Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== SOURCE: History of St. Clair County, Michigan A. T. Andreas & Co., Chicago - 1883 [Page 166-167] THE STORM OF JUNE 8, 1882 The storm of June 8, 1882, was phenomenal in many respects. First, there was a storm of wind, rain and electricity, that raged for an hour or two, and which, some hours later, was followed by a cyclone. The wind was blowing briskly from the south and not far to the northwest could be seen clouds darting back and forth as though contending for the mastery. Out of these contending forces was evolved the cyclone which swept to the southeast with increas- ing fury, leaving nothing but ruin and destruction in its track, uprooting orchards, and sweeping away houses, barns, fences, farm- ing implements, sleighs, wagons, household furniture, bedding, etc., many things of considerable weight being carried for miles along the track. As it crossed the road one and a half miles north of Memphis, it licked up the mud and water, giving it the appear- ance of rising dust, and the shattered remnants of what were once houses or barns, were thrown by centrifugal force beyond the limit of its power, and many fields adorned with plank rafters and splintered boards. The individual losses and mishaps are as follows: Mr. Draper's orchard and barn and Daniel Cors' house and barn were destroyed. Cors, his wife and child, were in the house at the time it was wrenched from the foundation timbers, leaving the family on the basement floor, with no roof above, and with but little of their worldly effects spared to them. At Powell's farm, no great damage was done beyond sweeping away fences, killing a colt, and severely injuring a mare. At John Jeffers', the storm demolished things generally, and passed thence to a farm owned by the Dudley estate, wrecking the house and destroying the orchard. The next place in its pathway was George McGuffin's, whose house was unroofed, orchard one-third destroyed, and barn totally de- molished, one side or end of it being carried some rods to the northeast. Here the storm took up a heavy lumber wagon, carrying it twenty rods; the tongue running full length into the ground arrested the further progress of the front wheels, but not so with the hind wheels, for they were hurled off through the air into a neighbor's adjoining field, thirty rods or more still further on. The next man to suffer was Isaac Hall, whose house just escaped, but his orchard close by was ruined, hardly a tree left standing. The old gentleman with his grandson at the time being in his field below a ridge on which his orchard was situated, stopped to watch the approaching storm, and the intervening high ground hid its real character, else he might have readily saved himself by moving to the northward. As it was, the storm was upon them before they could realize their danger. The boy dropped down and was saved by clutching his hands into the turf, but the old gentleman was swept along the ground thirty feet, and he was found in an unconscious state, the flying debris having struck him on the head. The next man to grapple with the wind-winged monster was Charles Mulay, Sr., who hastily gave orders to his family about arranging their posi- tions in the house for safety, and then left to care for his horses. When the storm had passed, Mulay found he had been cling- ing to the only apple tree there was standing for some rods about, and looking in the direction of his house he discovered it a heap of ruins lying eighteen paces from where it stood, but fortunately no one of the eight inmates were seriously hurt. The next wreck was on the farm of Gavin, who had two barns completely demolished, and a third unroofed. His orchard was also much injured. No more buildings lay in the path of the storm, and its work of demolition, so far as we know, ended here. The width of the swath it mowed varied from thirty to eighty rods, and its direct velocity was variously estimated by those near it to be from twenty to one hun- dred miles an hour. Probably thirty miles per hour would be a high estimate. The center of the tract looked in places like the dry bed of a torrent which had passed, leaving behind the debris it could no longer carry. ===========================================================================