tremblingly the children fled homeward . Travellers put up at the nearest farmhouse . ' What is coming ?' queried every lip and heart . It seemed as if a hurricane was about to dash across the land , or as if it was the day of the consummation of all things .
" Candles were used ; and hearth fires shone as brightly as on a moonless evening in autumn . . . . Fowls retired to their roosts and went to sleep , cattle gathered at the pasture bars and lowed , frogs peeped , birds sang their evening songs , and bats flew about . But the human knew that night had not come . . . ." Dr . Nathanael Whittaker , pastor of the Tabernacle church in Salem , held religious services in the meeting-house , and preached a sermon in which he maintained that the darkness was supernatural . Congregations came together in many other places . The texts for the extemporaneous sermons were invariably those that seemed to indicate that the darkness was consonant with Scriptural prophecy . . . . The darkness was most dense shortly after eleven o ' clock ." -- The Essex Antiquarian , April , 1899 , vol . 3 , No . 4 , pp . 53 , 54 . " In most parts of the country it was so great in the daytime , that the people could not tell the hour by either watch or clock , nor dine , nor manage their domestic business , without the light of candles . . . .
" The extent of this darkness was extraordinary . It was observed as far east as Falmouth . To the westward it reached to the farthest part of Connecticut , and to Albany . To the southward , it was observed along the seacoasts ; and to the north as far as the American settlements extend ." --William Gordon , History of the Rise , Progress , and Establishment of the Independence of the U . S . A ., vol . 3 , p . 57 . The intense darkness of the day was succeeded , an hour or two before evening , by a partially clear sky , and the sun appeared , though it was still obscured by the black , heavy mist . " After sundown , the clouds came again overhead , and it grew dark very fast ." " Nor was the darkness of the night less uncommon and terrifying than that of the day ; notwithstanding there was almost a full moon , no object was discernible but by the help of some artificial light , which , when seen from the neighbouring houses and other places at a distance , appeared through a kind of Egyptian darkness which seemed almost impervious to the rays ." --Isaiah Thomas , Massachusetts Spy ; or , American Oracle of Liberty , vol . 10 , No . 472 ( May 25 , 1780 ).
Said an eyewitness of the scene : " I could not help conceiving at the time , that if every luminous body in the universe had been shrouded in impenetrable shades , or struck out of existence , the darkness could not have been more complete ." --Letter by Dr . Samuel Tenney , of Exeter , New Hampshire , December , 1785 ( in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections , 1792 , 1st series , vol . 1 , p . 97 ). Though at nine o ' clock that night the moon rose to the full , " it had not the least effect to dispel the deathlike shadows ." After midnight the darkness disappeared , and the moon , when first visible , had the appearance of blood .
May 19 , 1780 , stands in history as " The Dark Day ." Since the time of Moses no period of darkness of equal density , extent , and duration , has ever been recorded . The description of this event ,
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