276
��EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
��tornado in Wendell was about half a mile.
From Sunapee the tempest swept across the lake of that name, and its. ap- pearance was both terrific and sublime."
The account irom which this article is compiled proceeds as follows :
tk On Saturday last, with several gen- tlemen from Concord, Hopkinton and Warner, we visited the ruins in the last named town, in that part known as Kear- sarge Gore. No person, without visiting, can conceive the devastation wrought. Houses, barns, fences, trees and fowls were lifted by the whirlwind and dashed in pieces. No language is adequate to represent the present scene; much less the wrath of the elements during the few seconds of their utmost fury. We stood amidst the ruins almost discrediting our own vision. It can hardly, however, be said that we stood among the ruins, for most of them had been carried beyond our own sight. Large stones remaining in their places, and others strewed on each side for several rods indicated where a stone wall had stood ; fragments of timber and small quantities of hay where barns had stood ; timbers and bricks where human habitations were placed ; and at one place the floor of what was the Savory house.
" The tornado came over Kearsarge mountain in the direction of the build- ings in the Gore, and first struck the barn of Wm. Harwood, carrying it away ; thence to the houses of F. Goodwin, J. Ferrin and Abner Watkins, completely destroying the barn of Ferrin and un- roofing that of Watkins. Next it com- pletely demolished the house of Daniel Savory. Mr. Samuel Savory, the father, aged seventy-two, went up stairs to fas- ten down a window, and the wife of the son started to assist him. The house was swept away, and six persons were cover- ed in the ruins. The aged Savory was carried six rods away, and was killed by being dashed against a stone. Mrs. Sa- vory was sorely bruised, and the child in her arms was killed. Others of the fam- ily, buried amidst the ruins, were rescued but in a badly bruised condition. The house of Robert Savory, in Kearsarge Gore, was also demolished, and eight persons, one an infant, covered in the ruins. All were wounded, but none fa- tally. All the buildings of Peter Flan- ders were blown down, and Miss Ann Richardson and an infant child were kill- ed. Seven others in the house were wounded, some badly. They had no no- tice of the approach of the whirlwind. The buildings of Dea. John True in Salis- bury were next swept away. Mr. T. and
��his father-in-law, one Jones, were in the house, and escaped without injury; and by their exertions Mrs. True and three children were rescued, but several of the household were badly burned by hot bricks — the oven having just been heated. The youngest child, seven weeks old, was found an hundred feet away, under the bottom of a sleigh. The overwhelming force of the wind can be estimated when it is said that a hemlock log, two and a half feet by thirty-six, much of it was buried in the earth, was moved one or two rods. The entire top of one of the chimneys was carried ten rods, and drop- ped whole. An elm tree, liear Savory's, seventeen inches through, whose deeply imbedded roots refused to yield, was twisted around like a withe, and a few ash trees were stripped of their bark and limbs, and made into basket stuff."
The account proceeds :
" The above facts, although they par- take of the marvellous, are literally true. Of the destruction in Sunapee we had the account from a gentleman in Newport of high reputation, whose testimony was corroborated by a dozen people who vis- ited the town the clay after the event. What relates to Warner and the destruc- tion near Kearsarge mountain we know to be true, having ourself visited the spot. We saw the stone against which Mr. Sa- vory was crushed, the places whence were dug the children of True and Savo- ry, the children themselves, mangled and torn, the mothers mourning the death of an aged husband, and an inlant child. We witnessed the awe of the survivors of these distressed families. We stood at the foot of the mountain , and saw the track of the whirlwind. It appeared as if a mighty torrent had many days pour- ed down the mountain ; the earth torn up, the grass withered, and nothing liv- ing to be seen in the path of desolation. May God in mercy avert another such ca- tastrophe."
The Patriot of the following week con- tained further particulars of the disaster, with a statement of the number of dwel- lings, barns, and other buildings demol- ished, a list of persons killed, and those only bruised, the names of all the house- holds, and other well authenticated facts. Among them is the statement that frag- ments of the wreck, such as pieces of boards, clapboards, shingles, and a door panel, were found in Canterbury, Lou- don and Pittsfield — twenty miles away — which without doubt were borne upon this terrific gale.
�� �
