The Chateaugay Thaw, by Rev. Alanzo Teall Worden

A story is told of a traveler bold,

In the days of the Hartford coach,

In a big blanket rolled

For the weather was cold.

Here he went just as snug as a roach,

But the snow gathers deep as onward they creep,

And the snow gathers deep

As onward they creep.

And the driver he cried to

The man at his side,

We shall soon get a

Chateaugay thaw.

Then the man in the coach,

Lying snug as a roach,

Gently smiled like an infant at sleep,

But the horses’ slow gait never told him his fate.

In the snowdrifts so wide and as deep,

At last came a shout and they tumbled him out,

And a sleigh was hit fate

Then he saw.

But a man with a sing, pointing to the sky,

Saying here comes a Chateaugay thaw.

“Let it come” said our man,

“Just as much as it can.”

“For I never was fond of the snow,

Let it melt from the hills, let it

Run down the rills,

Then back to our coach we may go.”

But the wind raised the song and

The snows sailed along,

And the cold it was piercing and raw,

And the man in the rug from his covering snug,

Wished and prayed for the Chateaugay thaw.

When the sleight with it’s load

Reached the old Malone road,

When the drifts reared themselves mountain high,

Malone on the west was buried deep out of sight,

Left a white desert plain ‘neath the sky.

Not a fence or a tree could the traveler see,

As he cowered close down in the straw,

And the driver he sighed as the prospects he eyed,

“By George, here’s a Chateaugay thaw.”

While he spoke, lo! The team disappeared with a scream

And the drifts quickly closed overhead,

While they wildly look back,

Lo! The snow hides the track,

And is drifting high over the sled.

Then the traveler bold, though decrepit and old,

Hurled the driver down in the straw,

Crying out, “Driver, speak, e’er my vengeance I wreak,

What d’ya mean by a Chateaugay thaw?”

Then the old gossips say, he arose in the sleigh,

And extended his hand over the scene,

And he laughed and then shrieked,

But the sleight groaned and creaked,

And he said, “I will tell you what I meant.”

When the north wind doth blow

And there’s ten feet of snow,

And the ice devils nibble and gnaw,

When the snow fills your eyes

And the drifts quickly rise,

This is known as a Chateaugay thaw.”

Then the traveler arose and he smote him with blows,

And they sank in a deadly embrace,

And none knew the spot till the June sun was hot,

And a hunter by chance found the place.

Here they made them a grave,

Where the storms loudly rave,

And the epitaph lately I saw,

“Two men lie beneath and they came by their deaths

Frozen stiff in a Chateaugay thaw.”