A year later, in June, 1816, ten inches of snow fell in New England. This was not good news for farmers because it prevented their crops from growing. They had already been struggling with a persistent fog that was created by the volcano. The backwards weather continued through the summer, freezing crops and causing a food shortage. Life in New England was especially difficult because what little food they did have could not be supplemented by foodstuffs from the west, since railroads did not yet exist to connect the frontier with the east.
Frost was reported in Virginia; former President Thomas Jefferson suffered crop losses at Monticello and he was thrust further into debt. While Virginia felt the affects, it was New England that suffered the most and tens of thousands of people began to leave the region, relocating to the west and helping to expand the young country. Joseph Smith was among those who left Vermont and he would go on to found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Europe, Mary Shelley and friends were forced to remain indoors during their Swiss holiday and challenged each other to write scary stories and it was then that Frankenstein was written. That cold summer was called "the year without a summer," and it changed the world.
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