There came a “dark day,” like that of the 19th of May, 1780, which overspread New England, and was most marked in Massachusetts.  The Connecticut Legislature was in session, and the belief was so universal that the last awful day had come that the motion was made to adjourn.  Then, as the graphic Quaker poet says: 

    All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. 
    He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
    The intolerable hush.  “This well may be
    The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
    But be it so or not, I only know
    My present duty, and my Lord’s command
    To occupy till He come.  So at the post
    Where He has set me in His providence,
    I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face—­
    No faithless servant frightened from my task,
    But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
    And, therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
    Let God do His work, we will see to ours. 
    Bring in the candles.”  And they brought them in.

Tuesday, September 7, 1881, was a day very similar to the memorable one of a century ago.  A strange, greenish-yellow pall overspread the heavens, and so darkened the light of the sun that lamps and gas were lighted, schools and factories closed, and multitudes of the ignorant and superstitious believed that the Day of Judgment had come.

Everything looked changed and unnatural.  The faces of people on the streets were ghastly, the gas jets in the stores, instead of showing yellow, were as white and clear as the electric lights, and thousands of the sect known as Second Adventists gathered in their places of worship and confidently awaited the appearing of the Lord.

The “dark day” was more wonderful in the country.  The leaves and withering foliage assumed a most singular tint of green, changing, like that of the grass, to a brownish hue; fowls went to roost, and the animal creation must have been greatly mystified by a phenomenon such as they had never witnessed before.

A curious feature of this luminous haze was that it cast no shadow.  It was as light under the trees as away from them, the whole unnatural appearance of things most likely being due to the immense forest fires which were raging in many parts of the country.

It was during the summer, I repeat, in which Nick Ribsam reached the age of twelve years, that so many forest fires raged, and it was in the autumn of the same year that he saw the famous dark day, so similar to that of September, 1881; in fact, it could not have resembled it more closely, for I may as well state it was that very day to which I refer.

“Nick,” said his father, on that September morning, addressing his boy in Dutch, “I promised to pay James Bradley one hundred dollars to-day before three o’clock.”

“Yes, sir,” responded the boy, who knew that the debt would be paid on time.

“He was to come here to our house to get it, but he sent me word last night that he would be much obliged if I would send it to him at Martin’s store in Dunbarton, as he is obliged to be there all day.  I like to accommodate any one, and I will therefore send you to take it to him.”