corn Archives – J. G. Coleman Photography

Yankee Farmlands № 50 (Snow on Corn Field, Enfield, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 50”
Snow-covered Corn Field, Enfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Cast from the lustrous, hazy sky above, sunlight floods a frigid, snow-laden field in the Connecticut River Valley and throws long shadows from the stubble of last season’s corn stalks.

Although modern-day Enfield lies in the northernmost reaches of Connecticut on the east side of the Connecticut River, that wasn’t always the case. An early survey conducted in 1642, just as colonists were beginning to gain a foothold in New England, determined that Enfield was part of the neighboring Massachusetts Colony.

More than five decades later in 1695, a new survey determined that the old boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut was entirely incorrect. Enfield and a handful of other towns, which had been part of Massachusetts for two generations, were actually part of Connecticut! Things moved slowly in those early days, though: it would take another 50 years before Enfield managed to officially secede from Massachusetts and join the Connecticut Colony in 1750.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 50” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of the work of my on-going Yankee Farmlands project, a journey throughout Connecticut’s farmlands in celebration of the agricultural heritage of New England.

Yankee Farmlands № 42 (Corn field during Autumn Frost, Southbury, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 42”
Corn field during Autumn Frost Southbury, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman

The Housatonic Valley awakens to a chilly autumn morning as sunlight dapples the brilliant woodland canopy in the distance. Before us, cornstalks rise defiantly from a field besieged by frost; an unmistakable chill in the air foreshadows the coming winter.

But when it comes to cold New England weather, the chill in “Yankee Farmlands № 42” (above) and even the most brutal winters of the past decades can’t begin to compare to the disastrous chills of 1816… a time which would come to be remembered as the “Year Without a Summer”. Freezes killed the fruit tree blossoms in May. Come June, there were still reports of snowfall and slabs of ice drifted steadily down the Connecticut River. Frosts persisted well into August. By September, a reverend in Northern Connecticut lamented in his journal that “no person living has known so poor a crop of corn in New England… as now.” Famine engulfed the American Northeast when it became clear that there would be no harvest.

At the time, nobody could explain this perplexing weather: a day of frost in June might be followed by a day of seasonably sweltering heat, just to be followed yet again by a day of snowfall! Scientists now believe that a volcanic eruption in Indonesia had cast massive plumes of dust and ash into the Earth’s atmosphere which periodically blotted out the sunlight and caused the bewildering conditions.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 42” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of the work in my on-going Yankee Farmlands project.