The Monkton Museum and Historical Society (MM&HS) will host a Vermont Humanities Council Presentation on Monday, October 18th at 7:00 p.m. The presentation will be "1800 and Froze to Death: The Cold Year of 1816."
Vermont author and historian Howard Coffin will speaker about 1816, the year without summer. Vermonters still call it "1800 and Froze to Death," a year of frosts every month, dark skies, and mysterious lights that caused a widespread belief that a higher power was displeased. This talk includes scores of anecdotes about the dark year of failed crops, scarce food, and religious revival. The horrible weather also came in the aftermath of the War of 1812, which produced shortages and an economic crisis. Vermonters coped with the cold year with neighbor helping neighbor. But some greedy merchants sought to exploit shortages by charging higher and higher prices. The cold year seems to have hit Vermont harder than any other state. But the effects of the disaster were very much worldwide.
A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War: Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today's Vermont; Full Duty: Vermonters in the Civil War; Nine Months to Gettysburg; and The Battered Stars, as well as Guns Over the Champlain Valley, a book on military sites along the Champlain Corridor.
The presentation will be held in-person at the Monkton Town Hall at 92 Monkton Ridge (next door to the Friends Methodist Church).
The presentation may also be joined online using Zoom. Registration is required! Please register by Friday, October 15th by sending an email to monktonmhs@gmail.com. We must have your name and email address.
Registrants must have the following:
1. Broadband internet service
2. A computer with a microphone (if you believe you may want to ask questions at the end of the presentation), OR a tablet or smartphone with the Zoom app installed
3. A computer with a webcam, OR a tablet or smartphone (if you want to interact visually during the question-and-answer period).
Complete Zoom login information will be emailed to all registrants on Saturday, October 16th. If you do not receive an email on Saturday, please send an email to monktonmhs@gmail.com on Sunday the 17th or call 482-2277.
For any questions about this event, please email monktonmhs@gmail.com or call 482-2277.
We hope you will be able to join us for this interesting presentation.
This presentation is sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council through its Speakers Bureau program. In addition to providing public talks, the Council sponsors book discussion programs, a wide array of literacy programs, and other humanities events statewide. The Vermont Humanities Council's mission is to make Vermont a state in which every individual reads, participates in public affairs, and continues to learn throughout life.
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