. One such example is New England’s “Dark Day,” which occurred on 19 May 1780. On this day it was so dark at noon that candles had to be used. People reported all kinds of unusual occurrences, including animals acting strangely. The darkness didn’t lift until the middle of the next day. Other physical manifestations that something was amiss included reports in the days before the darkness of the moon appearing red.
More than 50 years after the Dark Day, Wheeler Martin reminisced in his local newspaper:
The darkness at 11 o’clock was so great, that a candle was lighted and placed upon the table; the fowls went to roost; the sheep all huddled around in a circle, with their heads inward.
Martin added this story detail:
Nearly 230 years after the Dark Day, researchers at the University of Missouri, looking at written records as well as evidence left behind by tree rings, concluded that the eerie, intense darkness during that day was the result of massive wildfires in Canada.*
The Dark Day wasn’t the only time the skies darkened during daytime. In this article about a tornado on 23 September 1786 in Woodstock, Vermont, there is a reporting of:
…a Tornado, or hurricane, more extraordinary than has been known in that place at any time before. About five o’clock in the afternoon a very dark cloud appeared in the western hemisphere, which whirled and moved with unusual velocity to the eastward. The whole horizon was so obscured, & the darkness equalled, if not exceeded that of the dark day in 1780.
The old news article goes on to say that barn roofs were blown off, trees came crashing down and “many cattle were killed.” There was even mention of a child picked up by the storm and carried a great distance, and a wagon deposited on top of an apple tree.
Amazing Feats of Strength
Weather phenomena aren’t the only time that unusual occurrences are mentioned in the news. In some cases, maybe because of adrenalin or the crisis of the situation, some people are able to exhibit amazing acts of strength.
While a muscular man might be able to lift a car off someone, an average mom weighing 120 pounds lifting a 2,000-pound car off her son is seemingly miraculous – but it really happened.
Moms have shown “super-strength” when their children are in danger. That is exactly the case in this incident: after an accident, Mrs. Norbert (Margaret) See lifted the family car off her 11-year-old son Mark. Mrs. See stated:
I knew my boy was under the car and I had to get him out. I didn’t notice the weight of the (Ford) Pinto.
While Mrs. See modestly said it was “nothing” that she lifted a car off her son, an early 20th century woman’s story of saving a loved one is perhaps even more dramatic. This 1909 newspaper article reports:
“Terribly injured in an automobile accident, almost blinded by blood streaming from two long deep gashes in her head, Mrs. J. T. Donaldson of Blakely, without aid, lifted an overturned car from the unconscious form of her husband, pulled him from underneath, walked a mile” to get help repairing the car – and ended her adventure by driving her injured husband 10 miles to see a doctor!
Did your ancestors live through something that was highly unusual? Were they written about because of something they did that was out of this world? Please tell us about it in the comments section.
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* Mystery of Infamous ‘New England Dark Day’ Solved by Tree Rings http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2008/0609-guyette-tree-ring-fire-release.php. Accessed 11 March 2015.
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