Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1890-07-10
KILLED BY LIGHTNING.
lightning InyadeS II Farmers
Home and Claims Three
Victims.
Hal, DcsOlatcS Crops for Strip
of Country Ten Miles
Long.
West Bound Northern Pacific
Passenger Train Blown Off
the Track.
Hail, Wind and Lightning.

Hail, Wind and lightning.
The storm that swept over North Da-
kota Sunday night was one OF the most
disastrous to life and property that ever
visited the northwest. In the James
River valley there we're high winds,
heavy rain and unusual electrical dis
turbances. One streak of hail is report
ed. It pounded out crops for strip OF
country four miles wide and ten or more
miles long. At least three lives were
lost by lightning in this county and an
other hangs in the balance. Numerous
small buildings were overturned, DAM
aged or struck by lightning. There was
nothing cyclonic about the storm. 1t
covered a wide extent of country and
seems to have been more in the nature
of tornado. It was most violent IN the
Red river valley.
John Fosburg lives northwest OF
jamestown about 13 miles. He and his
wife and baby we're struck by lightning
and instantly killed. Another child,
boy aged about five or six, was also
struck, but Is still alive. J. j. Leisch,
neichbor, came into the city early this
morning for medical assistance for the
boy and brought the news of the fatali-
ty. DR.. Baldwin went out to see if the
boys life can be saved. Full particulars
of the affair were not learned. 1t seems
that Andrey Elllngson and wife were at
Fosburp's whea- the storm came up.
Fosburs and wife gave a? their bed TO
the visitors and made IA bed Tor Them
selves and the oaby on the floor in az
other room. They left a window and a
door open, thus forming draft, and the
lightning was attracted through the
window. It is singular circumstance
that the building was aot struck and the
visitors and other members Of the family
we're uninjured. The bolt passed down
nto the cellar through the open cellar
door and lost itself in mother earth.
Fosburg was an industrious farmer who
is we'll known in the county. Several
children are left orphans by the fatality.
Lightning struck Fosburg on the
shoulder. The boy was struck over the
eye. 1t is eald that he cannot live.
Accompanying the wind and rain, hail
fell in streaks. In the city the fall was
not heavy nor were the hailstones large.
Out in the country, however, there is at
least one streak where the crops were
literally annihllated. 1t is a strip OF
country running from a point about
three miles south of jamestown in a
southeasterly direction to and beyond
Ypsilanti. Juet what extent of country
was covered is not definitely known bat
reports already received indicate that 1t
is four miles wide and at least ten miles
long. In this strip crops are almost a
total loss Without the strip there are
many fields that are more or less dam
aged. Among those whose grain was
nonnded out are Monroe AMI Judson
Wright. Rlves 4 Drum, Bush & Corwin,
OF. Allen, Carl Deude, George Case,
Phillips. Morgan, Lawrence and a
dozen others. Munroe Wright says the
hailstones we're as large as hens eggs;
They chopped the grain up and drove y
into the ground and hardly blade cYn
he found standing in his whole field. Yne
windows we're broken out OF nearly AL
the houses in the hail belt. 1t is fald
that many Of the hailstones were un-
melted at nine o'clock this morning In
the soft earth many holes three 70 SIX
inches deer and bigger around fhan a
dollar can be seen today, mute Wtnesses
to the size Of the hail ard the fofce With
which it fell.
In the city and all over the bounty a
large number of barns and out buildings
we're blown down but no large pullolngs
we're demolished.