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The Great Yellow Day
On Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1881, there occurred over all New England, for nearly all that day, a darkness of alarming nature. It was like the famous “dark day” of ninety-nine years before, 1780, but this time, the light that remained had a brassy appearance so intense that the day has taken its name in history as “the yellow day.”
When Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1881 dawned on a verdant New England that was quite unaware of the dramatic phenomenon about to be enacted, there were no clouds in the sky, as there had been in the “dark day” of 1780. But early in the morning the sun and the sky itself took on a reddish color. By noon, every part of the sky took on a yellowish cast. This color tinged everything on which it fell— buildings, ground, foliage and verdure — with its unusual tint.
They assumed indeed a beautiful appearance, but weird and appalling. All nature seemed to be undergoing a fairyland enchantment, as though some Midas had touched it with fingers that turned everything to “gold.” At first, the people found the transformation exciting and most interesting. But, as the hours slowly passed and day began to involve the evening skies without any change in the yellowing of all things, the abnormal sight grew to be oppressive and alarming.
The day was warm and the air was close and still, being in some sections most densely charged with moisture.
In other words, the humidity was intense. The darkness continued until it was nearly time for sunset. Then the mysterious yellowing lessened and vanished, the first reddish appearance of sun and sky took its place, and this again dissipated, the darkness lifted, and people once more lived in a normal New England.
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