Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), 22 March 1856, page 240

A remarkable phenomenon caused by the extraordinary cold and storms of this winter is to be seen at Oswego, N. Y. Repeated tempests have driven the spray of Lake Ontario high over the breakwater pier, and every dash of spray has immediately frozen into a new coating of ice, until the accumulation is fifteen feet higher than the pier itself, which rises seven feet above the water. The outline of the concretion bears a most singular and striking resemblance to a range of snowy mountains with protruding glaciers. Seen without human figures upon it, and with the lighthouse hidden from the eye, a little effort of fancy throws off the mass into distance, and makes the resemblance almost perfect. A bright sunset lends to the ice and snow the brilliant play of delicate colors peculiar to peaks of eternal frost, and renders the pier a range of Alps in miniature excepting that the outline is rounder. This was especially the appearance, at the time we saw it, of the mounds of ice beyond the lighthouse, as given in our sketch. In this sketch, a part of Fort Ontario is seen in the distance. At the right hand is a monster store-house, capable of containing two hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat, besides twenty-five hundred barrels, the latter on the first floor. In the centre of the foreground, and at the left hand of it, it will be seen that the frozen basin has been safely used as a lumber yard. The work of building sloops and schooners is going on busily in the vicinity of the store-house. It may be added, as a thing unknown in the "memory of the oldest inhabitant," that Lake Ontario is now frozen as far out as the eye can see, which, from the hill, must be twenty miles. It is thought possible that it may be congealed the whole distance across the lake. Of course, the concretion on the pier is no more increased. We regret that we have not space to give a view of the lake side of the ice mountains, which is curiously indented, and must have made fine water-spouts when the water was dashing over it.