January 11, 1885 Greene-Hale-Bibb-Chilton County F4 Tornado
January 11, 1885 Greene-Hale-Bibb-Chilton County F4 Tornado
From Montgomery Daily Advertiser, January 13, 1885, pg. 1:
Cyclonic.
Sunday Night’s Windy War.
Raged All Over Central Alabama.
Spreading Death and Destruction in Its Wake.
(Special to the Advertiser.)
Greensboro, Jan. 12. – A cyclone passed a few miles north of this place Sunday night, felling houses, timber, fences and everything in range, west to northeast. No lives lost as far as known. Light rains and heavy winds here at the same time.
What the Cyclone Did in Greene.
(Special to the Advertiser.)
Mobile, Jan. 12. – A special from Greene county says that a cyclone passed about eight miles south of Eutaw last night and caused loss of life, and damage of much property. Every house and cabin on the farm of Mrs. McAlpine was swept away. Cotton bales were blown hundreds of feet through the air. A house in the neighborhood was set on fire by lightning and burned to the ground. The light of the conflagration was seen at Eutaw in the night. The cyclone then passed to the west and struck the Moss plantation where it is stated several men were killed outright and several children seriously hurt. Thence the tornado crossed the Warrior river and did damage in Hale county.
Around Birmingham – What it Did Up the Country.
(Special to the Advertiser.)
Birmingham, January 12. – Cyclones crossed the Louisville & Nashville railroad last night about 40 miles south and 45 miles north of Birmingham. The track of the former was half a mile wide. Near Jemison a dozen trees were blown across the track. The northbound freight train struck one of the trees. The engine and five cars were derailed, but not much injured. Nobody was hurt.
The Cyclone in Bibb.
Selma, Ala., Jan. 12. – Specials to the Times to-night report that a cyclone passed through Hale, Perry and Bibb counties in this State last night. Its direction was from southwest to northeast. Great damage was done to houses and fences in its path, which was about a mile wide. In Bibb county, near Centreville, a man is reported to have been killed. Mrs. Mason received serious injuries. Several mills were wrecked, and near Randolph two mules were killed. Houses a mile away from the path of the cyclone shook so that the inmates thought the trembling was caused by an earthquake. The damage to houses and other property will reach thousands of dollars. The forests are greatly damaged. Thousands of trees are laying across the roads near Randolph.
From The Eutaw Whig and Observer, January 15, 1885, pg. 3:
A Fearful Cylone.
On last Sunday night, the 11th inst., a cyclone swept across the Southern portion of this county carrying death and destruction in its path. The day had been showery and unusually warm for the season. About dark a heavy rain, accompanied with thunder and incessant lightning, fell over a broad belt of country on both sides of what proved to be the subsequent path of the storm. Quite early in the night Mr. Charles Willis observed an unusual phosphorescent glow in the South-west and called the attention of others to it as a phenomenon resembling a sunrise in the night. The cyclone seems to have originated in this county at or near the Tombigbee river, as we have no accounts of it from beyond that river. Soon after the disappearance of the luminous glow witnessed by Mr. Willis, Dr. A. Bird observed three intensely black clouds, of sugar-loaf shape, advancing rapidly from the South-west. The two outer ones moved in a line with each other at an apparent distance of a quarter of a mile apart. The third one followed at a small distance in the rear, the three forming the angles of a huge hollow triangle. All these clouds were seething and boiling as if convulsed with violent internal forces. The spaces between them glowed with intense electrical coruscations. The three rapidly moving clouds, the electric flashes and the thunderous roar of their swift rush through the heavens formed a sublime and dreadful spectacle. It was this roar coming out of the South-west and approaching nearer and nearer that attracted the attention of so many of the citizens of Eutaw between seven and eight o’clock and filled them with apprehension that a cyclone was approaching the town. The roar passed rapidly towards the north-east and gradually died away in the distance. The heavens were ablaze with incessant lightning along the path of the receding storm.
The cyclone, as is often the case, seems to have formed and advanced a considerable distance at some elevation above the surface of the earth. The three funnel shaped clouds, when first observed by Dr. Bird, were not touching, but leaning towards and rapidly approaching the earth. Their first point of contact with it, was at Hohenlinden, where a small outhouse was demolished. The three clouds seem to have coalesced at this point and the more than giant strength of the cyclone was fully developed. Half a mile east of Hohenlinden it struck the Powell Place unroofing or demolishing most of the buildings, uprooting or tearing to pieces the stoutest trees, prostrating fences, maiming stock and killing a horse. A negro woman was killed by the timbers of a falling house, and, when taken out from the ruins, her infant child, still clasped in her arms, was found to be alive and unharmed. From this point the cyclone, now a quarter of a mile wide, swept through a dense grove leaving scarce a tree standing in its path. Skirting the buildings on the Martin place and doing little or no damage except blowing down the fences, it struck a narrow belt of timbered land about two hundred yards west of the residence of Mr. S.Q. McAlpine. The largest trees were either uprooted or snapped in two and shivered into fragments. The residence of Mr. McAlpine, flanked by numerous outhouses and located on a small eminence, immediately east of this timbered belt, stood, unfortunately, in the very center of the path of the cyclone and was exposed to its utmost fury. The ginhouse was demolished and its timbers and contents scattered in all directions. A few bales of cotton lying outside of it were hurled a considerable distance along the pathway of the storm. Every negro cabin was destroyed. Corncribs, fodder houses, stables, tool houses, wagon sheds and cattle covers were swept clean away, the fodder hopelessly lost, the corn scattered and every tool, farming implement and vehicle of every description shivered into pieces or blown away. The kitchen and the storeroom with all their contents were irrevocably scattered. The dwelling house, built of stout logs, double roomed below and above with a dining room attached, was demolished down to the basement floor and the entire contents of every description riven into fragments or scattered far and wide, over the adjacent fields. Mr. McAlpine and his children, with only a few bruises, passed unharmed through the tremendous ordeal. And strange to say not a single human being nor a single animal perished on his place, though many of each were more or less seriously injured. In all the history of cyclones and storms we have never read of such complete and universal destruction of houses and their contents. Literally not one brick or log or plank of a once comfortable home was left upon another. The scene was one of utter ruin and desolation.
This work of destruction accomplished, the cyclone swept on, destroying the cabins and killing a negro boy on the W.S. Bird plantation, unroofing cribs and outhouses on the Lightfoot place and demolishing many of the outbuildings of Dr. J.W. Clements.
It then passed into Hale county and we trace its path by the press dispatches through many counties in Alabama and on into Georgia, marked at every stage of its progress by the killing or mutilation of persons and animals and great destruction of property.
By far the greatest sufferer from the cyclone in this county was Mr. S.Q. McAlpine. His home with all its equipment and surroundings was utterly destroyed. His case has touched the sensibilities of our people and their generous sympathy is finding expression in prompt acts of relief. He deserves both sympathy and help, for he is a worthy man and a good citizen and is suddenly stripped of his home and all the accumulations of many years of labor and care.
From The Alabama Beacon, Greensboro, January 20, 1885, pg. 1:
Work of the Cyclone.
The damage done by the cyclone which passed through portions of Western and Northeast Hale, on Sunday night of last week, was more general in its character and destruction to property than was supposed, when we first heard of it. Like all the cyclones that have passed through this section, its course was from Southwest to Northeast, and its track quite narrow. Its track through Hale ran through or near Erie, thence through one of Mr. S.J. Monette’s plantations, - thence on through the Northeastern portion of the county into Perry. Several cabins were prostrated soon after it crossed the Warrior, but we are unable to give particulars. Of its damage in Perry, we have received no information. – In portions of Bibb, especially near Randolph, it was very severe, doing much damage to property. Hundreds of trees were prostrated, fences and cabins blown down.
Dr. Moren, who traveled the next day over the road from his house to Randolph says the width of its track was about one mile. He encountered he had much difficulty in getting along. He heard of one man killed West of the Cahaba river, and a woman badly injured.
It passed over the South and North railroad near Calera, in Shelby, and thence on through the Northeastern portion of the State, into Georgia, where it did considerable damage to property. A few lives were reported lost.
It is remarkable that the track of this cyclone, as it passed over some localities, was very near the track of the cyclone that passed through the State nine or ten years ago.
Cyclones are much more common in the Northwestern, than in the Southern States. And more common in those States than they were a dozen years ago.
There were indications here last Thursday night, that this section was threatened with another cyclone.
Since the foregoing was put in type, Mr. W. White Jones, gave us an account of the damage done by the cyclone to him and several of his neighbors. Mr. Jones resides nine miles from Greensboro, on or near the Tuscaloosa road. The cyclone passed through his plantation, blowing down the cabins, outhouses, fences, etc., on three settlements. The ginhouse, on one, was also blown down. Some damage was done to his dwelling. The direction of the cyclone, as it passed over his place was zig-zag, and its track nearly half a mile wide. Its general direction was northeast, but it changed its course after crossing the Harry Hill. The buildings, fences, etc., on the Davis place, Mr. Livingston’s, and others, whose names we do not recollect, were prostrated, as also the trees in its track. Mr. Jones thinks it would take at least one thousand dollars to repair the damage he sustained. A negro woman, on one of his settlements, was seriously injured. She also had a child hurt. But we cannot spare space for further particulars.
From The Marion Times-Standard, January 14, 1885, pg. 3:
Storm Sunday Night.
From the terrific looking clouds in the north Sunday night, it was very evident here that a severe storm was not far off, and the next day reports began to come in of great destruction to property and life. The storm or tornado seems to have started in Greene county, and passed through Hale, Perry, Bibb and other counties. We learn of the following casualties among people in Perry and Bibb, who generally do their trading in Marion, and who are known here: Mr. Hans Hobson had every vestige of a house swept away from his place, and we are told that the road near his house was so filled with timber, that fifty men could not have cleared the road in a day. We have heard of no one on the place being hurt. Mr. Wm. Palmer, a neighbor of Hobson, also had his house blown down. Mr. Jim Mason’s house was blown down, and two of the ladies in his family severely injured. Mr. Ed Perkins and Adam Mason, colored, lost their houses. Mr. N.H. Thompson had his new flouring, grist and saw mill completely demolished, and a number of other places ruined over in Bibb county. The roads in the upper part of Perry and southern part of Bibb were completely blockaded with timber. We have heard of no loss of lives or limbs in our own county.