This morning, I shoveled three inches of snow off my front porch and the ten stairs to the front yard so my dogs could go down and heed Nature’s call. My husband strapped on our portable snowplow to the front of his Subaru and plowed the six inches of snow off the driveway. A recent acquisition, this plow will save us lots of shoveling., especially since starting at four this afternoon, we’ll be under a blizzard warning for twenty-four hours. This activity got me wondering about how 19th century people handled snowfall.
Old dictionaries use the term “snow plough.” A 1792 mention of a wedge built of wooden planks in a triangular form was made in an article published in New Hampshire. Research indicates that a patent for a snowplow was issued in 1840s, but no indication is given if the machine was actually built. In 1862 in Milwaukee, a plow was dragged behind a team of horses, according to Citilab.com. But here the horses are what’re actually breaking through the snow. A problem existed that the main streets were cleared but often side streets were blocked with the pushed-aside snow. One solution was to pile up the snow in a horse-drawn cart and dump the snow in the closest river.
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| Snowplow (snoplog) in Sweden, 1909 |
In many cities, a big roller was dragged through the streets by a team of horses, compacting the snow so buggies and sleighs, often with skis attached, could transport people. Patents were issued in 1869 and in 1884 for machines to remove snow from railroad rails, but those machines didn’t go into mass production. Many train engines contain a metal wedge on their fronts to push aside snow.
At the company’s inception in 1878, American Road Machinery utilized horse-drawn steel blades to level roads, and they used them to move aside snow in the winter. The company went through a name change to Good Roads Machinery and is credited in 1913 with developing the first snowplow to be attached to a motor vehicle. In 1919, Carl Frink of Frink Snowplows is credited with constructing a plow for a commercial bus. Another milestone came in 1920 when Chicago street crews introduced a snow loader that used a conveyor belt to remove snow from the street and offload it into a dump truck.
Many of our stories take place on farms and ranches. Shovels have been around for centuries, and I can imagine the hours those residents put their strength to the test with manual relocation and removal. Also put to use would be sledges, a heavy flat pallet of wood to pull behind a team to cut a path through the snow from the house to the barn.
Blurb: A Christmas Tree for Trudel, book 12 in Mail Order Brides’ First Christmas
I’m sharing a backlist title with this post because I set the story in the Southern California mountains near where I live and can imagine Gibson and Trudel having to deal with snowfalls.
A high stakes poker game has effects even Gibson Bartleigh didn’t realize. He won back his brother’s gold mine deed but unknowingly wrecked a mail-order bride arrangement. Now faced with Trudel Arensen, the jilted fiancée, he agrees to drive her to a larger city where she can find a job. Propriety demands they marry, and both agree it’s only for the duration of the trip. But will forced proximity deepen the relationship into something more?
I'd be interested in hearing how many of you are being affected by this U.S. coast-to-coast winter storm.
