The story my father told me was that his paternal grandmother told him this happened three yers prior to her marriage.
The sun grew dark one day and the next morning it did not rise. The only conclusion they could reach was that the end of the world had arrived and they went to the church house. They stayed there for three days as it filled up, people begging to be let it.
On the fourth day the sun began to return and they all drifted home and got back to their daily routines.
I knew she has been married in 1886, that would have made this event in 1883, and I knew what happened then, on this day in fact. The eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, it blocked out the sun all over the world. My great grandmother witnessed it and never knew what it was.