USA > Wisconsin > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Wisconsin, together with sketches of its towns, villages and townships, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 40
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had his leg broken. Mrs. J. Buckley was se- riously hurt ; Dr. Dean badly injured ; also Dr. Weeden and wife. Peter Hays, wife and four children were badly wounded. Mrs. W. S. S. White, daughter and grandchild, fatally injured. O. C. Smith was seriously injured ; J. Dawson, badly hurt. Besides these there are others wounded, but their names we could not learn in the limited time set apart for this purpose. Dr. Tinker informed us that over 100 persons were hurt, forty of whom are seriously injured and about twelve of whom must soon die. In the school house there were twenty- four children and the teacher. Eight children were killed and all more or less eut, bruised or mangled.
Twenty-six houses and barns were completely demolished, and about forty buildings, more or less injured. Below we give a list of buildings destroyed within easy reach of a man's voice :
William Vonght, house destroyed.
Mr. Russell, house destroyed.
H. Green, house and two barns. No one living in the house. C. F. Gillett, house de_ stroyed ; young lady killed.
John Gardner, house destroyed; wife se- riously injured.
W. S. Purdy, house destroyed.
D. Ouston, house and blacksmith shop de- stroyed.
J. Buckley, house and shop destroyed.
Dr. Dean, house destroyed.
J M. Bennett, house and barn destroyed.
John Barstow, house destroyed.
Dr. Weeden, house and barn destroyed.
W. S. S. White, house and barn destroyed.
O. C. Smith, house unroofed and otherwise injured.
R. C. Bierce, house and barn destroyed.
John Everett, house unroofed and barn de- stroyed.
J. A. Somerby, house, including printing office, destroyed.
Court house unroofed.
N. C. Nichols, store demolished.
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Col. Jeremiah M. Rusk's house somewhat injured.
Dr. Rusk's house injured and barn destroyed.
O. J. Stillwell, barn destroyed and house slightly injured.
J. Dawson, dwelling destroyed and store badly injured.
C. W. Pitcher, house injured.
D. B. Priest, storehouse ruined; occupied by Mr. Lindley, whose goods were injured and himself badly hurt.
Masonic Lodge destroyed.
Dr. Tinker, kitchen, woodshed and barn de- stroyed.
Methodist Episcopal Church entirely demol- ished.
W. F. Terhune, barn and house injured. John Cummings, house destroyed.
Messrs. Russell, Riley, Gillett, Bennett, Purdy, Barstow, W. S. S. White and O. C. Smith, were oceupying rented premises; all the others were occupying their own buildings. Mr. Fretwell, Mr. Lindley, Mr. Jones, Levi Garnes, A. R. Burrell, W. F. White, J. HI. Tate, II. Trowbridge and others had their houses more or less injured. Fences and outhouses, orchards and shrubbery were swept away on the route, and a large number of horses, cattle and hogs destroyed.
Houses were lifted a hundred feet into the air; horses were whisked off like swallows; rocks were broken down like dry bread!
The dwelling of John Gardner, a large two story frame house, was whirled up into the air. An oak tree, standing near by, sixty feet from the ground to its top, was stripped of every leaf, and resembles a dead tree. A gentleman saw from a lower part of the town, out of the course of the storm, the house of Gardner rise in the air till its lower part was far above the top of the oak tree. It came down, the corner struek in the garden some distance from its foundation. It was whirled up again higher than before, and came down the second time, striking on the roof, and dashing the building to atoms. A large portion of the ruins were carried away. Mrs. Gardner was in the house all the time with an infant in her arms. She was taken from the ruins badly injured, but the child was unhurt!
Mr. Bennett's fine house was blown in every direction. Some of the ruins fell in the eellar. Mr. Bennett was hurled in a corner of the cel- lar. A little girl was blown in beside him. A few seconds after a horse was blown in upon him, breaking Mr. Bennett's leg. The horse struggled to get up but could not; and lest, in struggling, it might kill Mr. Bennett and the little girl, he tried to get a knife from his pocket with which to cut the throat of the ani- mal and so quiet him, when two more horses were hurled in upon him. He was got out with a leg badly broken. The little girl was badly injured. When the blow began a man had just started from a store to go home with his team and lumber wagon. He was whirled from his wagon, falling in the brush thirty rods south. The wagon box has not been found. The run- ning gears were broken and seattered in every direction. The horses were the ones thrown in upon Mr. Bennett.
Those who have not witnessed this scene of devastation can form no idea of the terrible power of the whirlwind. The ground is torn as if plowed, Huge roeks ten feet square were hurled a distance of forty rods. Dwellings were razed to the ground, and hurled rods away. Huge oak trees were twisted from stumps like reeds. Timbers sixteen inches square and sixty feet long were hurled through the air as though they were feathers. The scene of desolation is beyond description. The ground over which the whirlwind passed looks as if a mighty stream of water had carried flood- wood over it, Houses, outhouses, trees, shrubs, fenees, ete., were swept away as if God had, in his anger, rubbed his hand over the spot. | for holding wheat, with a capacity of 50,000
Herman Greeve lost a splendid house and two large barns. One of the barns was fitted up
Philip Bouffeur
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
bushels. It was a large, heavy, "Pennsylvania" barn, on a stone foundation. The barn was whirled to atoms. The stone and mortar under- pinning, two feet thick and five feet deep, was torn out. $1,000 dollars worth of wool was blown into the trees for miles. A large thresh- ing machine was torn to fragments; bolts, cyl- inder teeth, iron and wood work being torn apart and whirled no one knows where. llis loss is about $16,000.
Mr Gillett's family took refuge in a cellar. Lydia Gillett, aged twenty, ran up stairs to shut a door. In an instant the house was dashed into the woods and demolished. Miss Gillett was found dying in a plowed field. Those in the cellar escaped with slight bruises.
Mr. Barstow's residence has disappeared. Himself and wife were killed. Mr. and Mrs. Drake, Mrs. Barstow's parents, he aged eighty- four, and she seventy-six, were found near by so badly bruised we doubt if they are alive now. Their son, Phineas Drake, was sawing wood for Col. Bierce, and was found twenty rods from the remains of the wood pile, in a plowed field, so badly injured he cannot sur- vive.
Col. Bierce was at his office in the north end of the town. Mrs. Bierce was ironing when the storm came up. The house and barn a few rods east were lifted into the air, sucked to- gether, demolishing both buildings, and fairly whirled no one knows where. Fire from the stove caught in the hay in the barn. The upper and ground floors of the house were carried across the street, and between the two Mrs. Bierce was found, badly bruised and insens- ible, and the broken timbers nearly satur- ated with blood. She was got out and will prob- ably live. Col. Bierce had the handsomest residence in the village. His house was a bean- tiful model, well furnished. A splendid yard filled with flowers; a large garden filled with choice fruit, grape arbors, etc., now looks as though it had been the bed of an Alpine tor-
rent. The house, barn, fences, trees; all were torn up and scattered far and wide.
Dr. Tinker lost a portion of his house, but saved himself and family. He lost a valuable horse. His house was in the edge of the whirl. A boy ten years old was rolled past in the street; he ran out and saved his life. After adminis- tering to the sufferers in the village till nearly dark, he left Dr. Rusk to attend to village calls, and working all night within three miles of the place had cared for thirty-two wounded, some of them terribly and fatally, when sunrise came next morning.
Dr. Weeden lost a fine house and large barn stored full of tobacco. A lumber wagon was lifted from the front of Judge Terhune's barn and set down uninjured behind it. A buggy in the barn was sucked through the roof and dashed to pieces against the ground near by. A fence board from a garden fence forty rods away was driven into Judge Terhune's house, one end of the board protruding about five feet into the parlor through the ceiling. A pitch fork was carried a half a mile and the end of the handle driven into an oak stump, where it was found.
The store of Mr. Nichols disappeared so quick no one saw it go, and $5,000 worth of goods are not to be found. A mill pond six miles east of Viroqua was emptied of logs and water, as the wind dipped in the pond. The mill is gone; the logs were whirled over the country. The store of D. B. Priest, in the upper part of which was a fine Masonic lodge room, was churned up and down, and so racked and torn that no one dare enter it. Horses, cows, dogs, sheep, hogs, cats, fowls, men, women and chil- dren were hurled to great distances. Dead cattle and other stock are to be found all about. Fragments, such as broken furniture, torn clothes, books, papers, contents of book cases, wardrobes and libraries, are being brought in from the country, so torn and broken as to be worthless and unclaimable.
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
Log chains, harnesses, dead hogs, pieces of furniture, broken plows and other agricultural implements, feather beds badly ripped, picket fences, rails, fence posts, door frames and barn timbers, dead chickens, calves, sheep, cats, and all the things imaginable hang in the tops of trees, bushes, etc. The scene is one which beg- gars description, and one which was never equalled in this country. The air was filled with fragments of houses, entire outhouses, broken timbers, log chains, rocks, cellar walls, stoves, fanning mills, hoes, plows, wagons and horses. People half a mile away say the cloud of ruin which swept on east was grand, terrible, awful and indescribably terrific.
J. A. Somerby had his dwelling blown away; his printing office "pied", and the contents of a book store distributed for miles. The house of Col. Rusk was in the edge of the whirl; the front of the house was torn out and all the furniture in the room carried miles away. People ran wild with terror. Men, women and children, horses and cattle were nearly frightened to death. The terror was inde- scribable. People thought death and the final destruction of the earth had come, and gave themselves up for lost. Ilad it been in the night time, imagination can only dwell on the scenes of horror the darkness would have angmented. There was neither rain, thunder or lightning at the time, though it rained the night following. 150 persons are left wounded and entirely destitute.
Many of the houses could be hauled off in a handeart, so badly were buildings and con- tents torn to pieces. The labor of years was annihilated in two minutes, and everything was swept from many who must have relief or die. Tate's IIall has been made into a hos- pital where several are being cared for by the good citizens of the place. Nearly every house in town has one or more wounded there- in, some more or less injured,
Fourteen miles the storm extended, destroy- ing everything before it. Farm houses, barns, school houses, fences, cattle, crops, trees, etc., etc., all being swept away from spots as the clouds rose and fell from the earth.
11. STATEMENT OF DR. E. W. TINKER.
I was on the main street of Viroqua when the storm first appeared. There was first an ap- pearance of a great mass of rubbish in the air coming from the northeast, although where I stood everything was calm and quiet; then there came a roaring of wind from the west. The two currents appeared to have met a little west of the village. I went immediately to my house, east one block from the street, as I felt considerable alarm owing to the unusual ap- pearance and noise in the air. As I reached home the fences and other material were flying about me, caused by the current from the north- east. I ran into the house, where I found my wife and my married daughter, with her two children. I hurried them into the cellar ay quickly as possible. My wife ran back to shut the kitchen door, which had blown open. Just as she came back ont of the kitchen into the hall, my daughter said: "Pa, your kitchen has blown away!" I paid little attention to the kitchen, but hurried my daughter into the cel- lar. I then ran back and met Mrs. Tinker and got her about half way down the cellar steps, when I heard a child cry on the porch. I rushed up, found the hall door blown open, and a little boy on the veranda. He was crying and asked if he could come in. I took him by the hand and led him into the house; how the little fellow came there he could never tell; but the last he remembered he was at the place where Goodell's livery stable now stands, nearly a block away. By this time, the tornado was over, and I went out of the house, and the rest of the family came out of the cellar. Mrs. Tinker, on looking out where the kitchen had been, ex- claimed: "Oh, the barn is gone, and the horses are killed!" I answered: "I am inclined to
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
think it has, and the kitchen, too." One of my horses was so badly injured that I had him shot. Mine was the most northerly house injured-the the damage being south of me. I told my black servant to kill the horse that was injured, while I started immediately for my daughter's -- Mrs. John R. Casson-and to see who of my neigh- bors were injured. I met my daughter on the way, with hair dishevelled and covered with mud, but not injured. I then went on toward Col. Bierce's residence, when I met Mr. Casson and Mr. Lowrey and some others carrying Mrs. Bierce on a litter, they supposing her to be dead. I directed that she be taken into Mr. Trowbridge's near by, where I dressed her wounds, as she was not dead.
Dr. Dean and Dr. Weeden were both badly hurt, this left Dr. Rusk and myself to attend to the wounded. There was, of course, au im- mediate rush. Before I had Mrs. Bierce's wounds dressed more than a dozen were after me. I then was busy until dark attending to the wounded-bruises, cuts and fractures, some mortal, others very serious and some slight. Before the wounded in the village had all been cared for, the people began to come in from the conntry, imploring me to go and look after their wounded. This induced me to leave as soon as I could and leave those who were injured in the village in the care of Dr. Rusk. I traveled all night within three miles of town. I went east first to the school house three-fourths of a mile distant, where I found two, Mrs. Good, with a broken thigh, and her daughter-in-law. Mrs. Good survived, but her daughter-in-law soon died. Then I went to Mr. Cook's, beyond the school house about one mile, where I found two children dead that had been killed at the school house, and two persons severely wounded; then to Mr. Sands', about a mile from Mr. Cook's; there I found two chil- dren dead, also killed at the school house, and one or two wounded. From there I went to Mr. Derby's, where I found one dead and oth-
ers injured. The next place visited was at Mr. Morley's, where there was one wounded.
III .- ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY DR. W. C. WILSON, 1880.
The great tornado came on the 28th day of June, and at a time when nature had assumed her most bewitching attitude, and was dressed in her most gorgeous robes of summer verdure. Little did any of its (Viroqua's) inhabitants apprehend that before the close of that event- ful day, the angry elements, at the beck of an invisible power, would lay in waste the fairest portion of the village, strewing its streets with bruised and mangled victims of its fierce ra- pacity, and weave a funeral pall for seventeen of its helpless citizens.
About 4 o'clock of the fatal day, dark and poortentons clouds were being marshalled be- neath the dome of Heaven's high arch, as through the invisible spirits in the realms of space were about to contend with each other for the mastery. To the westward, black clouds marched and countermarched, with noticeable ind alarming rapidity. To the eastward a simi- ar phenomena was observed, not unlike the novement of two vast armies manœuvering for advantageous positions, pending a bloody con- diet. At length they came nearer, and still nearer to each other, until they met in deadly embrace, a short distance above the western limits of the village of Viroqua.
The western division of the contending forces seemed the stronger of the two, and back to the eastward hurled their antagonists with tre- mendous and death-dealing force. On and on came the victorious power, crushing buildings in its maddened march, and ever and anon demand- ing a human life, to satiate its thirst for con- quest. When its savage fury had been spent a scene of horror, such as mortals seldom behold, presented itself to the terror-stricken survivors of the great disaster. Seventeen persons were killed, including those who died soon after, as the result of the injuries they had received.
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
Many buildings were demolished, including private residences, stores, barns, and the M. E. chnreh, which occupied the site of their present place of worship. Nearly 200 people were left houseless as the result of the great tornado, many of whom lost every vestige of their house- hold goods and clothing save that upon their backs ; and the condition of many others was such as to move the stoutest heart.
The generous aid so freely rendered to the sufferers by surrounding localities, will ever be remembered by the people of Viroqua, who themselves vied with each other in acts of. kindness to the unfortunate. The fairest por- tion of the town was laid in ruins and a less industrious and self-reliant people would have seen good cause for depression and discouragement. But the energetic citizens of Viroqua, bent their whole energies to repair the damage done to property ; and while they mourned the terrible calamity which had overtaken them and their still more un- fortunate neighbors, they were assidnons in building up the waste places of their beautiful village ; and removing all traces of the terrible scourge which had so sorely afflicted them.
IV .- WHAT HAPPENED TO MRS. W. R. PURDY.
Mrs. W. R. Purdy, then a little girl, eight years of age, with her sister two years older, were returning from school, and when but a few rods from the school house, the latter, realiz- ing more distinctly the danger of attempting to go farther, eanght hold of a tree, entreating her sister to do the same, which she did not do, but ran on towards their home, a couple of blocks distant. When between where the waterworks are now located and Smith & Ly- tle's hardware store, (then I. K. Buck's store) on Jefferson street, she was taken up by the storm and tossed back and forth from one side of the street to the other. Timbers were flying promiseuously around, and once, after she had been blown against the store, and while lying there, a piece of timber, or board was sent whiz- zing through the building directly over her
head. She was finally carried by the wind across Main street, and on to the porch of Nichols Bros' drug store, then in ruins. I. K. Buck seeing her from his door, ran across in the storm, picked hier up, aud carried her into his store, keeping her there till the storm had subsided. Mrs. Purdy received injuries from which she will probably never recover.
V .- W. F. TERHUNE'S RECOLLECTION.
On the afternoon of June 28, 1865, I was at the intersection of Main and Jefferson streets in Viroqna village, when I saw a great agita- tion of the clouds in the west. It was about 4 o'clock. There seemed to be an unusual quiet and stillness all around, a dead calm prevailed ; meantime the disturbance appeared to increase in the westward. I heard a roaring sound, deep and approaching. I then observed that the air was filled with limbs and trunks of trees, having the appearance in the distance of birds rapidly flitting about. I very well knew what was coming, that a tornado was rapidly ap- proaching; and I hesitated whether to endeavor to reach my residence or return to my office, which was near; as I was fearful I might be struck by the storm if I ventured to attempt to reach my home.
Just at that moment some one took me by the arm and proposed we should go into the office ; there were several standing around. We thereupon stationed ourselves at the doors as the storm struck, in order to hold them shut. By this time the noise became very loud and ear-piercing, like a thousand steamboat whistles all blowing at the same time, sharp, shrill and vicious. Two of the office windows were at once blown in, and one of the doors was blown open which three strong men tried in vain to close again, until the force of the wind was somewhat spent. An unusual gloom and darkness pervaded the atmosphere at this time. The whole duration of the shock was not to exceed a minute and a half, probably not so long. No one was hurt in my office, because of the building being sheltered by another and
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higher building, the store of J. Henry Tate. There was a girl writing in the office at the time, Alice. Goode, who was terrified and shrieked with fear. Mrs. Susan Graham, wife of the late Hon. Carson Graham, had run into the office and assisted in trying to keep the doors shut. My own sensation was a very great concern for my family, so much that I had little if any personal fear.
My residence was about three blocks distant. As soon as the storm permitted, I started for home in great haste. I at once noticed that the street ahead of me was filled with the debris of ruined buildings, and I heard around me as I advanced, cries and shrieks of pain and aların ; children and female voices mostly. I had gone but a few rods when I passed a Mr. Langley, who was holding on to a tree and bleeding from wounds he had received on the head and face. I also observed the two-story building of J. H. Somerby, where the North western Times had been printed, lay in ruins before me, and I was compelled to run over them. I likewise noted that the store occupied by the Nichols', was leveled to its foundation. I did not of course take much time for observa- tion, as I was running. I saw persons here and there darting about, but I have no recollection who they were. I soon came in sight of my house, which, with a feeling of very great relief, I saw was still standing and the thought flashed across my mind that my family was safe. My building stood in a native grove, and as I approached it I found all the larger trees blown down or torn up by the roots or their trunks twisted off above ground ; while the smaller hickory and oak trees lay bent over, with their tops upon the ground.
I made my way through them as rapidly as I could and found that my building had been in appearance bombarded. The heavier timbers from the demolished houses of my neighbors, and from the M. E. church building had been hurled with great force into the air, some of them striking upon the north side of my house,
driving in the windows and doors and making holes like cannon shot, through the siding, knocking down the supporting pillars of the porches on that side, and carrying away the blinds and sash of the observatory.
On entering my dwelling, I found my family in the cellar all unhurt, but in a great state of alarm and terror, from the effects of which my wife was rendered very ill and has never fully recovered. I got my family up from below as soon as I could re-assure them and prevail upon them to come. I found my son Leonard, then ten years of age, was missing, and I at once started to find him. He had found shelter in a neighbor's house and was safe.
My wife's experience was that, when she discovered the darkness coming on, she and the hired girl went up stairs to close the windows ; and after they had closed them, she observed, through the window, the trees bending their tops to the very ground. Frightened by the noise of the storm, she reached the head of the stairs in haste to descend to the cellar ; when the girl, in a paroxysm of fear, grasped and held on to her. They both descended into the kitchen where our two children were and she hurried them all into the cellar, she being in great fright and trepidation during the time ; and it was there, as I have said, that I found them.
When I had time to look about me, I found my young orchard and all the fences around destroyed and my barn unroofed. I then went immediately to the assistance of others. I saw all the buildings south of Terhune street, were either shattered or blown down, except my own. By this time I began to realize the awful nature of the disaster and became agitated. I threw open my doors for the dying and wounded in my immediate vicinity to be brought in. It was a most sickening spectacle, heart-rending in the extreme. The first to be assisted in was the wife of Dr. W. W. Wecden. She was only slightly injured but her child was killed. Their house had been blown away and
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