Clay County, IN Tornado, May 1860

On the 15th of May, 1860, a cyclone passed over the central part of the county, dipping at several points, sweeping from its foundation and completely wrecking a frame school-house in Perry township, which stood by the side of the Bloomington road, a little distance west of the Dr. Harris place. This house, claimed by some of the pioneer citizens to have been the first frame school-house in the township, was covered with sassafras shingles. The day succeeding, fragments of shingles were found on the streets of Indianapolis which were pronounced sassafras. In Birch Creek bottom, a little south of west of Center Point, the path of the storm was strewn with fallen timber. Calvin Presnell's house, immediately south of the town, on what was later the Hinshaw place, was unroofed and buildings further eastward in the path of the storm damaged.

A history of Clay County, Indiana : closing of the first century's history of the county, and showing the growth of its people, institutions, industries and wealth, New York: Lewis Pub. Co., 1909, page 386
__________________