The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-07-15
A TERRIFIC LANDSLIDE
Two Miles of Forest Sweeping Down at Light
ming Speed.
An Extraordinary Event i'm the White Noun
tains of New Hampshire Scene of
Terrific Grandeur-A Farm Buried
Out of Sight.

FABYAN HOUSE, y. H., July ll.-Slnce tne
destructive Wiley slide there has been no
landslide in the White Mountain regions like
that of yesterday. A thunder shower hung
around the White Mountains all Thursday
afternoon, trying to work its way north to
Canada. 1t rained hard during the day and
in the night it poured making the mountain
side roar with newborn torrents. Toward
morning. the storm concentrated its forces
for final effort. Passing Twin Mountain to
Mt. Pleasant, it rolled on along the side of
gigantic Washington and made an assault on
Cherry Mountain, a triple peak about twelve
miles TO the north n. NJ. Davenport, the
town tax collector of Jefferson, had just got
up, and saw the assault. He says the light
ming played around Owls Head, the central
and highest peak, for a moment or TWO and
then came vivid flash that seemed to light
the whole armament and opened up deep
vistas in the pail of clouds
Before the report reached him he saw
little rift of fresh earth far up the mountain
side near the summit, and while he looked
the spot ran down the mountain, bearing in
its wake trees, rocks aud everything but the
solid ledges. Tall trees swayed two and fro
for moment and went down like grass be-
fore mower.
III WIS lHc commencement Ol Il ld0USllue,
the greatest that has occurred in the region
for many years. Owls Head is $500 feet
high. Below il, to the north, in little val
ley are several homesteads of farmers. Near
est the mountain is the house of Ezra Bor-
dreau, a Frenchman. Some half q mile
further down were the house and barn of
Oscar Shanly, a well-to-do New England
farmer Bordreau says he thinks he was
asleep when the slide occurred, but was
awakened by the noise and ran to the win
dow and looked out. Il seed it a-coming,"
said he, 'and my house he too high so they
no reach him. When he all gone / say to
me boy, Il is alive, / think, but Shanly he is
gone too He make awful noise. He sound
just like 10000 horse and run away. Scare
me awfully; scare my cow, too, so she give
20 milk
According to Mr. Shanly, he with his
three hired men, were in his ba;n at the
time, which he think was about 6 o'clock
He heard the clap of thunder, and thought
1t lasted very long time. The noise grew
so loud that i'll spite of the arguments of mis-
men, he went to the door, and there saw the
slide coming, not forty rods awa6. He ran
back and spoke to his men, and they made
haste to get out of the way. Mr.. Shanly and
his two men, Moses and Clef Mcdonald, ran
to the east, and got beyond the torrents of
trees and soil that came pouring down. The
third, Donald j. Walker, farm laborer,
twenty-fOur years of age, was milking q COW
in the stall, and did not hear in time to es-
cape from the barn before il was struck. He
was bursed in the wreck and carried several
rods. When found he was lying among the
broken frame. timber was across his
chest he was badly bruised, and his leg
broken so that il will have to be amputated.
Mr.. Shanly describes the avalanche as ter
rible. Imagine one of those revolving bushes
with which the streets Of ST. Louis are swept,
only have it magnifed 10000 times, and
some conception can be had of this slide
hn rn0 inn haf unrafl Al,
was 200 feet in diameter and 100 feet long.
Instead of wires the broom was made of for
est trees fifty feet tall and foot in diameter,
and instead of being drawn by horses il
seemed impelled by the force that guides
the stars. Imagine the rolling, roaring,
whirling monster, born of thunder and
whipped on by lightning, coming down the
little hollow between the hills in the early
morning its sides shaking and throwing out
tons of dirt at every revolution, its path
marked by fire and followed by smoke and
some idea can be had OF the impression it
made on those people.
Mr.. Davenport says it was between two
and three minutes from the time the first
spot appeared on the side of Owls Head to
that when Shanly's buildings were crushed
out of all shape, and as the distance made in
that time is fully two miles, the spread was
about a mile a minute, or faster than the
speediest train
When the correspondent visited the spot
to-day the field was covered twenty five feet
deep in mud over an area of forty acres, and
in this mud were bOulders weighing forty
tons and trees two feet in diameter and
seventy-five feet long Not limb remained
TO tell that they ever had branches. Even
the bark was gOne-peeled off as if by
draw-shave. The whole mass is full of these
monsters, stripped from fifty acres of old
growth woodland Good judges estimate
that there are 100000 feet of timber lying on
Shanly's farm.
The slide following a tortuous path down
the mountain, twisting to left and right, but
always going down. Just before arriving at
Shanly's house the brook, which was the
channel of the avalanche, made a sharp turn
to the right, and the earth and mud and
trees were unable TO follow the curves
Meeting little hill back of the buildings
the dirt raised 400 feet in the air and spread
itself over Shanlys farm, covering an acre of
potatoes, two acres of grain, fine garden
and about twenty-five acres of grass land,
and spelling his farm. The force was nearly
spent when il struck his buildings, but they
were knocked out of all shape, and driven
several rods TO the north. His entire loss is
between $4,000 and $4,000. He is a stout
healthy man, 40 years of age, and has wife
and three childred who depend upon him
for support. The avalanche swept away the
whole of his life's labor.
He and his family sat among the straw un-
der the broken barn roof to-day and said il
was all the shelter they could call their own
herd OF young cattle belonging to Mr. Mar
shall were chewing their cuds on the hillside
when the slide came down and they were
ground to pieces among the powders. The
hoofs and horns OF several lie under the logs
just back OF Mr.. Stanley's orchard, a mile
from the pasture.
Several hundred tourists left Boston by the
9:3O train of the Boston and Maine Railroad
this morning en- route to the scene. Others
have been going all day. Reaching the Fab
van or the Twin Mountain House, they take
teams to the place, which is over an hours
ride away. The narrow country roads lead
ing around Cherry Mountain were thronged
with visitors all day. The proprietors of the
hotels did brisk business in letting teams
Among Others who went out to see
the sight was photographer, who
carried his camera along to take some
views. All over the track were groups of
persons standing on logs and rocks looking
with wonder upon the most wonderful