Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-05-09
SWEPT BY A CYCLONE.
TERRIBLE HAVOC WROUGHT IN
KANSAS.
Ten Persons Are Killed aud Many In
jured In the vicininy of Haistead--
Property Loss Will BE Large-chil-
dren Narrowly Escape.
Farmhouses Leveled.

form houses Aevcle0s
Wednesday afternoon fearful cyclone
devastated a strip of country several hun
dred yards wide and at least sixteen
miles in length In the vicinity of Hal
stead, Kan, killing ten persons out
right and seriously injuring several others,
while many have received slight injuries.
The cyclone struck the house Of Mira
Frye, a widow, who lived about nine
miles southwest of Halstead, completely
destroying II and slightly injuring Mrs.
Frye. 1t picked up the house of John
Schultzback and carried it away. The
fine two-story house of Joseph Weir was
entirely swept away, killing Mrs. Joseph
Weir, Grace Weir. aged IL; Herman
Weir, aged 8, and five-weeks-old baby.
Mr.. Weir had previously left the house,
and when the cyclone struck was about
fifty yards away. He chung to a tree,
but was badly injured by flying debris
and will die Joseph Weir, Jr., and sis
ter, Maud Weir, the only ones in the
family who took to the cellar, escaped
with only slight injuries.
The home of Il. G. Caldwell, which
was sixty yards west of the Weir's, was
unroofed and the side torn away. The
family escaped by taking to the cellar.
The next house in the path of the storm
was William Armstrong;, which was
completely wiped from the face of the
earth Mr. Armstrong was killed, Mrs.
Armstrong seriously and perhaps fatally
injured, and Grandma Chaplin, who was
there sick in bed, was killed.
About 100 yards east of the Armstrong
house the large two-story residence of b.
Il. Frizzeh was picked up, as was also
large two-story house of ]. +. Frizzell,
across the road. and both, together with
all the outbuildings, were completely
swept away, leaving only enough debris
to show that house had stood there. The
families of both the Frizzells escaped un-
injured. Spencer Ross house was in the
line Of the tornado, and was carried
away, as were also the houses of A. 5.
Powell, ]. A. Comas, Andrew Thomp-
son and Memo Hege. Miss Daisy Nef,
at Powell's house, was badly injured, as
was Mrs. j. Comas.
School Children Safe.
At the Hege district school the school
children had just been dismissed. Hege
saw the storm approaching, and, fearing
it's results, hurried the scholars to his
cyclone cellar. His foresightedness pre-
vented an awful loss of life, for just
as the last child had been safely slowed
away in the cellar, the cyclone str2ck
the house over them and demolished it.
As it was, not one of them was even
slightly injured. The fury of the storm
seems to have done its worst about five
miles west of Halstead. Near the Friz.
zell home dead cattle, horses, hogs and
chickens are scattered all over the wheat
fields.
Those who first saw the disaster COM
ing say it made very slow progress, trav-
cling not faster than a person could run.
1t seemed to waver first in one direction
and then in another. AS far as heard
from, covering a distance of eighteen
miles across the country from southwest
to northeast, twenty residences, nearly
all of them large ones, were destroyed.
The loss will be not less than 100000.
Everybody in the track of the storm lost
everything.