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 By Pam Murray, Processing Archivist, Gleason Project, Concord Free Public Library. This article is one in a continuing series called "Concord Cameos" about interesting and historically important Concord people who should be better known.
Fred Alonzo Tower, son of Alonzo and Tryphena (Clark) Tower, was born on February 9, 1871 and died in Concord on October 15, 1959. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in the family plot. A life-long resident of Concord, he was married to Anna Bishop who died in 1935. The couple had one daughter, Barbara, who died in 1916 at the age of twenty-one. Tower was an active member of Trinity Church in Concord and author of A History of Trinity Church, Concord, Massachusetts (1936). His weather observing interests began in earnest on July 1, 1890, when he established the Concord Weather Station, located presumably on his property on Main Street, not far from the Sudbury River. The Concord Weather Station was one of an extensive network of cooperative stations set up in the 1890s as part of the National Weather Service Observing Program formally created in 1890 under the Weather Service Organic Act. Tower built the station according to plans provided by the United States Weather Bureau. The agency issued uniform guidelines and tables for the reduction of observations along with standardized blank forms for volunteer weather observers to fill out. Using thermometers, a thermograph, an anemometer, a wind vane, and a rain gage, Tower collected data pertaining to temperature, humidity, rainfall, and wind conditions. He filed daily and monthly local weather reports with the Weather Bureau, beginning in 1890 and ending in 1949. In addition to his daily weather observations, Tower also collected information about weather phenomena such as auroras, solar and lunar eclipses, frosts, hailstorms, and hurricanes. Tower received a letter from the Weather Bureau dated April 29, 1920 thanking him for his excellent reports of the auroras of March 22-24, 1920. At the time of this communication, the Weather Bureau hoped that the true height of the earth's atmosphere could one day be determined by studying the measurements of auroral observations. His observer record for a partial eclipse of the sun on August 31, 1932 reported that at 3:15 p.m. the sky was "quite dark" and at 3:20 p.m., "heavy clouds‹sun completely obscured."
 The Hurricane of '38
Besides weather reporting, his weather records were used in legal proceedings on at least two occasions. On June 4, 1928, Tower was summoned before the Superior Court of Middlesex County to bring with him "the record of rain fall during the entire day of March 29, 1928; also the record of the temperature during the entire day of March 29, 1928." He was paid a $5 witness fee to testify on April 28, 1930 as to the icy weather conditions which occurred during January 2-3, 1925.
Amateur Weather Reporters Vital to the Nation Amateur weather reporting has always played an important role in the history of meteorology in the United States. Before the era of government service, individuals kept records of local weather and climate. The first continuous weather records in the United States were kept in 1644 and 1645 by Rev. John Campanius Holm near Washington, Delaware. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson kept weather diaries. With the establishment of telegraph lines in the 1840s, it became feasible to establish an organized network of weather observation sites across the United States. In 1870, a Joint Resolution of Congress established a national weather warning system (U.S. Signal Service) under the direction of the Secretary of War. The Army Signal Corps assumed responsibility for weather activities. The civilian Weather Bureau was created on July 1, 1891 when another Act of Congress transferred the national weather service from the Army Signal Corps to the Department of Agriculture. When Tower established the Concord Weather Station, the Weather Bureau was part of the Department of Agriculture. In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the agency to the Department of Commerce where it remains today under the direction of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Tower's weather reports, graphs, photos, correspondence, and other related materials (9 boxes, 1 bound volume) form the collection of the United States Weather Bureau Records for the Concord Station (Concord, MA) As Observed By Fred A. Tower, 1890-1949, housed in the Special Collections, at the Concord Free Public Library, Concord, MA.
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