Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-05-21
STORY OF A CYCLONE.
REV. r. j. Cresswell, in n. Y. Observer


Sixty-five miles north of Minneapolis,
and on the west side of the river is st. |
Cloud, most beautiful little city of six
thousand inhabitants, and mile or so
to the north on the opposite shore is, or
rather was, the lovely village of Sank
Rapids, of fifteen hundred inhabitants.
A fatal day for this latter place was
April II, 1886. All that day the weather
was uncertain-rain, putfs of wind, sun
shine. and one brief hail-storm. There
was something peculiar in the atmos-
phere, causing restlessness. 1t was not
warm, and yet it was oppressive.
Several times heavy storms of wind and
rain threatened to burst over that region,
but they passed away and the sun shone
out bright and beautiful At 3 p. N.
dark clouds arose again in the south, and
soon afterwards there appeared in the
west horrible black something. "Was
it a fire." mo: it moved too rapidly"
Then there was heard by many that
horrible, grinding, crunching low, ag
oniZing wall, once heard never to be for
gotten. 1t was the voice of the cyclone,
on its terrible mission of devastation and
death. The writhng, whirling monster
was steadily crossing the city. 1t had
taken in its embrace frightful, funnel
shaped, coal-smoke-colored body from
above, and on it moved. Its body car
.i,,I ,,;n .f ., h.,
and shingles. Hundreds of feet up in
air, it tossed and toyed with these as if
they were only feathers. Sometimes it
carried them around in graceful curves,
then, swift as lightning, shooting them
sidewise or downwards.
This horrible monster had its birth in
the Masonic cemetery, two miles south
of st. Cloud. On the eastern side of the
cemetery there is a depression, with
hill on either of three sides of it. forming
a basin. Here. among a grove of oak
trees, the Titanic power began to display
itself. Trees as thick as mans body
were wrenched off fifteen to twenty feet
above the ground. Straight up the hill
in northwest direction it moved. lcav-
ing a track one hundred feet wide. \
little Roman chapel on top of the hill
was demolished. Down the other side of
the hill it swept. tearing its way through
the heavy timber. to where. close under
the edge of the woods. nestled the first
house in its way. Here were it, first hui
man victims.
PrOvidentally for st. Cloud, it now
changed its course and moved almost due
passed through the fairest and most
thickly-Settled portion of the city. and
thus have multiplied many fold even the
terrible results that did follow. After
leaving the timber, it struck the prairie
and widened to six hundred feet. and
swept everything in its broad pathway.
After it struck the city proper, its work
is beyond description. In its track not
one thing was left. Every building,
large or small. was torn to pieces and
the pieces scattered. no one knows where.
Even the foundation timberS are gone,
and the whole track looks as if it had
been washed by IA swiftly passing flood
of water. Midway across the city it
struck the yards of the Manitoba rail
way. Houses were only feathers before
this fury: but here were long trains of
loaded cars coupled together. Their inn
mense weight counted as nothing. In
an instant they We're turned, twisted, up
set-piled one on top of another.
The large freight depot was crushed
like an empty egg-shell in the grasp of a
giant. On, on swept the monster over
the northern part of the city as furious
as ever, till he passed beyond the city
limits. In its track it left the utter wreck
of sixty homes and the, mangled corpses
of nineteen men. women and little child
rem. and three times that number serious
! ly injured.
Think of fourteen coftins carried from
one of the Roman Catholic churches at
one time
After leaving st. Cloud at its northern
limit, the cyclone dropped into the Mis-
sssippi still going due north. Ii lifted
the water clear from the bottom, leaving
the bed of the river bare. Following the
stream for half mile, it came to the vii
lage of Sank Rapids, on the east bank of
the river. Here was the elimination of
horrors. The cyclone, now wider than
at st, Cloud, seemed to have gathered
new vengeance from its river bath, and,
with indescribable fury. ii struck Sauk
Rapids in its busiest and most thickly
settled portion, rushed across the plain,
up the hillside, over the hill, and then
on back into the country. But such Il
path as it had made. Look back, now,
from this hilltop and see the ruin, indie
scribable, fearful ruin. Only eleven
small houses left, on the outskirts, of all
the homes of fifteen hundred people.
Scarcely foot of ground that is not COW
cred with debris. The large and strong