The Great White Hurricane

The Great Blizzard of 1888, sometimes referred to as the Great White Hurricane, was one of the worst storms in the history of the nation. It began innocently enough. On Monday morning, March 12^th, residents of Hockanum awoke to four to five inches of snow—“not cold, but blowing a gale and snowing abundantly,” Harriet Richardson wrote to Clifton Johnson, who was in New York City. “Tumultuous enough to be quite joyous and exhilarating.” Soon, however, “the storm became so violent that all pleasure in it gave way to dread and anxiety for the safety of those in our family exposed to its fury.”

The Hockanum schoolhouse was closed for vacation and so the youngest children were all home and safe. Without the advantage of forecasting, however, five older children knew no better than to set out for Hopkins Academy in Hadley that morning—Nettie Johnson (16) and her cousin George (14) in one sleigh, James McQueston (15) and his sister Sarah Etta (13) in a second, and Harry Thayer (14), who lived a mile further south near the cemetery, alone in a third. 

By Monday afternoon, anxiety began running high at the Thayer home. Located almost a mile south of the Johnson family properties, very near the cemetery, the household consisted of sisters Harriet Richardson and Abby Richardson Thayer, who had grown up in the home, Abby’s husband Charles, and the couple’s five children. Charles became so concerned that Harry would not survive the trip home that he set out on foot to learn what he could. He struggled even to get as far as Elliot Johnson’s place. Charles and Elliot, who was similarly concerned about his son George, set out together with horses and a “bob.” They traveled north past the homes of Edward and Chester Johnson, but could only get as far as the McQueston farm. “I have barely been able to cover the mile from my house to yours,” Charles said as he stumbled into the home, “and I can go no further. It is up to you now to see that they are safe.”

John McQueston, who at 37 years of age was considerably younger than Mr. Thayer, saddled Old Fan, a notoriously tough and long-legged buckskin, and headed north “to meet the scholars.” Up until that moment, the three younger McQueston children were just enjoying another snowstorm. “But with father’s going,” recalled Anna, not quite 12 years old, “something sinister and terrifying crept in.” Anna’s mother, Rose, could not help but regularly return to the windows in search of news, and “soon we children, feeling her anxiety, left our play and followed her example of haunting the windows, or sat quietly in our chairs.” When Charles finally managed to fight his way home, “panting like a man who had battled wind and wave,” he feared not only for the lives of the children but also for that of Mr. McQueston. “Thus night came on,” Harriet wrote, “with no abatement of howling wind or driving snow.”

On Tuesday, with no word yet of his son, Charles set out again with several other men on sleds. The snow stopped falling about noon, but within the memory of those living in Hockanum winter conditions had never been worse. In some parts of the northeast, the storm dumped as much as five feet of snow. Temperatures were in the single digits and the winds were fierce. Drifts averaged 30 to 40 feet and some exceeded 50 feet. Entire houses were covered. Communication and transportation systems were completely crippled, effectively paralyzing New England, and, within the decade, contributing to the decision to build the nation’s first underground subway system in Boston. As those at the Thayer home watched the sun begin setting a second time since the storm began, there was still no word of the children or those who had gone in search of them.

Meanwhile, John McQueston had returned home Monday evening, but just barely. “We saw Old Fan in the yard,” Anna recalled, “with father fairly falling from the saddle.” They knew it was bad when they noticed him struggle straight for the door, leaving Old Fan to make her own way to the barn, “for never before had he failed to take care of his horse before himself.” Rose helped him into his rocker in the kitchen and said “John, John, John”—another indicator of the seriousness of the situation, “for in good old New England fashion she always called him ‘father’ except in times of stress.”

He had had a truly horrifying experience. He couldn’t even navigate his way along the well-worn path to Hadley. Not only were there no telephones, but there were no telephone poles to help mark the route. On three occasions he led Old Fan to the edge of the river without realizing it until she refused to go any further. Eventually he let her decide where to lead him, and lead him she did, right to three abandoned, snow-covered sleighs and an injured horse in the middle of a field quite a ways from the road. There were no children in sight.

In Hadley, school had let out at noon on Monday. The girls stayed in town but the boys decided to attempt the journey home. Harry waited for some friends to finish their game of whist, and so did not get off until 1:30pm. “The wind was blowing fearfully and the snow driving,” Harry said. The snow already was two feet deep. Harry’s horse, Old Jim, fell and could not get up. At the very same time, James’s sleigh broke. With their situation becoming more desperate by the minute, they covered Old Jim with blankets and headed back toward town in search of the nearest home. No longer able to navigate and without a sleigh, James, like his father, entrusted himself to his half-broken, two-year-old colt. Eventually they made it to the home of Mrs. Allen, George’s grandmother.

John McQueston, after going from house to house, finally found the boys. They would have to remain overnight, but while others pleaded with John to stay as well, he was worried about Rose worrying and so set out into the storm yet again. Old Fan came through, delivering him home that evening, but it wasn’t until the following evening that the message could be relayed one mile further down Hockanum Road to the Thayers. “Though only two days,” Harriet wrote to Clifton Johnson, “it seemed to us a week so full of apprehension had the time been.” Not all such incidents had happy endings; in the end over 400 lives were lost in the terrible storm.

Twenty men spent the next three days shoveling a three-mile path from Hockanum to Hadley to retrieve the children. Along the way they had to shoot Old Jim and managed to lose the McQuestons’ dog overnight. John wasn’t worried about Rover, Anna said, and he found him the next day “where he expected to, in our snow-covered sleigh, guarding our property. If there is an animal Heaven in the future world, and I hope there is, I expect to find father there with Rover and his horses, and I ask no finer place for myself.” The storm left Anna with one regret. “For fifty years,” she wrote in 1938, “I have wished that I had been born one year sooner, for then I would have been out in the Big Blizzard of 1888.”