December 20, 1836

On and around December 20, 1836, a young person in Erie County, New York, would have been living in a world defined by a highly active winter, a looming national political transition, local transportation innovations, and dramatic social shifts.

The major historical events—ranging from a famous meteorological anomaly to nationwide policy changes—that occurred on and during this exact week include the following:

The Regional and Meteorological Event: The “Sudden Freeze” of 1836

On December 20, 1836, North America experienced one of the most famous and extreme localized weather anomalies in its recorded history, known as the “Sudden Freeze” or “Sudden Change.”

The Event: The day began unseasonably warm and rainy, turning weeks of heavy snow into a thick, watery slush. Around mid-day, an unprecedented polar blast and roaring northwest gale swept across the Midwest and pushed rapidly toward New York.
The Impact: Temperatures plummeted from roughly 40°F to below zero in a matter of minutes. Water and slush literally froze in moving waves. Across the region, travelers were instantly caught off guard; historical accounts note that people were frozen to their saddles, water froze solid in mid-air, and thousands of livestock perished in their tracks because the transition happened too fast to seek shelter.

Local New York Context: The Birth of Local Rail

In December 1836, Western New York was transitioning from an economy entirely dependent on the frozen winter waters of the Erie Canal to a new era of steam.

Erie County Railroads: The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad was officially organized and laid its first operational tracks right in Erie County during 1836. Locals were experiencing the very first locomotives (like the Little Buffalo) operating between Tonawanda and Black Rock, permanently altering how people traveled through the winter landscape.
The Utica and Schenectady Line: Further east in the Mohawk Valley, New York’s newest major railway completed its first full year of winter operations in December 1836. Because the state wanted to protect the financial profits of the Erie Canal, the legislature strictly banned these new railroads from carrying freight during the summer, meaning December was a frantic time for railroads rushing to transport land cargo while the canals were frozen shut.

National News: The Martin Van Buren Transition & The Texas Debate

If a household in Erie was reading the weekly post around December 20, the front pages were dominated by the results of the U.S. Presidential Election.

A New York President: In December 1836, it was officially confirmed that Vice President Martin Van Buren had won the election to succeed Andrew Jackson. For New Yorkers, this was a massive point of pride: Van Buren was a native son of Kinderhook, New York, and the very first U.S. president born an American citizen (rather than a British subject).
The Texas Annexation Conflict: Simultaneously, Washington was in an uproar during December 1836 as the newly formed Republic of Texas aggressively petitioned the Jackson administration for official U.S. recognition and future statehood. This sparked intense, anxious debates in northern states over the expansion of slavery (Source: U.S. Library of Congress / House Historical Office).

Religious & Social Milestones: Freedom and Education

For a religious or morally minded community in New York, December 20, 1836, fell during a week of major institutional milestones:

The Abolitionist Rescue in Utica (December 1836): Deep undercurrents of the anti-slavery movement were boiling over in upstate New York. In December 1836, two escaped Black men were captured in Utica by Southern slave-catchers. Before they could be legally sent back south under fugitive slave laws, a large crowd of local citizens mobilized, broke down the doors of the courthouse room where they were being held, and successfully rescued them—setting off a wave of abolitionist fervor across the state (Source: New York State Museum Historic Notes).
Union Theological Seminary Opens (December 1836): Down state, a group of prominent New York Presbyterians officially opened the Union Theological Seminary for regular instruction in December 1836. It quickly became one of the most influential centers for religious education and mainstream theological scholarship in the nation (Source: Columbia University Archives).

The Executive Order Impact: The Specie Circular Reality

By December 20, 1836, the entire state of New York was also feeling the first biting winter of President Jackson’s Specie Circular executive order, which had gone into full effect a few months prior. Local banks were heavily restricting credit, paper bank notes were losing public trust, and the general public was beginning to feel the heavy economic anxieties that would ultimately erupt into the historic financial collapse known as the Panic of 1837 (Source: National Bureau of Economic Research).