ORONO, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — 1816 is remembered as the "Year There Was No Summer." The eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia spewed enormous amounts of volcanic ash into the stratosphere. The result was the lowering of temperature between 4 and 7 degrees worldwide.
In areas like Maine, where farming was marginal, the colder temperatures were challenging. Many crops including corn and hay failed. Mainers survived on heartier grains such as barley and resorted to foraging for food such as venison and fish.
In Garland, there is an account that farmers trapped a million passenger pigeons.
Mainers did better than some others, such as Quebec Province and Europe where many starved to death.
However, many thought the cold temperatures represented a climate change more than a bad year. It caused a great exodus to the Northwest, which was then the more temperate Ohio Valley.
As temperatures slowly warmed in following years, those who had endured it simply referred to it as "eighteen hundred and froze to death."