The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1898-06-02
TERRIBLE HAIL STORM.
The Seyerest and Host Destructive
Known In Years.

The most destructive hail storm
known for years visited this section
Monday afternoon. doing great dam
age to field crops, fruit, vegetable
gardens, etc. 1t appears to have
made track about three miles wide.
In town the fall OF hail was light
and no damage done. but a few miles
out 1t was very severe and destructive
Wheat was ruined, tobacco. cotton
and corn badly torn to pieces and
fruit utterly destroyed. In some
places the corn will come out again
but tobacco and cotton are very badly
injured.
The storm out in the WILLIAMSBURG
section was very severe and great
damage is reported. Mr.. j. G. Will
son tells US the hail stones beat holes
in tin roofs in some instances, and
the effect upon growing crops can be
imagined. An old turkey gobbler was
killed by the hail before he could get
to shelter as were several chickens
In the Satterwhite neighborhood
and at Frank Wortham's. nearer
town, the damage wrought was great.
Window blinds were torn to pieces.
glasses broken out and shingles
knocked from the roofs of houses in
many instances. The wheat crop
was the most promising many farm
ers had and it is ruined.
Down about Greystone Mr.. John J.
Pegram tells us the storm was equally
as severe and great damage was
done. On out at Mr. Ben Wortham's
and still further down through
Vance and Warren counties and into
Halifax it extended, and wherever
heard from the same havoc has been
done to growing crops, fruit. window
glasses and the like
Nothing equal to it is recalled by
the Oldest inhabitant. The hail
stones were in size from buckshot
to mans hand, round, biscuit
shaped, smooth, jagged edged.
The storm was very heavy at Kit
trell where considerable damage was
done to growing crops and the straw
berry fields of Mr.. o. w. Blacknan.
A correspondent writing to the News
and Observer from that place saws:
The storm covered wide area. 1t
was fully six miles wide at this place
and extended as far east and west as
has yet been heard from. 1t either
took widening course or there were
several storms, for reports of heavy
damage come from Littleton and
places far to the north Of the appar-
ent track of this storm.
The cloud gathered quickly in a
clear sky, after a day of extreme
heat. Its strange whiteness became
suffused with pink, and it was usher
ed in by thunder and lightning and
in deep twilight.
No one here ever before witnessed
such weird phenomena. The hail
was not at all the color of ice, but of
cleaning white like Parian marble.
The stones were the size of grape
shot, many much larger, and came
down thick as rain drops and with a
force that shattered everything in
their way-crops, tree boughs, grow
ing fruit, window glass and single
roofs, If at all weak.
1t began at 4 p. M, and though it
lasted only fifteen minutes the guam
tity of ice that fell was prodigious.
Rain melted it fast, but at the close
it lay drifted in places two feet deep,
like vast rows Of grape shot. 1t is to
be doubted if its like was ever before
seen in the State. The pecuniary
loss must amount to hundreds of
thousands of dollars, as the above
named crops are so near completely
destroyed as hardly to pay for cult
walton or reaping, as in the case of
wheat and oats.
$. e. P. Jones, Mile sburg, Pa. writes
have used DeWitt's Little Early
here and must say have never used any
pills in my family during forty years Of
house keeping that gave such satisfactory
results as a laxative or cathartic." Phil II.
Thomas.