USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume II > Part 38
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Essex-63
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NEWBURYPORT-Fifteen or twenty vessels were injured, but we believe no lives were lost.
Such is believed to be a very correct account of the destruction caused by the first storm, and who, in looking over the extended list, can fail to perceive that it was one wide scene of devastation? On the coast of Maine the storm was less severe, as it was at the southward.
THE SECOND GALE-The second gale occurred on Sunday and Monday, the 22d and 23d of December. It was less severe than that of the 15th, although sufficiently violent to have obtained under other circumstances the name of a terrible hurricane. The injury to ship- ping was considerable, and two at least of the most distressing ship- wrecks we ever had occasion to record took place.
The brig "Pocahontas," James G. Cook, master, sailed from Cadiz for Newburyport the latter part of October. On Monday morning, December 23, Captain Brown, at the hotel on Plum Island near Newburyport, discovered a dismasted wreck ashore on a sand- bar about half a mile east of the hotel. By the papers, trunks, and fragments of the vessel strewed on the beach, she was immediately known to be the "Pocahontas." At this time but three men were to be seen on board; two were clinging to the bowsprit, and one was lashed to the taffrail, almost or quite naked and apparently dead. The weather was very thick, so that no signals could be made to alarm the town, and before intelligence could be conveyed thither, only one man was left on the bowsprit, his companion and the man on the taffrail having been washed overboard. The sea was all the while breaking so furiously over the fated brig that at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards, with the aid of glasses, it could not be told whether the poor fellow on the bowsprit was an old acquaint- ance or not. Through the feathery spray he could just be seen for a moment, and then a mountain wave would roll quite over him. Yet in this dreadful condition he hoped and tenaciously clung to life. Per- haps he was a citizen of Newburyport, and possibly he could now and then see through the parting surf the spires of the churches where he had worshipped God. The lighthouse, the first gleam of which over the waters he had long waited for, was now almost within his reach. He saw perhaps his own friends thronging the shore, and
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he knew that others, almost in the sound of his voice, were waiting with breathless anxiety to learn the fate of the last survivor. Oh! what terrible emotions must have rent the bosom of the poor man as he hung there, suspended between life and death, hoping and despairing, dying in sight of home in his full strength, murdered by the pitiless waves before the eyes of his own childhood friends. Once he lost his hold! 'Twas a fearful struggle, but he regained it, and there amidst the stormy surges he hung till noon. No one could relieve him; a boat could not live an instant, and about noon the wretched man was swept away and lost among the angry waters.
When the brig came into the bay, and whether those on board knew her position during the gale; whether the majority of them were swept off together, or one by one, being overpowered by the intensity of the cold and the violence of the sea, will never be known, as not one of the twelve or thirteen souls on board is left to tell the sad tale. It is heart-rending indeed that the toil-worn mariner, after beating about on a stormy coast for many days, should be wrecked and perish within sight of the smoke ascending from his own hearth.
THE THIRD GALE-The third gale commenced about II o'clock p. m., of Friday, December 27. The wind was from the east and blew a hurricane until near sunrise of the 28th. The tide all along the coast rose to an unprecedented height, and great damage was done on shore by the overflowing of the wharves. Happily few lives were lost. Death seemed to have been well nigh glutted with his former victims, and a good Providence spared such a sacrifice of life as marked the former gales.
Ten vessels either moored or at anchor in Salem Harbor were either sunk, beached, or badly damaged by this gale, most of them being dismasted in the process. No lives were lost here.
NEWBURYPORT-The tide is stated to have risen higher than at any time before for thirty years, completely overflowing all the wharves and setting adrift and destroying a large amount of property. The damage to the shipping at the wharves was much greater than has ever been experienced before. Of one hundred and thirty vessels in port, forty-one were more or less injured, many being dismasted or stove in.
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GLOUCESTER-Two brigs and four schooners at anchor in this harbor were either partial or total losses, together with valuable car- goes. The brig "Richmond Packet," Captain Drinkwater, of Deer Island, from Richmond for Newburyport, entirely gone to pieces and her cargo of corn and flour mostly lost; the crew saved, but the wife of the captain, in attempting to reach the shore on a spar, was drowned.
RECAPITULATION-From the foregoing account, it appears that I barque, 17 brigs, 68 schooners, and 4 sloops were lost in the three gales, and the estimated number of lives destroyed at the same time are from 150 to 200. It was supposed 50 were lost at Gloucester alone in the first storm. Besides this, 23 ships and barques, 22 brigs, 168 schooners, and 5 sloops were dismasted, driven ashore, or greatly injured in some other way. The destruction of property must have been near $1,000,000. We do not suppose we have ascertained the loss of near all the vessels which have been destroyed by these tor- nadoes. Many were foundered at sea, and some went ashore and to pieces, so that no intelligible record of their loss is left behind.
Alas! what destruction. What widespread ruin and desolation. Who can look upon it, without fearing Him whose voice is heard in the tempest and whose will directs the storm? Into the short period of fourteen days the agony of years was pressed. There was enough of despair and horror felt in that time to chill the blood of youth or palsy the arm of the strongest. It has passed. The waters heave as calmly as ever. The winds are hushed upon its bosom, and the gentle heavens look down in smiles on the splendors of the deep. But the shipwrecked mariners of December-where are they? Where? Oh, that we may so live as to be prepared even for such a death as theirs.
THE GREAT STORM OF 1635-(Note: For the following account of the storm of 1635, and for the details of those of 1716 and 1740, and the drought of 1762, credit is due the "Essex Antiquarian," pub- lished in Salem by The Essex Institute ) :
THE GREAT STORM OF 1635-This was the year of the great exodus from England to America. Many colonists had come early in the season and planted their seed and cultivated the growing crop.
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During the whole of the second week of August the wind blew with terrific force and the rain fell in torrents, sometimes with such fury that the ill-made houses of the settlers could hardly withstand its onslaughts.
The wind caused the tide to rise to a height the settlers had never observed, and which the Indians said they could not remember. Some of the shore houses were submerged. A great number of trees were blown over or broken down, and Indian corn, upon which the people depended for their support the coming winter, was beaten down and much of it destroyed, while it was hardly in the milk.
As many vessels bearing passengers and goods to the New World were on our coast, several of them were wrecked by the storm. The "Great Hope," belonging in Ipswich, England, of 400 tons burden, was wrecked near Charlestown. The ship "James," of Bristol, Eng- land, suffered severely, scarcely escaping destruction off the mouth of the Piscataqua River; and the ship "Angel Gabriel," also from Bris- tol, was dashed to pieces on Pemaquid Point.
At this early period there was a boat, a pinnace in build, belong- ing to Isaac Allerton, sailing regularly between the Piscataqua River and Boston. On Wednesday, two days before the storm, the boat sailed from Ipswich, where it had stopped on its trip to Boston. There were sixteen passengers and four mariners. The passengers were Rev. John Avery, his wife and six children, and Mr. Avery's cousin, Anthony Thatcher, who had been in New England but a few weeks, his wife and four children, another member of his family, and one other passenger.
On the evening of Friday the 14th, after vainly striving to round Cape Ann, they found themselves in a position of great peril, with the wind increasing in fury. At ten o'clock their sails were rent, and anchors were cast. At midnight the wind increased to a gale, the anchor dragged, the boat rushed toward the rocky headlands and soon struck upon a rock, being quickly dashed to pieces. This rock is off what is now Rockport, and has since been known as Crackwood's Ledge. For two hundred years is was supposed that Avery's Rock was the scene of the disaster, but that has been disproven. Crack- wood's Ledge is some 300 feet from Thatcher's Island. Thus passed Mr. Avery and all his household to their eternal rest. Whittier put the incident into poetry, calling it the "Swan Song of Parson Avery."
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The destruction of the vessel was so complete that there were few timbers for the drowning men, women, and children to cling to. After beating about in the waves and the darkness and being repeatedly thrown against the rocks, Mr. Thatcher obtained a foot- ing and fought his way to the shore. He looked around for his companions, but the darkness was scarcely penetrable, and his loud voice was mocked by the raging wind or drowned in the thunder of the waters. He soon saw pieces of the framework of the vessel coming toward him, and when they struck, a woman extricated her- self and reached the shore in safety. It was his wife.
Together, in the rain and the blast, the two watched for signs of their companions, but none came. Of the twenty souls, they only were saved, their quartet of little ones having passed on with the rest. When morning came they found that they were on an island, and the mainland that could be seen was forest, inhabited only by its savage denizens, and separated from them by a wide expanse of water. They had no means of reaching it, and signs of distress could awaken no response. The day passed, and another hopeless night reached its end. Before the sun again went down they were discovered by the people on board a passing vessel bound to Marble- head, taken on board, and carried thither.
On leaving the island, Mr. Thatcher named it "Thatcher's Woe," and the next year it was granted to him by the General Court. It has since borne his name. A cradle and an embroidered scarlet broad- cloth covering, saved from the wreck, are still preserved by his descendants in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, where he settled.
THE WINTER OF 1716-17 "SNOW BOUND"
ยท All night long the storm roared on; The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon the world unknown,
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On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,- A universe of sky and snow ! -John G. Whittier.
This was a mild winter so far as temperature went, but since that time probably an equal amount of snow has not fallen in any other season. Cotton Mather said that the country was overwhelmed with it. Snow began to fall early in the winter months, and it was five feet deep in December. Traveling was almost impossible except on snow- shoes. By February snow lay in great drifts, in some places twenty- five feet in depth. In the woods it was more than a yard deep.
The greatest storm of the season began on February 18 and con- tinued till the 23d, beginning again on the 24th so violently that all communication between neighbors ceased. The storm left the snow from ten to fifteen feet deep on the level, and in places for long dis- stances twenty feet. The oldest Indians had never heard of a storm that was its equal. On the day the second storm began, Sunday the 24th, no religious meetings were held throughout New England.
The winter was very disastrous to animal life. Many cattle were buried in the snow and starved or smothered to death, some being found dead, after the snow had melted, standing and apparently still living. Others, near the sea, being blinded by the snow, wandered into the water and were drowned. Many sheep and some swine and even poultry were lost by being buried under the drifts.
The wild animals of the forest became desperate with hunger. Succulent shrubs were buried beneath the snow, and deer found sus- tenance scarce; the bears and wolves, both being then numerous in our forests, also became ravenous, and killed, it is said, ninety-five out of every hundred deer. This caused such a scarcity of deer that the General Court passed an act compelling towns to choose deer reeves, whose duty it was, as far as possible, to protect the deer. These officers were annually elected until the country had become so populated that the animals had entirely disappeared.
Fierce with hunger, bears, wolves, and foxes nightly visited the very sheep pens of the farmers. Multitudes of sparrows came into
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the settlements for food. Marine animal life was also affected. Apple trees were greatly injured by the snow becoming encrusted about the boughs, breaking them down. Also, the crust was so strong that cattle walked upon it, browsing the twigs.
The "post boys," the carriers of the mail from town to town, were delayed for weeks after the storm was over. As late as March 25 they were traveling on snowshoes, the carrier between Salem, Mas- sachusetts, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, being nine days in going to Portsmouth and eight days in returning, a distance of forty miles. In the woods he said he found snow five feet deep, and in places from six to fourteen feet.
Some small houses were completely buried in the snow, and every- where paths were shoveled under the snow between house and barn, and also from house to house among near neighbors. Coffin, in his history of Newbury, tells of Abraham Adams leaving through a chamber window of his house and going on snowshoes three miles to visit his lady-love. He entered her house also by a chamber window, and he was the first person the family had seen for a week.
THE WINTER OF 1740-41-The summer of 1740 was cool and wet. An early frost injured much of the corn crop, and the rains of the summer and fall flooded the lowlands, destroying planted seed and growing crops. The rivers of Salem were frozen over in Octo- ber, and November 4 the temperature was very low. On Thanksgiv- ing Day, November 13, the cold was severe, and all day long snow fell, continuing until the 15th, when it measured a foot on the level.
The cold continued until about the 22d, when its rigor relaxed, and a thaw, accompanied by rain, came on. For three weeks the rain fell, during the day only, the stars shining brightly each evening. And on each morning rain fell as energetically as before. The snow melted, and a freshet occurred in the Merrimac River which had not had its parallel for seventy years. At Haverhill the stream rose fifteen feet, and houses were floated off. In what is now West New- bury, Rawson's meadow at Turkey Hill was covered with water to the depth of twelve feet. In another part of Newbury, between the mill and residence of a Mr. Emery, a sloop could have sailed. Great quantities of wood, piled along the banks of the river, were carried away, and from the shipyards in what is now Newburyport consider- able timber, ready to be formed into vessels, was also floated down
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the harbor, much of both wood and timber being lost. To save as much of it as possible, the dwellers on the shores of the river turned out, and for fourteen days worked from the banks and in boats. Some two thousand cords of wood were saved on Plum Island alone.
Plum Island River was frozen over on December 12, and remained so until the end of March. The Merrimac River was also similarly closed. The cold continued so severe that ice soon became thick and strong enough to support teams, and before the end of December the river became a great thoroughfare. Loaded sleds drawn by two, three, or four yoke of oxen came from towns up the river, and landed below the upper long wharf near where the ferry was then located in what is now Newburyport. From twenty to forty such teams passed down the river daily from Amesbury and Haver- hill, and people traveled down the harbor as far as half-tide rock. On February 28, for the purpose of ascertaining the thickness of the ice in the river, Wells Chase cut through the ice at Deer Island, where the current was swiftest, and found it to measure thirty inches, although people had constantly sledded over it for two months. No one then living had ever heard of the river freezing so hard before. The sea was also much frozen.
Ice formed so solidly around some mills that they could not be operated, as at Byfield in Newbury, where Pearson's mill was closed from February 3 to March 31, and the people of Newbury had to go to Salisbury to get their scanty grists of corn ground.
The reign of cold seemed to be broken on January 10, when the weather moderated and a thaw began, but it continued only three days and low temperature was resumed. Not only was the winter rigorous in temperature, but great snows came until, in the estima- tion of the people then living, taking it as a whole, it was the severest season that had been experienced here since the first settlement. There were twenty-seven snow storms in all, most of them of good size. February 3 nearly a foot of snow fell, and about a week later there were two more storms which filled the roads in Newbury and vicinity to the tops of fences, and in some places the snow lay to the depth of from eight to ten feet. On April 4 the fences were still covered, and three days later another foot of snow fell. In the woods it was then four feet deep on the level. The snow remained so long that the spring was very backward, and when the ground
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was ready for planting the farmers were about discouraged, thinking of the failure of the corn crop the year before.
THE DROUGHT OF 1762-There was a distressing drought in Essex County in the summer of 1762. There was scarcely any rain from early April until the latter part of September. April was cold, and the season was unusually late. Nearly all of the wells became drained, and grass was dried up, all sorts of vegetation being scorched by the burning rays of the sun. Everything appeared to have been burned.
At Newbury a public fast was kept on the 28th of July, it being feared that a famine would ensue. Other communities observed a similar day. But the earth became dryer and vegetation seemed to die. Fires broke out in the woods, some of them running over exten- sive tracts.
On the coming in of August it was thought that the crops would be an utter failure. They were very light, hay being so scarce the next winter that it was sold for four times its ordinary price. The farmers could not afford to keep their cattle until spring, and many of the animals were slaughtered, the meat being eaten with the meagre supply of bread which the failure of the corn crop yielded them. Some of the people suffered from the want of meal.
THE NEWBURYPORT HURRICANE OF JUNE 27, 1808-Much property damage and the deaths of three men resulted from the Newburyport hurricane of 1808, of which a brief description has come down to us in a unique broadside of that date. Jonathan Plum- mer, of Newburyport, indefatigable chronicler of local scandals and disasters, composed an "Elegiac Ode and Funeral Sermon" com- memorating that event, from which the following is taken:
"On the deaths of Mr. John Bernard, Jun. and Mr. Joseph Wingate, drowned near Newburyport, and Mr. John Fisher, drowned near Marblehead, on the evening of Mon- day, the twenty-seventh of June, 1808, by a most tremendous hurricane or tornado.
""These all died in faith.'
"On the evening of the 27th of June, the weather being uncommonly warm, the people in Newburyport, and in sev-
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eral of the adjacent towns, were visited by a tremendous tornado. A thick cloud, with majestic grandeur, took its sta- tion a little above our heads, and from it issued almost inces- sant flashes of lightning, producing considerable of low-toned thunder, a great quantity of rain mingled with some hail, and a most astonishing, furious and ruthless gale of wind. A number of buildings were blown down, and many trees also fell, and a number of boats lying out of the water were actu- ally blown to pieces. The hurricane, however, was of short continuance, being chiefly over here about bed time. Truly thankful for my continued life, I retired to rest about nine o'clock, and after a quantity of refreshing sleep was favored with the following words in a dream, if I mistake not, viz: "'These all died in faith.'
"Uncertain who the dead people were, to whom my dream referred, I attended to my ordinary business, and while pur- suing that obtained information before two o'clock that Win- gate and Bernard were drowned the preceding evening, it was expected in the thunder squall, and about sunset found there was reason to expect that four others were drowned also, in the same squall. . . .. Since writing the foregoing, I have found that four men that I expected were lost were not drowned in the tornado, but that Mr. Fisher was lost in that tremendous tempest. It is some expected also that more were drowned at that time; but if they died in faith, the more the better. To be with Christ in Paradise is far better than to be languishing here below in these tabernacles of clay."
THE LAWRENCE CYCLONE-Eight persons, four of them children, were instantly killed and upwards of seventy were more or less seri- ously wounded as the result of a cyclone which passed over South Lawrence on the morning of Saturday, July 26, 1890. Property damage amounted to $42,000.
The tornado came on the heels of a violent downpour of rain. A funnel-shaped cloud was observed approaching rapidly from the west, but before warning could be given the shattering force of the storm had come and gone, leaving in its wake a desolate scene, with many homes utterly demolished, the roofs of others stripped completely off,
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chimneys by the score blown down, bridges torn and twisted, and great trees uprooted like saplings.
Measures were promptly taken by the authorities to guard against fire, the wounded were given first aid at the General Hospital, and by nightfall provision had been made for the homeless, pending the rehabilitation of the ruined quarter of the city. On the following day, Sunday, 50,000 strangers were said to have visited the city in order to view the ruins.
III-EARTHQUAKES
(Note: The following interesting and detailed accounts of the most severe earthquakes in Essex County appeared originally in the "Essex Antiquarian") :
THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1638-Earthquakes are always fearful and impressive, but at the time this one occurred the people were pos- sessed of many fears. They were not only superstitious, but this was a new and unknown world, which, but a few years before, was said to be associated with the most awful terrors.
Friday, June 1, 1638, was a very clear and beautiful day, with a gentle wind from the west. After the settlers had eaten their noon meal they proceeded to their various labors in the field. Before two o'clock acute ears heard a faint murmur of distant sounds, which became louder and clearer until everyone heard that which seemed . to be the far-away rumble of thunder. In a minute or two it increased in volume and sharpness until it resembled the rattling of many car- riages fiercely driven over granite pavements. The people were alarmed, and discontinued their labors to discover the source and nature of the sound. Above, the sky was perfectly clear. They became perplexed. Not many moments elapsed, however, before the earth began to tremble, and terrified, they threw down their tools and ran reeling like drunken men, with blanched countenances, to the first group of people they could find, for men, like animals, will flock together when they are afraid. The shaking continued to such an extent that people had to secure some permanent support in order to stand erect.
Not only the mainland, but the islands along the coast were shaken violently, and the vessels that rode in the harbors and those
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sailing without were jostled as though a series of tidal waves had passed under them.
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