Dr. Ezra Stiles, who was then president of Yale College in New Haven, gave the same explanation. He says:—
“The woods about Ticonderoga [in New York] and eastward over to New Hampshire and westward into New York and the Jerseys were all on fire for a week before this Darkness and the smoke in the wilderness almost to suffocation. No rain since last fall, the woods excessively dry.... Such a profusion of settlers pushing back into the wilderness were everywhere clearing land and burning brush. This set the forests afire far beyond intention, so as to burn houses and fences.... The woods burned extensively for a week before the nineteenth of May and the wind all the while northerly.”
A quaint old ballad, said to have been written about that time, gives a description of this Dark Day:—
“The Whip-poor-will sung notes most shrill,
Doves to their cots retreated,
And all the fowls, excepting owls,
Upon their roosts were seated.“The herds and flocks stood still as stocks,
Or to their folds were hieing,
Men young and old, dared not to scold
At wives and children crying.“The day of doom, most thought was come,
Throughout New England’s borders,
The people scared, felt unprepared
To obey the dreadful orders.”
In Connecticut the legislature was in session at Hartford. It was like night in the streets of this city and candles were burning in the windows of all the houses. Men grew anxious and uneasy. As the darkness became deeper, the House of Representatives adjourned, finding it impossible to transact any business. Soon after, a similar motion for adjournment was made in the Senate, or Council, as it was then called. By this time faces could scarcely be distinguished across the room and a dread had fallen on the assembly; “men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which were coming.”
Then up rose Honorable Abraham Davenport, a judge of Fairfield County and councilor from Stamford, a stern and upright man, strict in the discharge of his duty.
“I am against adjournment,” he said. “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought.”
His strong words held the assembly. Its members rallied from their fears and, following his example, turned steadily to the transaction of the necessary business of the hour.
“And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face half seen
Against a background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass
That simple duty hath no place for fear.”
WHITTIER.