Out of Our Past: Heavy rainstorm overwhelmed Richmond in July 1887

2022-07-23 05:14:30 By : Mr. Jack Jiang

Compare today's weather with that of an evening the last week of July 1887. The exact date was July 21, 1887.

Two weeks ago our weather prophet predicted there would be no rain until after the 20th of July, after which we would get plenty. He was smack on the button as on the eventide of the twenty-first, H-ll let loose!

Many here anguished-ly beseeched, “How fast can an ark be built to save us?”

Richmond barely survived the most terribly overwrought cyclonic Hell-storm deluge of flushing flooding rain and fulsome thunderous lightning blasts - the world has ever seen! The maelstrom gave scarcely any warning! A black cloud came sailing up from the southwest from Abington; another came down from the northeast, from Cox’s Mill. The dervishes met right over innocent Richmond – and the music began! – A  terrible wrathful dance commenced! Rain fell all directions! All at once! A celestial bucket got dumped! The downpour passed east to west and back again west to east, - at least four separate times! – inundating our Edenic paradise with intermittent lighting strikes, touching meanly amongst us, even those who attend church services regularly.

Lightning struck Ed Schalk’s house at North 18th. Lucky no one was at home. The thunderbolt riddled the chimney, ran down the eave spout, followed a wire fence out to the stable, and killed five chickens roosting on a ladder nearby. It was their final roosting place.

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The house of Mr. Nixon, on South 13th Street, was struck by the freakiest of electrical discharges. There was two little boys and a hired girl in the kitchen. The streak choked the chimney, raged down, tearing the stove all to pieces, scattering soot all over the room. The chimney was shattered and the roof damaged, but it was the soot that made the trouble, according to Mrs. Nixon, whose unladylike exasperations were highly voluminous, some even say operatic.

The malevolence also hit Lee Kelley’s beautiful residence, impacting with impartial violence tremendous as any can be conceived! The family was all sitting in the bay window of the sitting room, trying to read, when suddenly the grate let go with a bang and seemed to breathe fire. The thimble in the stovepipe hole flew across the room thirty feet, and imbedded itself in the wood on the inside blind of one of the windows. It lasted only a second and no one was hurt, but all were a good deal excited, but not in a positive way. They leapt from their seats screaming! The lightning struck the chimney and split it as clean as could have been done with a razor-sharp cleaver! Bricks fell out in globules of fire, a veritable fountain of it, and the mortar became a shower of sparks. At this, the family leapt from their clothes! Lightning and thunder raged! There were electrical flame bursts, of which Ben Franklin would not approve of, holding a kite tail from which he might have touched the polar end and perished! Another explosion liked to lift the roof. At this, the family leapt out of their skin! Bricks fell. The family huddled under the dining room table!

A little girl from across the street said the lightning spread over the roof like a sheet of flame, that it ran down the eave spouts and boiled forth fiery balls all over the yard! Fence slats flared – POOF! -  and the little fledgling family garden was gone! Inside the house the damage was quite extensive; the bricks in the back of the grate was reduced to a powdery state, the frame jarred out of place, and in fact the whole chimney was so badly broke into an impoverished state it was useless… less than useless by some accounts! Authorities said the iron roof alone was what saved the building, that and God’s will. The family groveling under a table agreed.

George Cranor was shocked by a bolt, but not so bad as to make a physician necessary. His head was afflicted is all, and today he has a spasmodic ache from the distress of it all. Being sensitively constructed, he is acutely afraid and quite excitable about little things, as being nearly impaled by bolts of electricity. So don’t ask about it. He will froth.

The lightning reportedly knocked down Samanda Show’s mule team as it stood in the stable last night. It did not hurt the animals, though they gave solid evidence they did not like it much.

Sam Price, who lives north of the railroad on 8th street, got terrible shocked, which stoked his ire. He was sitting comfortable in a chair with steel springs in the bottom, near an open window, when a charge of lightning struck a nearby vacant house. The jolt tossed Sam from his resting place with great force - and he tumbled to the floor. None of the rest of the family were hurt, though they were visibly roused in irritation. When Sam recovers it may be safe to remind him that he has way too much metal about him to sit near a window during such a tempestic and tumultuous cataclysm. His chair had metal springs at the base, and Sam himself being shot several times during the late rebellion, he yet carries three of the balls distributed by Rebs in his anatomy. None of this helped the situation, for he is admittedly a veritable magnet for stormy weather.

Judge Fox says there was apparently one thing that lightning couldn’t strike, and that was any natural gas in Richmond. Some thought this funny, others not.

North 8th Street showed very clearly how conflicting elements can vie in contention. Two trees within a hundred feet of each other was blown down. One fell directly to the south, the other to the north, showing the storm, in only that short of distance, was directly opposed to itself, smashing a dynamic swirl of nature’s most elevated passions and disastrous paroxysms on beneficent-ial Richmond.

The venerable elm of South 16th, the massive pet of that entire portion of town, got a deathblow. It has stood the storms of centuries, and people there would about as soon see a house blown down as that sheltering tree - being so pretty and having such features that cast a fine shade on quite a few amongst us on the very hottest of our sweltering days; but now the shelter of it is no more. It is a total wreck of ruin, and will be apt to have what is left of it cut down for firewood for this winter.

The handsomest tree at the Whitewater Friends church has blown down, landing squarely across the roof. The cornice broke some, but that was the extent of the damage to the building. The Lord is being thanked today for this.

Sixth and 7th Streets was blockaded with broken trees this morning, limbs having been blown down which were so large they reached clear across the street. It is a veritable obstacle course and the horses don’t like it.

Anyone that was out, the rain made gutters of hat brims before whisking apparel off heads; the same goes for untied bonnets. Cusses ensured in such cases.

The 8th and Main mud hole is now a swimming hole, with mud.

A party composed of Jim Allen, Roddy Steele, Al Clark and T. Fuller took refuge in the old Quaker City Machine shop to steal away from the explosive calamity. The wind gusts blew one wall in, burying them in bricks and debris; they were unhurt, but exhibited profanities from the experience, throughout the night.

Mr. Ellis, the express-man, lives on the bluff near the river, at 632 South 5th Street. His covered hack, in which he hauls passengers to the Glen (Miller), was standing out by his stable, when the storm came up, and took it clear down the bank to the river, where it takes a bath still. It is a total wreck, what can be seen of it that is not submerged.

A great many culverts was washed out. They would fill with water, get stopped up with debris, then bust-boards would float loose and go down the gutters with the water, into residential cellars. Dough-brained Wash Stigleman was out, bare-footed with his pants rolled up to his knees. Every time he planted a foot in a gutter, it overflowed to someone’s cellar. A vigilance committee with a rope is alleged to have called on him and persuaded him to go home and stay inside. He obeyed.

George Jackson got pretty well frightened by the storm, but wasn’t damaged to any great extent, just drenched. The wroth he exhibited was more about what happened to his newly beveled glass storefront window than anything else. He’s a smart cusser, he is. Ask his neighbors.

There was a good deal of scare at the Glen (Miller) during the berserk spat of nature. Tony Stever and wife were there, with their suppers, and the woods were fairly lined with similar parties, when the first shower came up, at which time Mr. and Mrs. Stever traipsed to the mill for cover. The balance of the party, however, thought it wouldn’t be much of a cloudburst, and just sat under the trees, basking in the clime of each other’s embrace; but the second shower came up, and the rain discharged its torrential outbreak, lashing down like it had a vengeance against them! So all holds let go! Pets unclasped! Bets were off!  - as they made a mad dash trampling for the mill, upraised legs and elbows threshing like Gaar industrial machineries. By the time they got to the mill, it was like they had took a bath in full attire, and now huddled as drowsed rats. Tony thinks there were at least 25 ladies fulsomely wet to the skin; and every time a lightning streak or the wind took off a tree limb, it set up female shrieks that made the shingles of a nearby shanty flap, and the neck-hairs of the manliest of men stand on end. Tony’s hair was that way when he got back to town, but he still had the gall to say he quite enjoyed it. His wife disagreed vehemently, and boldly told him so. So he shut up.

The only case in police court this morning was that of a drunken tailor who gave his name as George Ehnle. He is from some fine place in Ohio, in transit to Marion, Indiana. He couldn’t stand as much Richmond whisky as he thought he could, and took refuge in a Main Street building stairwell, where the police found him indulging in a most painful train of thought, the storm having awakened in him such droves of delirium and terror, he thought the world was ending. At the mayor’s court this morning he was complimented by his honor for having possessed the good sense to come in out of the rain; and then he was fined for drunk and trespass for doing so on private property.

IN OTHER NEWS: The gardens was watered.

Contact columnist Steve Martin at stephenmonroemartin@gmail.com.

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