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The winter of 1779-1780 was particularly harsh, and reference frequently appears to it in Revolutionary War era records. This article collects information about this winter. While the article is being written in the context of the Southwest Virginia Project, the adverse conditions were widespread, and information is being taken from many areas.
- The winter of 1779 and 1780 was unusually severe and is remembered in the history of the time, and traditionally as the "hard winter." The rivers and the streams were all frozen - cattle and domestic animals died by the hundreds and thousands, as doubtless did the wild game, Wild meat, when it could be procured by the border settlers, was very poor, and the corn and grain were early consumed, and the people put to great straits to procure subsistence of any sort, however common or coarse. Settlers were reduced to the very point of starvation, so much so that they were compelled to live on the most unwholesome meats without bread.
- Many families traveling out to Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness road were compelled to encamp, erect huts and such other shelter as they could obtain, and subsist on the dead carcasses of their cattle, sheep, etc. as died from the effects of the weather and want.
- When the spring of 1781 was ushered in there was an unusual bustle among the new settlers of Kentucky. They had the finest land in the world to cultivate, much of it easily cleared so as to fit it with corn crops, potatoes, etc. The previous winter had admonished them of the necessity of making as much provisions for the next winter as possible. In the spring there seemed to be but little danger from the Indians. In the vicinity of the forts, the planters pitched or planted large crops and everything seemed to smile and promise future prosperity. They seemed to be removed from the constant dangers and troubles with the Revolutionary War, still in progress, brought to the neighborhood of their brethren in all the country east of the mountains.
- Early the crops of corn began to ripen and heaven seemed to be suspending the cornucopia over the famished land. There was a smile on every man's countenance, as he looked out upon the luminescence of the growing Indian corn. There was happiness and security in the forest. Happiness there really was, and security there seemed to be where they all lived, each fort like a great family. While living there in the snug and fancied security, they sang their domestic tedeums around blazing wood fires. While this happy sylvan state of things existed upon the fair frontier Colonel Byrd was busily employed at Detroit, plotting their destruction in combination with the northern nations of Indians in alliance with Great Britain in our Revolutionary War, a conspiracy against the peace and happiness of these unoffending frontier settlers which was soon to turn all their rejoicing and supposed security into a scene of sorrow and mourning.
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- "The winter of 1779-1780 was known as a cold winter. Snow began in late October. Intense cold followed for weeks. Streams froze over. Animals that had drifted to the [[cane breaks and timber perished n the bitter cold. When spring and summer came in the beautiful valley of cane and meadow, all the animals had perished from the cold. It was an animal charnel house. For months Indian and white hunters alike avoided the place by reason of the carrion stench. Turkey buzzards and animal scavengers that had dens in the cliffs gorged on the putrid flesh of the dead animals. From that time until the present the name of the creek and the beautiful valley has remained Stinking Creek."
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==See Also==:
- Sons of Liberty website
- Philadelphia Weather Book
George Washington wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on March 18th, 1780 from the Ford Mansion. "... The oldest people now living in this Country do not remember so hard a winter as the one we are now emerging from. In a word the severity of the frost exceeded anything of the kind that had ever been experienced in this climate before. "
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