March 29, 1886 Three Notch-Bullock County Tornado 

From The Montgomery Advertiser, March 31, 1886, pg. 2:

Cyclone In East Bullock

Four People Killed and Ten Wounded.

Special to the Advertiser.

Union Springs, March 30. – 4 p.m. – A terrible cyclone struck the community of Three Notch, in the eastern part of this county, to-day about 11 o’clock a.m. Houses were blown to pieces and trees uprooted in its track. A messenger from the Jno. Coleman plantation, near Three Notch, has just arrived here to get Dr. N.M. Bledsoe to attend three negroes who are badly hurt there. One of these, Sam Peterson, had his head crushed by the falling timber of his cabin and is not expected to live. Mr. John T. Allum’s gin-house was completely demolished, and a cabin on the Moore place was blown away piece-meal, leaving a negro woman and her children miraculously unhurt, clinging to the flooring. The full extent of the damage can not be ascertained at this writing.

             Later: A number of colored people who had met at their church at Hardaway for a funeral were wounded by the demolition of the house. The church, a frame structure, was completely scattered. Mr. Allum’s eight-roomed residence was unroofed and his windows blown in. His window curtains and article of bedding are hanging in ribbons on the trees in the adjacent woods. One house on Mr. R.J. Grace’s Hardaway place was destroyed. Four people are reported killed and ten wounded.

From Union Springs Herald, March 31, 1886, pg. 3:

Cyclone.

A negro from Mr. Jno. Miller’s plantation near Three Notch in this county came into town after Dr. N.M. Bledsoe and reported that three negroes on the Jno. Coleman place adjacent were terribly wounded in a cyclone which struck that community about 11 o’clock today.

             One negro, Sam Peterson, had his head split open by the falling timbers of his cabin. Houses were destroyed and trees uprooted in the track of the cyclone. It is not yet known how far the damage extends.