The weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1858-1860, 1858-06-08

Through . gentleman Who left Monmouth
yesterday morning, We learn many interesting
particulars of the sad tragedy attending the
destruction Of the village Of Ellison by whlrl-
wind.
Among the dead are Mr.. John Hand, bis
sou, about ten years Of age, and babe, the
latter of whom Is supposed to have been drown
ed. The whole family appear to have been
whirled with the fragments of their dwelling
quite up into the air and deposited consider
able distance from where the house stood near
q slough. Mr. Hand was carried about fifteen
rods. and in his terrible fight received fright.
full wound in his side from a timber. He sur
yiyed till the next morning. Mrs. Hand had her
| infant in her arms when she struck the ground,
! but the conclusion compelled her to let 60 her
hold upon it, aud it Was tossed some distance
into the slough, where she heard its cry, but
owing to her severe injuries, was unable to at
tempt its rescue. There she remained all night,
her person partly in the water, andin the course
| of its dreary watches the dead body Of her in'
FAINT was drifted to the shore, and she had it in
her arms when discovered in the morning.
| Another family named McWilliams suffered
terribly. Miss Mary Ann McWilliams, about
twenty-two, her sister, Harriet, aged about
sixteen. and her brother Thomas about four
| teen are among the dead, and the poor old mo-
| Their. eighty years of age-the only remaining
member of the family, except some older chill
| dren1wh0 were living at distance-were very
badly injured The boy Thomas was not at
first conscious of having received any hurt, and
rescued the body of his Older sister from the
ruins soon after the catastrophe, but he was so
badly injured internally, that he died the next
morhing.
W. E. Thompson, his wife and child, Mrs.
Brazleton and her two children, q son and
| NJ, tsyW
ram johnson and child, and two other persons
whose names we're unknown to the informant,
make up the list Of the fourteen instantly killed
| These embrace all the names Of the decd which
we have been able to obtain.
! As near as can be ascertaned in the confu-
sion which prevailed, about fifty persons were
very seriously and many more slightly injured.
Among the injured was Mr.. Samuel johnson,
merchant, who has one leg and three ribs bro
| ken.
| Mrs. Ormaud, both arms broken. Mrs. Sher-
wood cut and bruised badly--a splinter driven
through her thigh Miss Fnlay, Mrs. Thomp-
son, and Patrick Shaw, stranger, who was
picked up in the road after the storm was over,
were all badly injured.
The only physicians of the place were Drs.
Hawley and Yoke. The former was, with his
wife, among the more seriously injured, and
the latter, DR.. Y, was badly hurt. Both were
thus incapacitated from rendering any assist
ance to their unfortunate fellow citizens, and,
as the nearest point available, medical aid was
only procured from Monmouth after the delays
| noted elsewhere.
As soon as the first shock Of the calamity had
passed, and its extent began to be realized,
special messenger-Mr McWilliams, q brother
Of the young lady and the boy who were killed
was dispatched to Monmouth for assistance,
| A rtn dow
morning. The sad news spread rapidly, and
the whole town was soon astir. Drs. Hamilton.
Diversified, McDill and Young, at once volun-
teered their services, and by six o'clock they,
accompanied by six teams and about fifty men
on horseback proceeded to the scene of disas-
ter, which thep reached about ten A. N. The
wounded, meantime, had been conveyed to the
] neighboring farm houses, by the unnjured, and
there the physicians FASTENED to minister to
their relief.
When we review what we have written it
seems like a tale of the horrors of the terrible
elemental connections of the tropics, or the tor
nadoes that have swept the islands of the torrid
zone bearing destruction and havoc along their
path. But it is of our own State, and the in-
stance is the second Of the kind, though much
less in extent than has visited this region the
present season. The instance We are now re-
cordng stands without q parallel, and may i,
never know one in our annals. A brief descrip
ton of the locality visited by this fearful dsas
ter, will be of interest to the better understand
ing of the same. Ellison is village in town
ship of that name, lying due south of the line
of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail
road, the nearest station of which, Young l.
merica, is five miles distant. Monmouth, the
county seat of Warren county, is twelve mile:
to the north east, and Galesburg, Knox county
is twenty FIVE miles nearly north east, and the
Mississippi river is about sixteen miles west.
The small stream known as Ellison Creek ira
verses the township in u direction little nortl
of west, and becomes a tributary to the Misss
sippi.
The village was farming community ant
one of the older settlements of that section
The larger share of the structures, some sixty
or seventy in number, that constituted the vii
lage, was ranged on a single straight street run
, ming in direction almost east and west, beiD:
the main county road running to the Mississippi
and Burlington. The road crossed the creel
about half mile from the village, the s,rean
turning more to the westward north of the roal
crossing.
Between the village and the stream was
belt of timber of oak and walnut, consisting o
large trees. This timber occupied the inferno
date space of half a mile between the villag
and the stream, extending close to the viciuit.
Of the village.
The surface is level prairie thence extending
to Monmouth, a dead level, and in o clear da,
the Ellison timber can be seen skirting the hori
zon from Monmouth.
In this belt of timber the first traces of thu
desolating tornado appear. Saturday and Sun
day seemed to have preserved very nearly thu
same characteristics in the vicinity of the i'll
fated village as in this region. Sunday wa
showery throughout the day. As the Afternoon
waned, giving the appearance as noted at Mon
mouth by our intelligent informant, the sky Il
the southwest had IL most threatening appear
ance. A heavy bank of clouds OF inky black
ness seemed to rest upon the very surface of thu
prairie. In the language of John McWilliam
who is elsewhere referred to as relative 0
several of the victims, and as active III hi
exertions for the relief of the survivors
"they seemed to sweep the very prairie."-
Mr. McWilliams noted the approach of the
storm from his farmhouse, about mile nortl
of the street.
He saw two threatingly black clouds NEE
apparently about mile west of the village
with the widest commotion, and move Oh
towards the village The utmost alarm fe'
the minds OF his own family, and OF those il
adjacent farm houses, but how much less thai
the abiect terror of the villagers, who saw, bu
not in season TO avoid the destroyer bearing
down upon them. Than to those dead, tn
dread Angel never came in more fearful form
than to the spared victims of the casualty, an,
, the hour Of their own deeease can scarcely b.
more awful.
The track of the tempest must tell the rest
The tornado struck the village about hali.pas
, five o'clock and during its continuance 10 rail-
fell The houses were frame structures. Their
was a large tavern stand end three stores, thos
of Samuel johnson, Joseph Knowles and an.
other. The appearance of the dwellings ant
structures alter the passage OF the wirlwind il
described by one eyewitness "as il one shoul,
ltear to pieces and scatter lumber yard" o
roofs and walls, and the various structures
there was seen in many instances scarcely
trace, as If a giants hand had reduced and tori
them to shreds aud splinters. They lay scat.
tered over the fields. Here piece of broker
furniture and there q shattered door, and be-
yond an undistinguishable mass of timbsis ant
T boarks, floor beams, ceiling and raftsrs. Ever
the bodies OF some of the sufferers were torn Il
pieces.