Today we use very sophisticated gauges to record precipitation, but did you know that the first rain gauge was invented sometime around the 15th century in Korea. The first rain gauge invented was a standardized container set up on a pillar to measure the rain fall. Later in the 17th century, a much more sophisticated "tipping-bucket" rain gauge was invented in Britain. Many of our current rain gauges are still based upon the tipping bucket technology. Today, rain gauges are standardized, and precise measurements are kept to determine the severity and length of droughts compared to years past. Looking back to 1819, the precise timing and severity of a drought is much harder to determine. Scientists have to rely on localized recordings, studies, letters and physical evidence such as tree rings. Based upon this kind of evidence, we know that there was a severe drought sometime around 1820. When the drought actually started and how severe it was compared to droughts like the Dust Bowl of the 1930's is difficult to ascertain, but we do have stories like one from Tennessee recorded by author Allen Coggins where the Tennessee woods "were uncommonly dry. For two weeks, the woods burned and he whole atmosphere was so darkened by smoke that a person could not see for 200 yards." And a more detailed accounting of the drought can be found in a letter from former president James Madison to Edward Coles on September 3rd, 1819. In this letter Madison describes a drought that was more severe than anything he could remember. There was no rain, or scarcely no rain in June, July or August of that year. Madison's two farms received no rain at all, and because of this there would be not a "tythe of a crop". In other words, the crops this year would not even amount to one-tenth of a normal crop (as a tithe of income given to the church defined by Mosaic law). Madison, went on to describe his understanding of the impact on the Tobacco Districts of Virginia where there would be very little crop this year. Aside from the lack of rain, it was also unusually hot that summer. Madison reported that the "coolest part of my largest room was on two days, at 92 degrees, for several at 90 & 91, and generally from 84 to 5-6-7-8".
Unfortunately, the drought was not the only difficulty America faced that year. There was an illness such as Yellow Fever in many of the major cities, and a "derangement" in the "moneyed institutions" (Panic of 1819). President James Monroe opened his 1819 State of the Union addresses with good news that all three crises had passed, the "health of our cities is now completely restored", the crops "will not only be amply sufficient for home consumption, but afford a large surplus for the supply of the wants of other nations", and "the derangement in the circulating paper medium" had diminished. Unfortunately, the drought continued, at least in Virginia through 1820 and 1821 and was only ended in 1822 when a Hurricane struck the Richmond, Virginia area causing 200 or more deaths. Yet, as Monroe would soon find out, it was the last crisis, the 'Panic of 1819' that would have the greatest impact on the country and his policies. Much more on that to come.
"In bringing you to view the incidents most deserving attention which have occurred since your last session, I regret to have to state that several of our principal cities have suffered by sickness, that an unusual drought has prevailed in the Middle and Western States, and that a derangement has been felt in some of our moneyed institutions which has proportionably affected their credit. I am happy, however, to have it in my power to assure you that the health of our cities is now completely restored; that the produce of the year, though less abundant than usual, will not only be amply sufficient for home consumption, but afford a large surplus for the supply of the wants of other nations, and that the derangement in the circulating paper medium, by being left to those remedies which its obvious causes suggested and the good sense and virtue of our fellow citizens supplied, has diminished."http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29461
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_gauge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_the_United_States
Tennessee Tragedies: Natural, Technological, and Societal Disasters in the Volunteer State by Allen Coggins (2012) pg. 29
The Writings of James Madison: 1808-1819 G.P. Putnam's Sons (1908) pg. 454
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1820%E2%80%9329_Atlantic_hurricane_seasons
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