San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-05-25
A Fearful Hail.StOrm.

EDITOR FREE PRESS :-On Bear Creek ana
! in its vicinity we have had, so far as my
| kno Wedge and experience extends IAN un-
par,lelled hail-storm but before undertak-
ing to give any of the particulars of it, will
state that the people generally in these parts
were beginning to looi and talk very seri-
ously about the present crop prospect and
the general future, although the crops were
not materially injured for want of rain, ex-
cept late oats, and SO far as the failure ex-
tended to get up stands of cotton But ON
the evening of the 9th of this inst, after
having looked very threatening all the even-
ing. little before sundown it began to rain,
aud very soon after to hail. And the plain
truth about the magnitude of the hail will
look unreasonable. 1t is not the length OF
time that it hailed, nor the absolute amount
of ice that fell that is so remarkable, but the
size of some of the masses of ice which did
fall The size of the balls of ice that fell
are variously estimated by the excited spec
tators and eye witnesses, some say they
were as large as maL's head, others say
as large as a half gallon cup, &c. There is
no kind of doubt, however, that many OF
them were from the size Ola pint cup to q
quart cup, and larger These extremely
large ones however, fell scattering, and,
the largest ones were not one solid ball OF
ice but seemed to be composed OF many
lesser ones frozen together, which would
make them fly to pieces the more readily
when they came in contact with anything
firm. but there were very large solid ones
fell and one of my neighbors were on
our wav home from Austin when the torn
came up, and received thorough drenchlng
from rain, but no hail but two OF our
neiehbors. residents of Bear Creek, by the
name of Tucker, were few miles ahead OF
lis on their way home from the same place,
and they got into the edge of the hail, and
one haiistone hit Mr. Leonard Tucker on the
head, which was sufficiently large to cut
hole in a hervy new hat, and cut larger
hole in his head Mr.. B. F. Cady, has just
completed a new house. which Is covered
with O. K shingles, put on in regu ar
shingle style, and hail-stone came through
he roof making hole similar to that OF
of cannon ball about 5 inches in diameter,
His roof is ruined, it leaks all over. During
the storm he and his son-in-law. Mr. Ash
wood, were standing in the gallery, and
yearling of the COW kind was standing
in the ward and hail-stone struck it, and
knocked it down, and it bawled piteously
but rose and took to the brush. Mrs. Ash
wood had set large tin milk pan out on a
block of wood to catch some rain water, and
it was cut through the bottom by the hail.
also heavy block tin wash pan was blown
out into the yard, bottom side up, and 1t
was beat into the shape of anything else as
much as that of wash pan. The roofs L
am told on all the Johnson institute buildings
are literally ruined, and that there were
bushels of ice on the upper floor All the
house roofs in the neighborhood were more
or less injured owing to the severity OF the
storm. which was alternately heavier and
lighter throughout. The corn crops are
generally about waist high, and where one
of those large hail-stones struck a stalk OF
it fairly, it ground 1t up so that 1t looked
like it had been chewed up by some dumb
brute and spit out again.
But the field crops, fruit, and mast, are
vet much more promising than the most
sanguine of the eye witnesses OF the storm
could have hoped for.
Health is good. grass fine. water plenty,
and stock fat, OF fattening. We had anoth-
er fine rain. the night following the storm,
and people are again hopeful. }. ID. Z.
BEAR Greek, May 10th, 1882.