February 20
1767 - a warm south wind produces a great thaw (together with a little rain) the snow was reduced to about a foot or less. - Gilliland
Almost any one may notice, I am sure, a
difference between the sounds of the two winter winds - for there are two, as I
have indicated. The first wind is painfully sharp and strained and seems
pitched in a minor key. The second is rounder and fuller and more
resonant, with a certain robust quality, and rings out plainly in a major
key.
-James Buckham in a Pneumatic Calendar.
1802
1838 - At his
home, corner of Peru and Bridge Streets, died Gen. Benjamin Mooers, a soldier of
the Revolution and early settler of Clinton county of which he was the first
sheriff and, for 42 consecutive years, from 1788-1830, county treasurer, besides
holding many other important offices.
In the war of 1812 as Major General of State militia, he was
placed in command of the Northern division, the State being divided into grand
divisions - north and south. His command did picket duty and resisted the
enemy's advance from beyond Culver's Hill to Plattsburgh, guarding every point
along the Saranac with great vigilance.
1853 - Died in Plattsburgh, Mary Daggett, wife of Robert Platt and the last survivor of her father's family. Her father, the Rev. Naptha Daggett of New Haven was President of Yale College from 1766 to 1777, and his daughter "inherited the Puritan faith and the Puritan integrity and simplicity of character in a marked degree." In 1833 her husband gave the land upon which the M. E. Church at Valcour stands, paid for the mason work and doubtless contributed towards its erection. Shortly after, during a series of revival services held in it Robert Platt made a profession of his faith and united with that church.
Today
In the Champlain Valley History