Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1875-07-28
BY F.. j. MIDDLETON, Asst Clerk.
Severe storm i'm baltimore.

d.
Baltimore was visited yesterday afternoon
by one of the heaviest rain storms of the
season. The rain, which wa; accompanied
~ vivid lightning, was only of about twenty
minutes duration, but I'm that time the fall
was almost unprecedented. Considerable
iamage was done TO buildings, streets and
sewers. From the account in the Baltimore
Sun we clip the following:
FATAL BOLT.
A thunderbolt struck the machine shed in
the bI1ckyard of j. n. Alters, Waverly viii
age, Baltimore county, two AID half miles
from the city, and instantly killed George
Hardy, cOlOred. Hardy was standing in the
pit shoveling clay, with another colored man
named Jacob Wilson. a few feet away, and a
white boy namei Henry StroOps seated near
by looking on. A bright fash of lightning
came, and the interior of the building seem
Ell TO be on fire. At the same instant Hardy
fell to the ground dead. W ilSon was thrown
over fence and into a field a distance of 80
feet. He got up to find that his only injury
was painful twitching in the right leg
which he yet feels. He was not hurt by the
fall, and says his sensations were not I'M
pleasant, although he Is unable to describe
them. The boy was tumbled some distance
away and spun round like top. He. says
he felt a I first as If some one had struck
MN on the head; he was not at all injured.
DR.. Il. II. Reiche, OF Waverly, was called
and found the lightning had left no marks
on the body of the dead man. His skin was
just as ia life, his face bore an expression of
repOse, and the only evidence of any violence
was that when the eyelids were lifted the
eyeballs were bloody. The hair was not
singed, and the hands and finger-nails were
entirely unchanged. His hat, however was
torn to sbreds, his pants split into ribbons
and the hickory handle of the shovel he had
IN his hand was shivered into the finest
splinters. The lightning entered the side of
the shed, and discOlOration on one OF the
steel rollers marks where il first struck he
fore II glanced TO the shovel held by the col
ored man. No doubt nearly all the electric
fluid OF the bolt lodged in the man. Ito
gether II was a singularly fatal and eXtraor-
binary lightning freak. Hardy was twenty
nine or thirty years of age, leaves a Wife
and four children. and lived on Sharp street.
near Montgomery, in the city. His body
was bruised about the thigh, where he had
struck the rack I'm his fall, but otherwise was
not disfgured. The foreman OF the yard,
Isaac POtee, who was in the kiln, says the
flash was followed by report that shook
the earth underfOOt.
OTHER LIGHTNING FREAKS.
The storm was quite heavy in the western
and northwestern sections of the city. A
Ia III poplar tree in Druid Hill park, near the
Woodberry side, was struck by lightning
and hundreds of people on picnics were
dreBched. Lightning struck the German
Lutheran church, corner of Fremont and
Saratoga streets, but was carried Off by the
rods. 1t made two large holes in the roof
however, which will have to be repaired.
MARROW ESCAPE.
In Baltimore city the house owned by Jno.
NJ Heiss and occupied by Henry Gniesmer,
southeast corner OF Eastern avenue aud Elk
eter street, was struck by lightning, and the
chimney and a portion OF the roof slightly
damaged. The electric bolt passed down
through the house, but without doing any
other injury to IL except knocking some of
the plastering from the ceiling in the third
story next to the roof Mrs. Schultz was in
the room above which the lightning struck
with small child in her arms. She was
very slightly scOrched on one cheek as the
fluid passed through the room. Mr.. Gnies-
mer was sitting at the time the shock o.
CURED in the side door of the back building
playing with his grandchild, girl about
sixteen months old, who was seated on the
brick pavement before the door. He states
that a ball of fire seemed to pass between
himself and the child and before he could
catch her she was thrown about two feet
from where she had been sitting. She went
to sleep Immediately, and upon being aroused
showed no signs OF being hurt. The thunder
which accompanied the flash was almost
dcafenlDg.