DESTRUCTIVE AND FATAL TORNADO AT NATCHEZ.
On the 7th day of May, 1840, the city of Natchez, Miss., was
visited by a tornado, which occasioned an immense destruction of
property and great loss of life. Several steamboats were
destroyed at the wharves of Natchez, and many persons who had
embarked in them as passengers were drowned. A large number of
flat boats, likewise, were wrecked by the tremendous gale, and a
number of boatmen, supposed to be two hundred or more, in
the aggregate, perished. A tax had recently been laid on
flat-boats at Vicksburg, on which account many of them had
dropped down to Natchcz, so that there was an unusually
large number of these boats collected at the last-named cjty at
the time of the tornado.
The steamboat Hinds was blown out into the stream and sunk, and
all the passengers and crew, except four men, were lost. It is
not known how many passengers were on this boat. The captain was
supposed to have been saved, as he was seen on shore a
short time before the gale commenced, but as nothing was heard of
him afterwards, it is conjectured that he must have returned to
the boat, and shared the fate of his crew and passengers. The
wreck of the ilinds was afterwards found at Baton Rouge,
with fifty-one dead bodies on board, forty-eight of whom were
males, and three females; among the latter was one little girl
about three years old.
The steamboat Prairie had just arrived from St. Louis, freighted
with lead. Her upper works, down to the deck, were swept off, and
the whole of the crew and passengers are supposed to have been
drowned. The number of the passengers is not known, but four
ladies, at least, were seen on board a short time before the
disaster. The steamboat H. Lawrence and a sloop were in a
somewhat sheltered position at the Cotton Press. They were
severely damaged, but not sunk. The steam ferry-boat was sunk,
and also the wharf-boat "Mississippian," which, was used as a
hotel; grocery, &e. Of one hundred and twenty flat-boats,
which lay at the landing, all were lost except four, and very few
of the men employed on board were saved.
We give the names of some of the victims, but a great majority of
the persons drowned could never be identified.
DROWNED.-William Stubbs and John Ervin, Louisville; David
McGowan, C. Butler, Andrew Filer, Absalom Wilson, A Terry, P.
Garsford, M. Dunn, E. Booker, B. Floney, and C. Carter and two
children, of New York; W. Williams and wife, of St. Louis; E.
McFaul, of Boston; James Orr, of Natchez; Y. Budhim, of Ind.;
Thomas Rodgers, of Cairo, Ill.; P. Ewing, M. Dinwiddie, and
W. Johnston, wife and two children, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; C.
Phelps, U. Phillips, and Pr. Brady, of Ind.; Marcus Austin, of
New Amsterdam, Tad.; M. Tooley, Philadelphia, Pa. ; B. Shreve and
Miss Margaret Haskell, Ky.; Mrs.
Watkins, Ohio; Mrs. Jones, Louisiana; Mrs. Dwight and daughter,
Wis.; Miss Hardy, Ill.; Mrs. Walters and infant, Vicksburg;
Duncan Sherman, John Root, and C. V. Bunner, Ala.
Besides these, about two hundred flat boatmen, (names unknown,)
were ascertained to have been lost. The total loss of life is
estimated at four hundred. For its violence and destructive
effects, this tornado was without precedent in the recollection
of the oldest inhabitant of that region. The water in the river
was agitated to that degree that the best swimmers could not
sustain themselves on the surface. The waves rose to the height
of ten or fifteen feet. Many houses in the vicinity of Natchez
were blown down, and many buildings in the city were unroofed;
the roofs, in some instances, being carried half-way across the
river. People found it impossible to stand on the shore. One man
was blown from the top of the hill, (sixty feet high,) and fell
into the river forty yards from the bank. Heavy beams of timber
and other ponderous objects were blown about like straws. Great
was the consternation of the inhabitants of Natchez and its
neighborhood, and owing to this cause, perhaps, many persons were
drowned for want of prompt assistance. When the first alarm had
somewhat subsided, the citizens hastened to the river, rescued
some who were still living from the water, and recovered hundreds
of dead bodies before they were swept away by the rapid current.