Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1908-05-01

came to hight IN the early hours today
when a little Of the wreckage Of Fridays
tornado in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama had been cleared away.
The tornadoes lasted altogether about
twelve hours. striking one town after the
other from before daylight OH Friday
until midafternoGn.
Trains Bring in Injured.
Many hours after they struck, trains
bearing nearly 2G0 injured came crawl
ing cautiously out of the tornado dis
tricts, leaving behind them one town,
Purvis, Miss, utterly demolished, five
others practically blown away and if-
teen little villages III more or less acute
stages Of ruin. With these wounded
came the details Of one of the worst
wind disasters i'll the history of the gulf
states.
First of all it became known that ne
grOes comprised most Of the dead, that
the picturesque darky cabins, noted for
their timsy, happy -go-lucky construction,
had been converted by the WIND INTO
wholesale death traps.
Blacks Crushed in Cabins.
1t was in the fall of these cabins
which went down almost without warn
ing that most of the negro deaths oc-
Cured. These always overcrowded cab
ms also furnished most of the badly
wounded.
The identified white dead early today
numbered forty-two.
In addition, it was reported that four
whites had been killed at McCallum,
Miss. which would bring the white death
list uD to forty-six. The number Of
negroes killed was between $50 and 10.
Towns That Suffered.
The towns which suffered the worst
damage, in addition to Puryis. We're
Amite La, McCallum, McLaurin and
Winchester. Miss. and Albertville, Ala.
The following fifteen towns were more
or less damaged: Richmond and La
INQUIRE, La; Wingate, New Augusta,
Columbus, Walls, BraXton, Belle Grove,
Melton. Lorman, Pine Ridge Quitman's
Landing, Fairchild's Greek and Waha-
lax i'll Mississippi, and Bergen, Ala.
Most of these places are merely col
| lections of a few stores and dwellings
so that the property losses will not reach
| large figures. No estimates of property
| damage have been made, with the excep-
| ton of kmite, La, and Purvis, Miss,
/ the two worst sufferers, where the dam
! age, which will never be estimated in
4 the Aggregate, was done to timber lands,
! to plantations. to railroad property,
scattered through a belt about 800 miles
long.
Seven Homes Standing
The destruction of Purvis, Miss, oc-
Cured at about 2:1O o'clock Friday aft
ernoOn and was all over in a few min
utes' time. OF about 200 dwelling
houses. only seven were left standing
The courthouse, the only other building
/ in town to withstand the wind, was
Immediately packed with dead and III
jured and served as the only available
hospital within many miles.
G. w. Cromwell, Jackson, Miss. in at
tempting to describe the storm said that
| all he could realize was that the air was
full of flying timbers. These timbers
dealt death TO many persons who sought
safety in the open air, while the falling
of walls was still greater peril to those
who remained indoors.
Martial Law in Effect.
When the storm was over, a special
/ train bearing two physicians and fifteen
other persons went to Purvis. Meanwhile
a second relief train started for Lum-
| berton.
One train was stopped by a woman
waving red cloth. When the engineer
ran ahead to see what she wanted, the
woman tainted and the engineer found
that the red color of the cloth was caused
/ by blood. A search revealed her home
I near the railroad and three members of
her family We're found dead and four in
/ jured,
A man who drove into Purvis last
| night reported that he saw the bodies Of
several dead whom he took to be negroes
/ lying beside the road. At nightfall what
4 was left of the town was put under
martial law, militia company preserv-
! ing order.
Priest Killed in Tower.
Amite. La. was 50 badly damaged
/ that it was put under martial law by
order of its mayor. The storm struck
! there just about noon, killing two white
/ persons and thirteen negroes outright
/ and injurin@ m&ay others. mostly ne
/ grOes 50 badly that physicians said the
/ total death list of Amite would reach
! at least twenty-five.
/ Rev. Father Felix Rumpf was the first
( person killed. He was in the bell tower
/ of his church. having just finished ring
/ ing the bell He was crushed to death
/ by the falling tower.
/ The tornado path was about two and
! one-half miles wide and when it had
/ passed. Amite stood wreck. Large num-
/ bers OF farm animals were killed.
/ All day physicians from Nidaha. La.
/ and Matches were going from planta-
! ton TO plantation and sending the worst
/ wounded of the negroes back to the
/ cities TO be treated.