14. August brought an end to the brief hopes of New England farmers
By mid-July temperatures in the New England states, though still surprisingly low in the evening hours, had stabilized to the point that four consecutive warm weeks occurred, running into mid-August. Farmers began to hope – an eternal aspect of farming – the summer, having started so late, would extend itself into October. Late crops were planted. Hay and clover were planted to be set aside to feed livestock through the coming New England winter. Then, on August 13 an overnight frost struck across Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, extending into upstate New York. The next night the temperatures were even colder, the frost harder, and freezing rain followed the next day. On August 18 in Connecticut, the temperature hit 92°.
Two days later frost was reported in Albany, New York; snow fell in the Green Mountains and the temperature dropped more than 30 degrees in a matter of hours in Keene, New Hampshire. The sudden chill was not limited to New England, Cincinnati, Ohio suffered a killing frost which wiped out grape harvests, so did central Kentucky. At Monticello Jefferson wrote to Albert Gallatin that the August frost had “killed much corn over the mountains”. Jefferson estimated that the corn crop across the mid-Atlantic states had been reduced by two-thirds and that the tobacco crop had been even harder hit. Faced with the loss of taxes on crops, the states of New Hampshire and Vermont were in effect bankrupt. On August 29 both North and South Carolina suffered heavy frosts, though a North Carolina farmer reported the frosts, “killed nothing, as all were dead before”, referring to crops which had not survived the summer-long drought.