History At Home: Snow In The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

As we wander about our modern neighborhood, caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it’s easy to ignore the long and vibrant history of our community. Let’s remedy that. Every weekend, we’ll take a step back, with the help of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archives, and explore what was happening around South Slope over a century ago.

With a snowy Saturday on the agenda for today, we thought we’d take a look at some of the stories from Brooklyn’s December snows of yore, such as this article from 1869, making a case for underground railroads.

Today’s snow makes the third one of the season, which could still live up to this prediction from December 14, 1895 that called for 23 snow storms that winter.

Of course, we were incredibly curious about the “breast bone of the goose” prediction mentioned in the above letter, and did a little digging to try and find out what the heck they were talking about. The trusty Old Farmer’s Almanac explains that, around the turn of the century, folks would cook a goose around Thanksgiving, and the leave the breast bone on a shelf to dry. As it dried, the color would change:

•  White indicated a mild winter.

•  Purple tips were a sure sign of a cold spring.

•  A blue color branching out toward the edge of the bone, meant open weather until New Year’s Day.

•  If the bone was a dark color, or blue all over, the prediction was for a real bad winter.

Sounds about as reliable as The Weather Channel, doesn’t it?