The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-06-07

residents near Lancaster heard low rum
BILE, which sounded like the noise of distant
cannon or the roar Of a railroad train among
the hills. On looking to the southwest a
thin vertical streak of darkish cloud was
seen against a clear sky, which, as it came
nearer grew louder in its complaining and
deeper in its hue. 1t advanced apparently
at an average speed Of forty miles an hour,
occupying minute or a minute and half
in its passage. In width it covered space
Of about eighty rods; its height was com
paratively inconsiderable. 1t was in fne,
whirling column of wind, given color
and almost consistency by the dust and
water with which it was laden. Its passage
was accompanied by frequent electrical dis
charges, though the lightning was more fire.
quent and notable than the thunder, and
after it came food of rain, whose fury no
experience in the State can parallel. where
it was prairie or ploughed land the earth
was left a pool of water, and tie streams
were swollen into torrents that ragged within
their old channels with the fury of so many
small Niagaras, swallowing up ovcrhanging
banks and wooded knobs.
The tornado first declared itself little TO
the west of Lancaster, Kcokuk county. Of
the score of houses there it hardly left one
standing. Thence travelling TO the north
east, ii passed above Talleyrand and south
of Kiota, fortunately avoiding The village,
but laying waste the German settlement
three miles away. 1t then left the earth for
distance of nine miles, and swooped down
again in Washington county, FIVE or six
miles to the north and west of Washington
town. 1t ploughed furrow of ruin here
about eight miles long, then lcapcd into the
air at Highland township dashing to earth
again in Midland township. This was the
expiring effort of its rage.
a. The path of ruin thus traced was about
thirty miles in length. In no place did it
exceed quarter of mile in width and oc-
casionally it narrowed itself TO Il hundred
yards or so. Its course was so precisely
defined that at one point Il farmers barns
were swept away and the trees in his yard
uprootcd while his house, though but thir-
ty feet away, was left untouched The
Iowa tornado did not content itself by flat
tening houses and barns into lumber heaps.
1t strikes building, and the building van
ishes us if it had been blown up by gun
powder, and only ragged pit where the
cellar once was is left.
Not far from Washington town is the most
accessible scene of disaster. Here the
storm swooped down upon some dozen
houses, the residences of wealthy farmers,
and swept them from the face ofthc earth as
nngham's house and barn were blown into
splinters and carried away, but the storm
compensated for the theft by shower of
shivercd wood, boards and raftcrs, which
fell in the fields, and sticking there, made
the farm look like Il fretful porcupinc.
There was but little imagination required to
make one believe that he stood at Agin-
court, Crecy or Flodden, on battle ground
where the terrible clothyard shafts of the
archers had fallen thick as hail Some of
these fragments were embedded in two feet
of clay, and dcfed the strength Of man to
remove them. Old farmers say that in some
localities it will be impossible to proceed
with cultivation unit these cumbcrers of
the ground shall have rotted. Many of
these rude darts bore their billet, for hogs
were found pierced in their vital parts, and
several fowls were pinned to the ground by
these shafts shot by the archcrs of the air.
Some of the fowls were found dead with
but few feathers upon them, the feathers
having been chafed off while the birds were
whirled about in the storm amid the myri-
ads of abrading substances. There were
four persons in the house, women and
children, who were only slightly injured,
though the wind took the house away, and
sucked them out of the cellar in which they
had taken refuge. To crown all, the large
granary near the house was unroofed, and
several hundred bushels of grain poured
from it into the cellar of the house, as neat
ly as if it had been done by an elevator.
Two invalid children, who had been put
into feather bed for security, were saved,
though the wind carried them fifty or sixty
yards away and covered them up with
splinters and straw. There was not a tree
left in the orchard. The wind sheled the
ear corn in the cribs and scattered it every
where. Half a dozen fatted cattle, which
were awaiting the butcher, were blown into
swamp, and one had the whole of its
head aud neck driven into the earth.
A cornsheller, weighing some six hun
dred pounds, was blown some hundred and
twenty rods.
Mr.. Babcocks house and barns were car
ried away. With the furniture went $500
in bills and 81 800 in notes. The apple
trees were torn out by hundreds, and lot
of locust trees, some four feet in circum-
ference, broken off as neatly as if saw
had been used TO cut them through Just
above the ground.
Mr.. Henry Walters farm was swept
clean. A cook stove was blown half mile
away.
Among the other serious or curious Incl
dents may be mentioned the wrecking of
MIR. Waters house and the probably fatal
wOunding of his mother by broken board
that penetrated her thigh; the blowing of
teamster, named Baker, his wagon and
teams, clean over fence; the upr0oting
of some tombstones in cemetery, near
Lancaster; the abstracting of $1,000 in
greenbacks, which an economical German
woman had hidden in the roof of her house,
and the complete destruction of large
flock of sheep at the same place, which
were tossed up into the air-till, as an eye
witness affirmed, they "looked like SO
many birds"
OF all the terrible DEATH though it was
mercifully instantaneous, that of Mrs. En-
glerdinge, who lived about five miles from
Kiota, was the most horrible. She was
sick in bed with her baby when the storm
came on and blew the house away AS it
rose two or three of the larger timbers must
have been driven against her bed with the
swiftness of cannon balls. One cut the
top of the child's head off and carried away
part of the brain. Two others struck the
unfortunate woman in the abdomen and
neck, broke her into fragments, as if she
had been torn asunder by four wild horses
or blown from cannon. The legs and in
ferior portions of the trunk went one way;
part of the chest, the stomach and one arm
another; the other arm was torn off and
found sticking in bank of sand, and the
head, neck and fragment of the bust were
found long distance from the other ghast-
ly relics of humanity. The total loss is
variously estimated in money at S175, 000
to $500, 900, including thirty-five houses,
200 sheep, $500 hogs, 100 head of cattle
forty horses and all the crops along the
track of the storm. The list of killed and
wounded shows twelve persons dead and
twenty wounded. Detailed reports
have yet to come in from Keolluk county
and several of the wounded cannot recover
so that from eighteen to twenty-five name
will probably be on the death roll
A very singular murder was recent,