Apponaug, RI Lightning Strikes, Jul 1866

STRANGE FREAKS OF LIGHTNING IN ARRONAUG.----The Providence Press says that about four o'clock Tuesday afternoon the house of Mrs. Lucy Ann Remington was struck by lightning, which performed some very curious antics. The electric fluid first struck the northwest corner of the house (which is of two stories) under the eaves, and running down a short distant, part of the fluid entered the corner room on the second story and running round displaced the mirror by knocking off one of its supports, cracking the veneering and otherwise injuring it. The larger part of the fluid, however, kept on its downward course and knocking off the water spout, tearing off the entire side of the house some four inches from its proper place, it entered the parlor on the first floor. Here a scene of destruction was witnessed which can scarcely be accounted for.----The corner post was splintered to atoms, the side of the house leaning from its proper place, the boarding around the upper part of the room burst and torn off and scattered together with the lime in large quantities all over the entire room, covering the furniture and floor. Leaving this room, it passed along the front of the house near the ceiling, burning a path as it went, and crossing the hall it entered the sitting room on the south by the door bell wire, tearing the post, and passed again to the extreme corner of the room, where it completed its work of destruction by ripping the post in pieces, and passed off, as it supposed, into the ground, or else the sulphuric matter expended itself in the air, as the family on entering the room were scarcely able to breathe.

The family, at the time, had just gone into the garden to escape the intense heat as the thermometer was ranging at about 92º.

It is estimated that it will cost at least three hundred and fifty dollars to repair damages.

Newport Mercury, Newport, RI 21 Jul 1866
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!