Hamden in Shadow of Total Solar Eclipse 100 Years Ago
In the early morning of Saturday, January 24, 1925, a total eclipse of the sun was visible in Hamden and all of Connecticut. Stories in the New Haven Evening Register of that day told how the business of the city did not start until after the sun reappeared from behind the moon at 10:00 that morning. (Saturday was a working day for many people at the time.) Crowds of up to 50,000 people were expected to gather atop East Rock, West Rock, and the Sleeping Giant (which had just become a state park the previous October). However, the biting cold—a temperature of -8°F was reported in Centerville—kept most area residents content to view the eclipse through the windows of their homes and workplaces. At one location, the temperature dropped from +6°F before the eclipse to -4°F when the sun went dark.
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| Headline of Jan. 24, 1925 New Haven Evening Register |
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Few homes had radios in 1925, so newspapers were about the only way the public could be informed of the eclipse. These were not widely read by the large numbers of immigrants in New Haven, many unable to read English. Convinced that the sudden darkness meant the end of the world, they fled to the Fair Haven police station. Despite reassurances from the officers, the panic subsided only when the sun's rays reappeared.
The spectacle of a total solar eclipse is unique and very rarely seen at any particular location. Many of us remember the partial solar eclipse visible in Hamden on April 8, 2024. With a maximum of 91% of the sun obscured, it was noticeably darker than a sunny day, but there was no spectacular display of the corona. The last total solar eclipse visible in Connecticut before 1925 was in 1806. We still have a long wait until the next one here on May 1, 2079.
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