The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1878-10-31
A Terrible CyclOne-Great Destruc-
ton of Property.

A cyclone from the Gulf of Mexico
struck our Atlantic seaboard early on
Wednesday the 23d instant, causing i'm
mems damage to property and loss of life.
Dispatches indicate from the Southern sea.
board cities are very meager, because
probably of the blowing down of the tele-
graph wires. At Washington the form of a
heavy rain-storm, accompanied by a
violent wind, it passed over the city,
unroo6ng houses, uprooting trees, and
doing other damage. The Signal Office re-
ceived only twenty of the usual one
hundred aud twenty reports from various
signal stations.
At Baltimore considerable damage is re.
ported, especially to the shipping at Chester,
Pa. Seventy dwellings and stores were
unrooted,~ nineteen being blown down alto
gether. Three churches were partly de-
stroyed, and eleven manufacturing places
were so much damaged that work had to be
suspended for a while, and a number of
people are thus thrown out of employment.
The damage to shipping is very considerable.
The tide rose to a great height, and washed
out many manufacturing places. Several
schooners and sloops were washed ashore,
and five canal boats loaded with coal were
sunk in the river.
The greatest damage appears to have been
done in Philadelphia. From a velocity of
twenty-four miles an TOUR at a quarter-past
two o'clock, the wind rapidly increased in
| violence until five O'Clock it was travelling
at the rate of forty-nine miles an hour. At
six o'clock, when the storm first became
bent upon destruction, the velocity of the
wind was ffty-six miles an hour. At twenty
minutes to eight O'Clock the register showed
that the storm had approached the dignity
of a hurricane, being then at the velocity OF
seventy.two miles an hour.
The finest oaks thai stood in I%ndepend'
ence, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lo-
gan, and Rittenhouse Squares, and in Fair.
mount Park, that had stood since Penn's
settlement, were torn up by the roots and
hurled into the adjacent streets and upon
the ~neighboring houses.
The number of trees that fell in the streets
impeded travel so much that at one time
there was not a passenger railway in the
whole gridiron system of this city that wa
not blockaded. Drivers, conductors, and
even passengers, chopping a way through
the PROSTATE trunks and branches.
Many public school building are damaged
and public squares devastated. Over forty
churches. of all denominations, are more OIL
less damaged by the demoli ion of steeples
ETC., severa' of which are expected to fall al
any moment. The Wa'nut-street Presby
terrain Church, on Walnut-street, between
Twenty.ninth and Fortieth, was badly dam
aged. The spire, which is one hundred ant
eigh' feet high, was blown down, and IN it
fall struck the roof of q dwelling and very
badly damaged it. In its fall a portion o
the church roof was carried with it, am thu
v~estibule of the church and organ left filled
with debris. The organ was completely de
molished. The damage to this church viii
amount to $35, 900.
The steeple of the First Baptist Church
Twenty-siXth and Chestnut-streets, ont
hundred and seventy feet high, was blown
down. In is fall the spire doubled up, tn,
base falling into the church yard, and thu
top, with the bell, fell into the street. Dam
age, $4,000. In its fall the top of the spir'
struck the houses opposite, damaging then
considerably.
The spire of Emanuel German Lutheran
Church, Fourth and Carpenter-streets, TIVE
hundred and twenty-five feet high, was alst
among the many church steeples blown
down to-day.
great many market-houses and passen
ger railway depots are badly damaged, ant
hundreds of dwellings, chiefly in the north
west section of the city, were unroofed
some of them being entirely demolished
The shed for departing trains at the Penn
sylvania Railroad Depot, West Philadelphia
tween $4,000 and $4,000. The factory O
F. Fitzgerald, Columbia,avenue and Ameri
cau-street, had its entire roof carried of
The whole eastern end of the Twelfth an
Fifteenth-street Passenger Railway Depo
was leveled to the ground, stopping To
running of ears far a long time, as It wa
impossible to get them out of the building
Shoem 4cker's piano-forte factory, Eleyent
and Catharine-stieets, was damaged to III
extent of $4,000 NJ estimate of the los
on stock and material can be given, but
will be heavy.