
1800 and Froze to Death: The Cold Year of 1816
1816 has long been known as the year without summer. This talk includes scores of anecdotes about the dark year of failed crops, scarce food, and religious revival.
A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War: Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont; Full Duty: Vermonters in the Civil War; Nine Months to Gettysburg; and The Battered Stars, as well as Guns Over the Champlain Valley, a book on military sites along the Champlain Corridor.
Please note: Howard Coffin’s talks have been fully booked for the remainder of 2022 and are not available to be scheduled until 2023.
1816 has long been known as the year without summer. This talk includes scores of anecdotes about the dark year of failed crops, scarce food, and religious revival.
With nearly 35,000 of Vermont’s able-bodied men at war, the monumental task of keeping more than 30,000 farms in operation became very much a female enterprise during the Civil War.
Historian Howard Coffin will discuss his recent research into this little-recognized group and consider the reasons why Vermont may have been so well-represented in this elite group of marksmen.