THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 133 



board, coasting, skating, trapping, gunning, fishing, sing- 

 ing schools and girls' samplers. He also spoke of the 

 old modes of travel, snow shoes, etc. Nearly all the heavy 

 teaming was done on sleds, and he mentioned the winter 

 of 1768-9, when the travelling was so bad that the farmers 

 in the western part of the state could not get their grain 

 and provisions to the coast to market. Snow remained 

 oii the roads as it fell until about a century ago. Mr. 

 Perley then spoke of particular winters : that of 1641-2, 

 when the Indians said they had not seen the ocean so much 

 frozen for forty years: of 1646-7, when there was no 

 snow to lay; of 1696-7, said to be the coldest winter 

 since the first settlement of New England ; of 1701-2, 

 which was "turned into summer;" of 1717-18, when the 

 snow was from ten to fifteen feet deep and the drifts twenty- 

 five feet, many one-story houses being buried ; of 1740-1, 

 said to be the severest winter known by the settlers, Salem 

 harbor being frozen over as early as October; of 1774-5, 

 a wonderfully mild winter; of 1779-80, when for forty 

 days, including March, there was no perceptible thaw, and 

 the snow was so hard and deep that loaded teams passed 

 over the fences in any direction, arches being dug under 

 the snow so that men on horseback could ride under them, 

 and which was long remembered as the hard winter ; of 

 1784-5, when, as late as April 15, snow was two feet 

 deep, and frozen hard enough to bear cattle ; of 1785-6, 

 when in the remarkable storm of Nov. 25, the snow blew 

 into balls, one of which had rolled seventy-six feet, meas- 

 uring 17 by 22 inches ; of 1794-5, when the Betsey was 

 launched in Salem on Christmas Day, the thermometer 

 indicating 80 degrees above zero at noon and men and boys 

 went in swimming ; of 1801-2, when the Ulysses, Brutus 

 and Volutia, three Salem vessels, which sailed out of the 

 harbor on a summer-like morning in February, were all 



