Natchez, MS Terrible Tornado Destruction, May 1840

DREADFUL VISITATION OF PROVIDENCE.

From the Natchez Free Trader -- Extra.
Friday Eve., 6 o'clock.
About 1 o'clock on Thursday, the 7th inst., the attention of the citizens of Natchez was attracted by an unusual and continuous roaring of thunder to the southward, at which point hung masses of black clouds, some of them stationary and others whirling along with under currents, but all driving a little east of north. As there was evidently much lightning, the continual roar of growling thunder, although noticed and spoken of by many, created no particular alarm.
The dinner bells in the large hotels had rung, a little before 2 o'clock and most of our citizens were sitting at their tables, when, suddenly, the atmosphere was darkened, so as to require the lighting of candles, and, in a few moments afterwards, the rain was precipitated in tremendous cataracts rather than in drops. In another moment the tornado, in all its wrath, was upon us. The strongest buildings shook as if tossed with an earthquake; the air was black with whirling eddies of house walls, roofs, chimnies, huge timbers torn from distant ruins, all shot through the air as if thrown from a mighty catapult. The atomosphere soon became lighter, and then such an awful scene of ruin as perhaps never before met the eye of man, became manifest. The greater part of the ruin was effected in the short space of from three to five minutes, altho' the heavy sweeping tornado lasted nearly half an hour. For about five minutes it was more like the explosive force of gunpowder than any thing else it could have been compared to. Hundreds of rooms were burst open as sudden as if barrels of gunpowder had been ignited in each.
Af far as glass or the naked eye can reach, the first traces of the tornado are to be seen from the Natchez bluff down the river about ten miles, bearing considerably west of south. Sweeping across the Natchez Island it crossed the point below the plantation of DAVID BARLAND, Esq., opposite the plantations of P. M. LAPICE, Esq., in the Parish of Concordia. It then struck the Natchez bluff about a mile and a half below the city, near the mansion called the 'Briars,' which it but slightly injured, but swept the mansion late of CHARLES B. GREENE, Esq. called the 'Bellevue,' and the ancient forest in which it was embosomed into a mass of ruins.
It then struck the city through its whole width of one mile and included the entire river and the village of Vidalia on the Louisiana shore -- making the path of the tornado more than two miles in width. At the Natchez landing on the river, the ruin of dwellings, stores, steamboats, and flat boats, was almost entire from the Vidalia ferry to the Mississippi Cotton Press. A few torn fragments of dwellings still remain, but they can scarcely be called shelters.
In the upper city, or Natchez on the hill, scarcely a house escaped damage or utter ruin. The Presbyterian and Methodist churches have their towers thrown down, their roofs broken and walls shattered. The Episcopal church is much injured in its roof. PARKER'S great Southern Exchange is level with the dust.
Great damage has been done to the City Hotel and the Mansion House, both being unroofed, and the upper stories broken in. The house of Sheriff IZOD has not a timber standing, and hundreds of other dwellings and nearly in the same situation.
The Court-House at Vidalia, parish of Concordia, is utterly torn down, also the dwelling house of DR. M'WHORTHER, and of MESSRS. DUNLAP and STACEY, Esqrs. The parish jail is partly torn down.
But now the worst remains to be told. Parish Judge KEETON of Concordia was instantly killed while at dinner at the house of MR. STACEY. He was a noble and esteemed man. No other person was killed in Vidalia, although some other persons were hurt. At the Natchez landing, out of fifty or sixty flat boats only six are now afloat. Those best acquainted suppose as many as one hundred flat boat men were drowned in the river, which swelled instantly to the height of six or eight feet.
The steamboats Hinds, Prairie, and the St. Lawrence, were destroyed and sunk at the Landing, and the Vidalia ferry boat on the river -- more or less persons being lost in the two first named boats.
From the ruins of the Steamboat Hotel, MR. ALEXANDER, the landlord, his lady and barkeeper were dug out alive, as also TIMOTHY FLINT, the historian and geographer, and his son from Natchitoches, La., besides DR. TALIAFERO and many others. MRS. ALEXANDER is considered dangerously injured. Two of her children were killed in her arms. As many as nine dead bodies have beed dug from the Steamboat Hotel.
The number of burials which have taken place to-day is about fifty, and many are still in a dangerous and dying condition.
As soon as possible we shall publish a list of the names of the killed, wounded, and those missing whose bodies have not been found.
Meanwhile we beg the indulgence of our kind friends and patrons for a few days, in which time we shall be able to get our office in some order. The Free Trader office building has been crushed in and much shattered. We are all in confusion, and surrounded by the destitute, the houseless the wounded and they dying.
Our beautiful city is shattered as if it had been stormed by all the cannon of Austerlitz. Our delightful China trees are all torn up. We are peeled and desolate.
A public meeting has been held by the citizens in the court-house to-day, at which Col. JAMES C. WILKINS presided, and F. L. CLAIRBORNE, Esq. was Secretary. Addresses were delivered by J. M. HEWITT and J. M. DUFFIELD, Esqrs., and resolutions offered by the latter gentleman, and others appointed relief committees, &c. &c.
The City Hotel, through the kindness of the proprietor, NOAH HARLOW, Esq., has been thrown open to the wounded. Doctor POLLARD, with his usual promptitude, has taken the Tremont House for an additional hospital, STEPHEN DUNCAN, Esq. having generously offered to be responsible for the rent.
The neighboring planters are generously sending in large gangs of slaves to assist in clearing the streets and digging the dead from the ruins.
The Tornado At Natchez.
Dreadful as were the first accounts from the city of ruins, it seems they were not overdrawn, if indeed they came up to to[sic] the reality. The great number of flat boatmen lost, will carry mourning into many families in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. A committee has been appointed to ascertain as far as possible the number of flat boats lost, and the names and residences of the owners.
The calamity which has befallen Natchez, has excited deep sympathy in her sister cities of the South.
Committees have been appointed at Vicksburgh, Rodney, Grand Gulf, New Orleans, and other places, for the purpose of giving aid to the sufferers. A public meeting for a similar purpose has been called at Cincinnati. We add the following particulars to the sad details already published, copied from the Natchez Free Trader of the 11th inst. -- Cleve. Herald.
Natchez, Sabbath Evening, the 10th May.
What we wrote on Friday, the day after the calamity, has since proved far too low a computation -- and far too faint a sketch of the ruin which has befallen our noble-spirited yet devoted city.
The estimate we have given of a little more than a million and a quarter of dollars for the damages done to the buildings merely, may be nearly correct for the compact part of the city; but to cover the loss of merchandize[sic] provisions, goods of various kinds, and furniture destroyed, there should, in the opinion of some of our practical and clear headed men, be at least four millions more added -- making the entire loss of property in the city of Natchez, more than Five Millions Of Dollars.
The Natchez theatre is a pile of shapeless ruins beyond recovery.
The entire square, surrounded by the walls, and partly covered by the pile of the Railroad Depot, late one of the largest and noblest edifices of the kind in any city in the Union, is covered with the wreck of tower, walls and roofs. From this immense mass of rubbish several wounded persons and dead bodies have been dug, and the work of removing the huge pile of brick and timber has been just commenced.
From the immense ruins of PARKER'S Southern Exchange, MESSRS. FARISH and BEMIS were dug alive after a confinement of an hour or two, and the dead body of MOSES a most valuable servant; it is possible there may be one or two more bodies in those ruins.
The Planters' Hotel, formerly called 'Our House,' situated on the brow of the bluff, was blown down the precipice. Many men were known to have been in the house at the time; and it has become painfully evident to the sense that the rapid decomposition of flesh is going on under the timbers of that house.
Eleven dead bodies have been taken from the ruins of the Steamboat Hotel, which have all been removed by the gangs of slaves of Colonel SURGET, MR. CROSSGROVE, and others, generously sent in by those wealthy planters.
Of the number and names of the dead we cannot now speak with certainty. This subject is committed by a public meeting to a committee of three gentlemen who will report as soon as any certainly can be arrived at. The Natchez Guards and Order of Odd Fellows have both followed their dead 'to that bourne whence no traveler returns.

The Huron Reflector Norwalk Ohio 1840-05-26

(Transcriber's Note: This was the second most deadly single tornado in U. S. history. It struck on May 7, 1840, and the final death toll (though impossible to definently ascertain) is generally accepted as 317+)

__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!