Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1875-08-09
STRUCk DEAD BY A FLASH OF
LIGHTNING FROM A CLEAR
SKY.

While the thunderstorm of yesterday
afternoon was raging at distance of
apparently a couple of miles from this
place, singular freak of nature took
place in the striking by lightning of the
depot, and the striking and killing sub
sequently of ]. H. Boyer, the postmast-
er and blacksmith of this place. At
about o'clock in the afternoon, at
which time not cloud obscured the
sky overhead or stood between the sun
and the town, terrific fash of light
ming, followed by deafening peal of
thunder, struck the wires of the teAe--
graph Office and set it on fire. The DAM
age done to the telegraph apparatus was
most complete, the wires being tern to
pieces and the different instruments be-
ing almost without exception distorted
and broken and completely wrecked
Immediately after the stroke, John H.
Boyer, who was in his shop at the time,
ran out in the street toward the depot,
where some boys had been playing. He
approached them rapidly and said:
"Why, boys, ] thought some of you had
been struck. was frightened on ac-
count of you" He evidently had it in
his mind that the terrible shock might
have frightened his family, as he start
ed toward his home Immediately. When
within about fifty yards of the house,
from the front window of which his wife
was anxiously watching his approach.
another vivid fash of lightning dazzled
the eyes of all, and ere the thunder had
ceased rolling, the naked body of the
unfortunate nan was seen to be lying
prone upon the ground. A number of
people, among them his wife, rushed to
the spot, and SO horrible was the situa-
ton that it was not until he had been
carried to the house that full appre-
citation was had of the terrible death
which nature had inflicted upon him
An examination of the body, from which
every vestige of clothing, not excluding
even pair of cowhlde boots, had been
instantly torn, showed that the subtle
and fatal fluid had first struck him on
the top of his head, whence, though the
skull was left apparently intact, the hair
had been burned off for the space of the
size of silver dollar Thence the fluid
had run down the side of the face, as
was shown by clearly cut track, to the
shoulder, and thence to the heart, where
1t apparently had spread all over the
body.
The terrible power of the fluid was
shown by the presence in the ground,
on the spot where the unfortunate S
body had been picked up, a hole of
eight feet deep by actual measurement.
The clothing of the deceased was found
to have been shredded and when first
discovered was On fire, while the silver
watch he carried had been driven into
the ground, and when lifted up, it was
found that the works had been fused into
a shapeless metal. The scene at the
house of the deceased, who leaves a wife
and three children to mourn his loss,
was painful beyond power of words to
describe, and those who had been led to
the spot through Gu iosity could not re-
main. The affair has created the pro-
foundest sensation in the town, where
the deceased was both loved and revered
by all who knew him in either public OF
private life.-From the .Siiour Cits
(Ioaoa) Journal of July l6.