Some people in Pennsylvania thought the world was coming to an end when hundreds of thousands of meteors were seen in the night sky in November of 1833. The Leonid meteor shower of Nov. 12, 1833, was seen all over North America. A woman from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, shared her remembrances in an article published in The Historical Journal: A monthly record of local history and biography devoted principally to northwestern Pennsylvania

METEORIC SHOWER OF 1833

by J. C. McCloskey, Lock Haven

There are but few persons now living who witnessed the great meteoric shower of 1833. At that time the news was not flashed from one end of the universe to the other in the twinkling of an eye, as it is at the present. Those who saw the strange phenomenon in this county had no idea that it was being observed in all parts of the globe, and with the slow methods then in use for disseminating information, it was weeks before they were any the wiser.

That the sight was one of appalling grandeur is vouched for by the few of our oldest residents who were fortunate in being permitted to gaze upon the singular spectacle. An intelligent old lady gave the writer, a short time before her death, which occurred about one year ago, the following information regarding the great meteoric shower of November 12th, 1833, as witnessed by her at her farm home near this city.

"My husband," she said, "was lumbering upriver and had sent one of his men home with a team for supplies. This teamster had risen about two o'clock in the morning to feed and care for his horses in order to get an early start on his return trip. While going to the barn he saw the 'falling stars,' as they were called, and hastily returning to the house, called to us women folks to get up as quick as possible, that the stars were falling, and the judgment day was at hand.

A single glance from the window convinced us that either his words were true or that some strange phenomenon was taking place. The air seemed to be filled with falling fire, each separate particle of which was apparently as large as the big flakes of snow that sometimes fall on a soft day in winter. The falling fire, or whatever it was, made it as light as when the full moon is shining on a clear night, and looking far up towards the sky we could fix our eyes upon a single one of the falling meteors and trace it until it almost reached the ground, upon which none of them could be seen to alight. Some of the meteors assumed fantastic shapes and our fears were terrible.

When we finally calmed ourselves enough to reason together, we found that by fixing our gaze upon the real stars, that were shining brightly in the heavens, we could see that they were not falling. This allayed our fears, and from the moment that discovery was made, we feasted our eyes upon the falling meteors until daylight shut them from our view. "But few of our neighbors witnessed the strange sight, and those who did not. were loath to believe the occurrence as we related it to be real. We, however, were pleased to know, when we saw the newspapers, that the singular phenomenon had been witnessed all over the world, and that we had seen the wonderful sight of that remarkable night of November 12th, 1833."

The Historical Journal: A monthly record of local history and biography devoted principally to northwestern Pennsylvania.

JOHN F. MEGINNESS, VOLUME I WILLIAMSPORT, PA.  GAZETTE AND BULLETIN PRINTING HOUSE. 1888 Pages 12-13

("John of Lancaster.")

Meteor Depiction: The most famous depiction of the 1833 Leonid’s meteor shower was actually produced in 1888 for the Adventist book Bible Readings for the Home Circle. The engraving is by Adolf Vollmy (Wikimedia Commons)