1816: The Year Without a Summer (52 Ancestors 2022 week 21, variation on the Theme: "Yearbook")

Spring 2022 has been unusually cold and wet where I live on Canada's west coast. As records here have been broken, it has come to my attention that there was another year with worse and more widespread broken records. The year 1816 is often referred to as "the year without a summer" or as "Eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death".

Snow storms blanketed the ground in Europe and North America in May that year. A huge storm in early June covered Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States from Maine and upstate New York to Pennsylvania with up to 30 cm of snow. The cold weather continued with frost occurring every month of the year in many places. The sky was dark and had a strange reddish cast. Some of the snow that fell was brown or red.

Crops froze and were replanted only to freeze again. Yields were terrible, just when the world had been hoping for an abundant harvest to recover from the Napoleonic Wars. (1816 was the year when Napoleon was finally defeated and sent into exile on Saint Helena. It has even been suggested that Britain's victory in the Battle of Waterloo that year could be at least partially attributed to the wet and  muddy conditions.)

Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record for the period 1766-2000. Switzerland, for example, reported summer temperatures that year between 2.5-3 degrees C. cooler than the norm. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin (who later became Mary Shelley) spent the summer near Geneva, Switzerland. The cool weather and endless rains reportedly kept them indoors writing, resulting in the creation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". 

Other artistic creations from 1816 include Lord Byron's "Darkness", Jane Austen's "Emma" and Rossini's "Barber of Saville".

Although the actual temperature of the planet dropped less than 1 degree C., the effects were widespread and catastrophic. Crop failures led to famine resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people. It was the worst famine in mainland Europe for the entire 19th century. Major typhus epidemics occurred in Europe in the years immediately following,  running rampant through a population weakened by malnourishment. As one might expect, political and economic consequences were profound. Despair prevailed.

Hunger in der Schweiz 1817 

Painting by Anna Barbara Giezendanner (1831-1905) Public Domain image from Wikimedia Commons 

At the time, there was no good scientific explanation for why this had happened but many theories were put forward. It is now generally accepted that a major cause was volcanic ash sent into the atmosphere by the explosion of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in April of 1815. This explosion was the greatest in at least 1300 years. Serious local repercussions ensued and thousands died in the immediate aftermath. The following year had bad weather in Asia, much as in Europe and America, with China reporting severe floods and famine. 

 Tambora volcano on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island was the site of the world's largest historical eruption in April 1815. This NASA Landsat mosaic shows the 6-km-wide caldera truncating the 2850-m-high summit of the massive volcano. Pyroclastic flows during the 1815 eruption reached the sea on all sides of the 60-km-wide volcanic peninsula, and the ejection of large amounts of tephra caused world-wide temperature declines in 1815 and 1816. (Photo is in the Public Domain as a screenshot from NASA's globe software World Wind using a public domain layer)

We all would have had family affected by this event. At the time, many of mine were in Norway and the Northeastern United States (mostly in New York and Pennsylvania). We don't have any stories or diaries from my family members to let us know specifically how they fared, but the general conditions in the areas would have been their experiences. As there were dozens of family members alive in 1816, I will select just a few to highlight.

New York

Upstate New York, one of the areas worst hit by the weather disaster, was home to many of my ancestors in 1816. 

Upstate New York - Family Locations inn 1816 (Google Earth image)

The John Bullen family of Paris, Oneida County, New York had lived in this area since his escape from Massachusetts for his part in Shay's Rebellion after the Revolutionary War. Enumerated in the 1820 census, two adult children were living with the parents John (and presumably his wife Mary Whitcomb Bullen). There was an unnamed female between the ages of 26-44 and an unnamed male also between 26-44. Two men were engaged in agriculture. Since the only other son of the family was married and living on his own at the time, most likely the unnamed son would be my 3rd great grandfather David Bullen, aged 32 in 1816. 

1820 U.S. Census for Paris, Oneida County, New York - John Bullen family

A few years later, David would marry Jane Murdie (1801-1857), my maternal line ancestor whose mitochondrial DNA has come down to me and my family. Notionally, my mitochondrial DNA spent the year without a summer in the safekeeping of Jane in Hannibal, Oswego, New York.  

A bit of a mystery surrounds Jane's family but my best guess at present is that her mother was most likely Jane Davidson (or Davididson) whose Murdie first husband had gone missing and was presumed dead sometime around 1815. The mother then remarried in about 1816 to a man named John Chambers and had three more daughters with him. By the time of the 1820 census for Hannibal, we might conclude that the 5 people listed were John and his wife Jane Davidson Chambers, their own two infant daughters under age 10 (Kate and Louisa Chambers) and Jane Murdie for the female aged between 16 and 25.    

1820 census for Hannibal, Oswego, New York - Murdie/Chambers household

We don't know exactly what impact the year without a summer had on Jane Murdie who was a young woman at the time, but she would not have been enjoying wearing lighter summer attire that year. It was said that everyone bundled up in their greatcoats all through the summer.

Other branches of my mother's family were living in the area of Butler, Wayne County, New York in 1816. My 3rd great grandparents Stephen Wescott and Catherine Barton were both children living with their parents at the time. Stephen, born 1809, would have been about 7 years old and Catherine, born 1812, would have been just 4. Not for them the summer fun of playing outdoor childhood games in the sunshine. Although children are generally pretty adaptable, it must have been a very strange time where everyone was just making the best of a bad situation. We don't know if or how badly they suffered from lack of food production on their families' farms. Any economic stress would have been felt by the family as a whole. 

Norway

Although Norway also experienced terrible weather conditions in 1816, no sources could be located to provide evidence of any worse outcomes that year than other tough years in the 19th century. Still, one might assume that subsistence farmers were challenged by reduction in farm output. 

Those living near the Norwegian coastlines no doubt made good use of the resources provided by the ocean. For example, my paternal Bardahl line lived near the Norwegian Sea on the west coast of Nordland, Norway. My Dad's great grandfather John Christian Larsen Hellesvig was born in 1800 in Stamnes, Alstahaug, Nordland and most likely was still living with his parents in 1816. As a young man, he was probably learning to fish; years later, the 1865 census gave his occupation as both farmer and fisherman.

My paternal 3rd great grandparents Andris Erikson Elton and Tora Iversdatter Kjerstein were newlyweds, having been married 6 July 1815.

Valdres, Oppland, Norway Kirkebok - Marriage Records for 1815

Their first child, my 2nd great grandfather Erick Anderson Elton, was born 12 January 1817, meaning Tora had been pregnant during the year without a summer. What was that like, I wonder? Was she able to get adequate nutrition for her developing baby?

My maternal line had another newlywed couple in Norway in 1816. Another set of my 3rd great grandparents, Knud Olson Vralstad and Gro Torgrimsdatter Tveitane were married 3 December 1815 in Telemark, Norway. Gro became pregnant almost immediately and gave birth to their first child, daughter Signe, on 28 September 1816. Again, one might wonder how the prevailing conditions affected her pregnancy. Baby Signe did not survive childhood and her name was recycled for use by a sister born in 1828 when conditions were probably more conducive to a  healthy outcome. That second Signe was my 2nd great grandmother who emigrated with her husband Torkel Jorgenson Heimdahl and children, leaving for America in April of 1862. 

Signe Knutson Tveitane (1828-1904), the second Signe born to Knud and Gro

Having examined my family database, I can find no evidence of any family members actually dying of famine during this trying time in human history. A good number of all our ancestors lived through the year without a summer and went on to leave a healthy supply of grateful descendants. 

Some Sour

• Univerisitat Bern, Tambora and the "Year without a Summer" of 1816: A Perspective on Earth and Human Systems Science, accessed online 23 May 2022 at:  https://www.geography.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_naturwis/e_geowiss/c_igeogr/content/e39624/e39625/e39626/e426207/e431531/tambora_e_webA4_eng.pdf
• Dr, Matthew Genge, reported by the Evening Standard, "Volcanic Eruption helped with the Battle of Waterloo, Scientists Claim" accessed online 23 May 2022 at standard.co.uk
• Buffalo, New York Evening News 1944 - 8853.pdf, issue 25 January 1945, available through Old Fulton New York Post Cards accessed online 23 May at https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html