Ashley Miller shares this month’s story with ConcordTV. Watch the episode on YouTube.

While New Hampshire recently had its own day momentarily shadowed by the solar eclipse, what occurred on May 19, 1780, was something entirely different.

In the midst of the Revolutionary War, New England was plummeted into darkness following weeks of extensive fires in the woods of northern New Hampshire and Canada.

The air smelled of soot and rivers had an ashy film. In New Hampshire, the fallen ash measured several centimeters. Pieces of burnt leaves were continually falling, and rainwater was covered in a sooty scum.

It was reported in the morning that the sun looked red, and the sky looked yellow. Between ten and eleven in the morning, the day took on the appearance of evening. As a result, Nathaniel Adams of Portsmouth reported that “fowls went to roost, and cattle collected round the barnyards, as the approach of night.”

By noon, candlelight was needed to see in the middle of the day. Adams went on to state that “the evening was enveloped in total darkness; the sky could not be distinguished from the ground.”

Matthew Patten of Bedford wrote, “Until one o’clock that a person could not see their hand when held up nor even a white sheet of paper. The day and night were cloudy; the clouds in the day did not seem thick and was of a lightening up color, our almanack makers have given no account of the matter — the cause unknown. The works of the lord are great and marvelous past finding out until he graciously pleases to reveal them.”

Many thought the darkness was a sign of Judgment Day. “The Bristol Town History” by Richard Musgrove Watson explained that “the shades of night fell at noon and a deep gloom settled on the people, many fearing that the end of the world was coming.”

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Samuel Lane of Stratham wrote in his diary, “the most remarkable occurrence in Providence this year, is a very surprising Dark Day and Night on the 19th of May, it being so dark from 10 or 11 o clock in the forenoon, ‘til 3 or 4 in the afternoon, that people were obliged to dine by candle light, which caused great terror in the minds of abundance of people.”

Many crowded into churches, petrified.

At an already trying time, the Dark Day provided the perfect backdrop to the uncertain climate. The Americans had suffered the worst defeat of the Revolution just days before, when the British took Charleston, South Carolina on May 12. The fate of the country was hanging in the balance. Economic insecurity, war-torn landscapes, and this irregular weather phenomenon coincided to create the perfect storm.

From the Archives is a monthly column highlighting the history and collection of the New Hampshire State Archives, written by Ashley Miller, New Hampshire State Archivist. Miller studied history as an undergraduate at Penn State University and has a master’s degree in history and a master’s degree in archival management from Simmons College.