The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1870-01-21

Near by stood the residence of Mrs.
Herman, aunt of Prof. Williams, 10
whose house a number of young lady
scholars were boarding. Only two of
them were wounded. Mrs. Herman
arose before the house was struck and
attempted to hold tho door, but in
one wild sweep the house went asun-
der. and everything was carried away.
a fine piano was picked up and EAR
ried twenty yards, the keys torn loose
and huddled in confusion together;
but little beside the strings was left
uniform, and as it stood in the mud
beside a pond below where the house
stood, its keys severed and broken,
its wires mute, it seemed a fitting
symbol of the desolation about it.
Further on, the Masonic Hall, a
large two-story building, the lower
part used as a college, capable of ac-
commodating n hundred and fifty
pupils, was literally whipped into
strips: nothing remaining that a child
could not carry.
The church belonging to the color
ed people, as we'll as the church used
by the whites of all denominations for
devotional purposes, suffered a SINH
lar fate.
The house of Mr.. Jolly. in which
were his wife and four children, was
leveled to the earth with no injury to
the inmates. A number Of fowls and
dogs we're walking about the ruins APP
parentlv lost; few domestic animals
were harmed. Some chickens were
found actually plucked of their
feathers by the storm.
Further on we reached the spot
where stood the house of Mr.. George
Poynter, who, with wife and child
his little family-ga7e up their lives
as the terrible demon of the storm left
their hearthstoHe and household altar
buried amid a mass of ruins.
This was one Of the most terrible
scenes of that awful night. Mr..
Pointers wife crushed and dying
under a heavy beam; the little child
pinioned to the earth with a rude
splinter of wood, still living; with this
picture behind him, his head cut and
skull broken, his body bruised most
fearfully, in the pelting rain and storm,
insane with the horror around him, he
staggered forward full five hundred
yards, into the vicinity of Mr.. NAL
lory's house, whose dead daughter
was then lying In the ruins, and meet
ing him asked him some question; he
was not distinguished, and they asked
him who he was. He replied. Don't
you know George Poynter?' He
could not tell anything Ineligible,
and terrified themselves, Mr.. Mallory
and friend asked him to accompany
them to a neighbor's house, which
was unharmed. He walked on a few
steps, and then sat down. They hur-
ried forward to shelter; when the
morning light came up it shone on
his r He was almost a dead
man when he stood before Mr.. NAL
lory; he must have been projected
from his house a great distance, and
not knowing his injuries, staggered
blindly forward to die in the storm.
Not a wagon load of material OF
any kind could be found within thirty
yards of the spot where stood a
strongly-built, we'll furnished house.
Mr.. Mallory had charge Of the en-
CINE and tank at the Cave, where the
water was procured. The engine,
wrenched and moved about, still
stands. but nothing else.
The daughter of Mrs. Mallory was
the wife of L. w. Sterrett. son of Col
Robert Sterrett, near RoWlett's, well
known in our city. She had an in
FAINT child two weeks old. When the
poor lady was found she was pinioned
to the earth by the second floor joice.
clasping in her sheltering arms her
babe; thus from the very breast OF
death, in the terrible storm, the little
tender babe was brought forth alive
Further on in the track of the re-
morseless WhirlWind was the house
occupied by Mrs. Tut, a widow and
five children, who lay in their beds
when the house fell in on them in
| terrible confusion, leaving them IN
mingled timbers the mother and
children were taken, themselves
spared, but their household effects
torn into strips and carried out oil
sight.
The house of Andrew Davidson,
an honest, industrious blacksmith,
seemed as if actually swept into irag.
ments from its foundation. The
women in the house were but little
harmed, but the poor man himself
struck and gashed in the head, was
found in the pond of water thirty
yalds distant, evidently carried there
by the same remorseless power thai
felled his house. The ground from
the ruins of his house looked as il
raked with iron teeth, carrying for
ward everything destructible toward
the pond. How human life in this
case, as we'll as in many others, was
spared, is as miraculous as our Sa-
viour raising the dead. Providence
while showing the great extent Of
natures powers, touched life but
lightly, and the dead and wounded
are but few when compared with the
many exposures.
We feel powerless to describe il
fitting language, the effects of this
terrible cyclone, spread out before US
with such ~distinctness as we walked
over the ground streWn with the
wrecks Of home. The unspeakablt
horrors of that night of terror, with
its beating rains, its flashing light.
nings, the exploding FIRE balls, the
bowling and roaring of the pall-like
wind-cloud electric charged, as it lev
eled hearths and affairs to the dreneh.
ed earth, with the houseless victims
wounded, and shiVering in their scan.
ty clothing, around their ruins, with
their dead before them, is a picture
that cannot be drawn by pen, bui
must be seen to be fully understood
The tornado seemed to take asweeT
of a quarter Of a mile, and seething
and whirling, while it was rushing
forward with a speed of a thunder
bolt, struck here and there with ruth.
less power. until it swept owe the
town and wooded tract. and at las
was supposed to be partially broken