| Show IN A CYCLONES TRACK mr rebecca tucker who now lives in the second ward of this th la city was until two years ago a resident ot of pleasant hill jasper cou county comity nty mississippi paulding the county seat of jasper is the post postoffice ioe office ad address aresia and pleasant hill just outside the town is the name of a plantation of between three and four hundred acres owned by bv mrs tucker there were on the place when abe emigrated to utah nine houses besides a large barn cotton houses corn cribs etc all of these structures were of wood the chief building material mai erial in that section of country in thenard the yard of the family dwelling there were quite a number of huge oak and cedar trees that have stood there more than a generation erat era tion iOD A short di tance from the house was a beautiful grove of large trees near by stood a methodist cia church all around the country Is heavily timbered as is generally the case came throughout ane southern states this brief di of the place will enable the reader to obtain a better conception conce ution ol of the occurrence narrated jn in this article for lauy years past the home of mrs tucker even before she received the gospel afforded ra hospitable shelter to the elders traveling in that part of the south hers was the last house the late alma P richarda Ri cLarda stopped at before he left for meridian near which place he was murdered mrs tucker thought it unsafe tor for him to start on bis his journey that day as there had been a reunion P in that part but he believed there wits was no serious danger when he be was mused her family offered reward for the discovery or of his m murderers u and it was to one of her sous sons that the negro porter at a meridian hotel said that biffle if he knew who killed the mormon he would not tell for a thousand doll dollar arp at the same time the negro had on elder richards shirt and had possession it 1 his books the people there believed that while the negro may not have had bad a hand in the tb murder he be knew all about it and who were the perpetrators raton the onay one of mrs tuckers tucker 99 family now at pleasant hill is her daughter fannie who is a widow she is not ft a member of the church but is kind and hospitable to the narles the sub subjoined joined letter was written by her from paulding under date of april 20 three weeks previous to that time her brother the last one of the family in rema emigrated to arizona three weeks prior to his hia departure a terrific oy cy j clone ewt ampt pt through the country five miles east of paulding diug and like the later one its fatal and destructive effects were noted in the dispatches at the time A devastating storm of like character also swept through last fall near meridian between thirty and ana forty miles northeast of paulding pawing passing in its track directly over the place where elder eider richards was murdered and his bis body exhumed and laying everything waste the letter written by mrs vicker tuckers a daughter mrs fannie ives describing her experience in the cyclone of the alt to is as follows it is with great pain that I 1 shall try f to write you a letter tonight and tell you of the great destruction that came last night we had the greatest cyclone that has ever struck this 1 country everything on earth that I 1 4 have is blown to atoms not a single house bouse stands on the place lace and every i tree in the yard is torn to shreds not a single tree of any description stands on the place the mare was killed and one of the cows was blown into one of these large gullies behind the garden and killed Nota not a single rail on tte the plantation lies in its place there is not a tree standing below the kitchen in the grove that was there laor any where about toe tae dwelling house la is blown all to pieces the storm came about sundown we were eating supper the negro boy who lives with me and some of f the children had bad got through and had left the table I 1 was wag not looking fv fr a storm until I 1 heard the doors olAm clamming slimming sl imming ming from the force of the wind I 1 caught the two smaller children childre and told the others to run with W me we had just got into the big room when the kitchen was torn to atoms by the wind then tue cie big house bouse started I 1 tried to get into the big room next to the well when the whole end ol of it blew down my arm was caught in the door ana I 1 could not move a peg the children were in the big front room I 1 had just made up a fire there the chimney was blown down and the fire scattered all over the room the beas began to burn and soon flames were starting in every part pare of the house the fire was blown all over the children sams face was burned some then the whole enu end of the big room and the little one that mrs wainwright hl slept in were blown away fyhen the wind came in on that side ide it blow blew the door oft off my arm so 0 o I 1 could get to the children I 1 got them into the room next to the well where the wind threw a large trunk against sam and drove him to the waldso wall so he could noi move by some means I 1 tell teli how bow I 1 pulled it off him fortunately lie be was not hurt bad the house was up in the air just tossing to and tro fro and when it came down it was completely smashed it was thrown clear off the blocks the roof waa nearly all gone anti and the bousa almost turned over my arms are hurt some but not so BO much that I 1 cannot use them allie was cuton cut on the arms some little with glass and hurt in the back some gome but not seriously the other obil iren were not hurt I 1 dont see how we were not all killed I 1 cannot describe the tie do et st ruction to you I 1 can see the path of the cyclone both ways way a as aa far as my eyes can see the storm came from the west and went eastward the path is over two miles wide uncle billy divitt divetta s house bouse was blown anti and broken into splint ere and all the family hurt he is hurt very bad and so is the little child tom the doctors went to see them they dont think they can get well the church was torn to pieces by the wind uncle john rhodes Hh odess and grandpas houses were not blown down nor were any of the family hurt joe garner the degro that lived close to up un and his bis wife were injured quite badly tae negroes who lived on our place upon up on the road had their house completely blown away you would not think a house even stood there to look at the place now both people are badly hurt I 1 have not yet heard from rich bich the and mr sims aims oluse close to richs blobs had their buildings all blown away I 1 fear rich was in the storm oh ob you banit imagine anything about it unless you could see it and oh ob how bow miraculous it was that my little ones and I 1 were not killed my things that sire afe not gonease all ruined my clothes were torn almost off me my dress was in at st ringi the whole face of the earth here around me is IB a eight to behold people are coming from far and pear near to look at it they say aay this thia place la Is the worst eight bight they ever have seen all of joe JOB garners Gar nera house was not blown off and I 1 stayed there last laet night mrs burgan sent over soon goon this morning tor for the he children and 1 I so BO I 1 am with them tonight this place was waa not hurt much A big crowl crowd of men has baa been at work today trying to fix up fences the oli old home Is ia all ruined it never can be fixed up again all the ralla rails are gone the timber Is ia all ruined so ao that we cannat put a fence around it again you never saw such destruction in your life I 1 am so ao troubled I 1 dont donit know what to jo do this closes mrs MM ivea letter today a copy of the paulding se be view bew was wag received civi ug an account of theotore the theo torm it says one of the most disastrous cyclones ever in the history of mississippi swept over the counties of smith senith jasper and clarke last wednes sy ay evening the dinst it struck jae jab per county iche in abe bobay neighbor nood and traveled in a northeasterly direction at a aurous rate across the thickest settled locality of the country and entered clarke at dr krousel Krou seu rho rhe width of its ito fatal path was from three to four miles and the distance it traveled was over twenty five miles ira in this county the destruction it wrought beggars and baffles description in the twinkling of an eye dwellings barns trees fences in fact everything every thing in the f atal aai path of the storm disappeared were literally swept from the face ol of the earth immediately after the furious winds bad passed a heavy rainfall set ie ID accompanied by a heavy hail mercilessly poured down upon the helpless and homeless victims etwas it wan indeed linued a pitiable sight eight the scene that met the astonished gaze of the dazel victims when thurs dayao sun reveal revealed id the awful results of ibe be aarm could not be described where the happy homes of a contented people had stood nothing was left lefo but unsightly and hideous debris houses housea fences barns all scattered to 10 the four winds of the heavens ind ruin and uc ut prevails on every slue aide in jasper county over one hundred b u nd i ed and flioy fl t ty families found fou nd themselves homeless and ana me lne accumulations representing the labor and savings of a lifetime were swept away in one brief but awful moment the calamity athe heavily upon the victims as nearly all of them are farmers and all were already in close circumstances and at best were barely making a living the loss of human we lire was miraculously small only there lives were lost in the county mrs W B R I 1 mrs LA shepherd hepherd Str stringer inizer and stafford peyton colored the two latter were killed billed outright bt while the former lived until friday whilo while it is in sad that any should have occurred at all still it is peculiarly fortunate that so many others escape i with their lives jives many others were seriously wounded but not fatally then follows three columns detailing the losses suffered and making an appeal on people outside of the cyclones cyclone Is track to aid those whose homes had ad been devastated |
