1898 - Snow Event

 

It was definitely a snow event, for Hamiltonians to long remember.

The churchgoers for Sunday evening services arrived at their various services, most walking from their nearby homes. By the time it was time to go home, a cold but damp rain was falling lightly.

Within hours a cold front had moved in which froze the moisture on the many, many wires and poles froze. An increasingly heavy snowfall layered on top of the sagging wires.

During the services at two downtown churches such at Centenary Methodist and the Central Presbyterian Churches, the electricity cut out plunging the sanctuaries into darkness … briefly. In 1898, there were two companies providing electricity in Hamilton, and there was still gas available for homes and businesses which had not converted :

“Users of electricity for lighting purposes were suddenly and unceremoniously apprised of the bad effects of the storm by the shutting off of the electric current early in the evening. The Cataract Power Company’s new system was not damaged to any great extent, but it was found necessary to shut off the power because of the weight of snow brought other wires down, and there was a general crossing of lines with accompanying danger.” ¹

¹“In the Heart of the Storm : Hamilton Visited by Probably the Worst Storm in Its History”

Hamilton Times.  December 05 1898.

The storm situation continued, leading to some much-needed for a number of men:

“By 10 o’clock, a small army of men, carrying lanterns, had been set to work to try to straighten out some of the wires, and keep the streets most used clear.

“Snow of the heaviest sort continued to fall until after midnight, and hours before that time, the fine maple trees all over the city had accumulated more than they could carry. Great limbs broke off with reports that resembled the discharge of musketry, and in sections where shade trees are thick , the reports kept up all night at frequent intervals, varied at times by the louder and more ringing report caused by the snapping off  of a telegraph or telephone pole or the falling off of a cross-arm with its load of wires. And the most remarkable thing as that when the wires fell, the snow stuck to them in many cases.¹

The Hamilton Times, as was the case with its competitors the Hamilton Herald and the Hamilton Spectator, might have been delayed slightly but newsboys were soon out and about during the morning, yelling and selling the papers at each busy corner:

“Dame Nature presented a magnificent spectacle this morning. The streets in the residential portions were strewn with snow-clad bush and limbs of trees. On the business streets the wires coated to a diameter of two or three inches with snow, were hanging in all sorts of grotesque shapes. People who have lived in Hamilton 30 or 40 years say they never saw anything quite as bad, and as beautiful, before. “¹

A snow event indeed, and an event which got theTimes Artist, J. Thompson out to capture two locations brilliantly.