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The following is from "JOHN TOTTEN INTERVIEW Canton Daily Ledger unknown date submitted by Cris Nagla"
It deals with a snowfall in 1830 in Cass County, Illinois. While it is not directly related to Southwest Virginia, it may reflect a period of cold nationwide, and may eventually tie in.
"What do I know about the winter of the deep snow? Well, let me tell you. The snow was in 1830. I was 10 years old at the time it fell. I remember the snow-storm vividly. Why, we have never had such a storm in this country, before or since. Undoubtedly this was the heaviest snow that ever fell in Illinois. Black Hawk and a number of Indians were at our house that day snow began to fall. After it ceased we all went hunting and we found 10 dead turkeys under one tree. Their tails were just sticking up out of the snow. According to the tradition of the Indians as _______ to the pioneers, a snow fell some 50 or 75 years before the settlement of this country by the white people, which swept away the numerous herds of deer, elk, buffalo and other game. But, let me tell you the winters of Illinois today and the winters of Illinois in pioneer times are two different propositions. Now it's all slush, mud and rain: then it was snow and cold. In the winter of 1830 dark foreboding crept into all of our homes. I will not try to picture the suffering of that terrible winter. In every pioneer cabin starvation stared the settler and his family in the face. Why, so deep was the impression that I sometimes dream of it in the present day. Just the other night I thought I was trudging through the snow with father, Black Hawk and other settlers and Indians. We were for weeks absolutely block_____ and housed up.
"Still as far as real cold weather was concerned the sudden change of 1836 was the worst of all. A terrible roaring preceded the storm and we thought the world was coming to an end. We even went out and let the stock out, thinking that the end spoken of in the Bible was near.
" But I think it was 1842 that the ice on Spoon River froze to an actual thickness of five feet by measurement. I remember well of making the measurement with father.
"The season of the high water was in 18_6 if my memory serves me rightly. There have other season just as wet perhaps, but I never remember seeing Spoon River, Pot Creek and other streams so high before or since.
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