(erielack) Damage To Braceville, OH. Station 1860

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Braceville Station, OH Tornado Damages Towns, July 1860
Posted May  9th, 2008 by _Stu Beitler_ 
(http://www3.gendisasters.com/users/stu-beitler)   
 
THE LATE TORNADO IN OHIO. 
The Cleveland Leader of Tuesday contains further particulars of the 
terrible  tornado at Braceville Station, on the Cleveland and Mahoning  Railroad. 
We  quote:
The tornado first struck about a mile northwest of Braceville Station,  on 
the Cleveland Mahoning Railroad. It appeared to settle down upon the earth,  
and then pursued a direct southwest course. A man who saw it when about a 
mile  north of the Station, describes it as having the appearance of two 
clouds  revolving towards each other, like two immense wheels, accompanied by a  
tremendous roaring and surging sound.
MR. MASON'S house was next struck and  swept away completely. The heaviest 
portion of the house was scattered over a  space of about two acres, the 
lighter portion being carried far and wide. A fact  that shows the character of 
the wind is, that the Mason house was carried to the  south, and the 
GRIFFIN house twenty rods away was blown to the north, showing  that it was a 
whirlwind. The barns were demolished.
The storm then reached  the railroad track, where it passed through the 
woods. Here, the scene yesterday  was wild and exciting. Huge trees were torn 
up by the roots, and splintered to  pieces; saplings were almost tied up in 
knots; great piles of scattered trees  lay about, and trunks that had stood 
the gales of half a century were bent and  broken like reeds. The track was 
covered with fallen trees.
The Station house  was apparently in the centre of the tornado. The owner 
of one of the groceries  which were destroyed, saw it when struck. He says 
the depot, (a frame building  26 by 46 feet,) and the grocery adjoining, 
belonging to LUCIUS WOOD,  station-master, were carried right up into the air 
above the top of the highest  trees, when they were evidently wrenched and torn 
apart into a thousand  fragments and scattered over a large space of 
country. The grocery opposite,  belonging to GEORGE SMITH, was torn to pieces, and 
carried away for some rods.  No one happening to be in the building at the 
time.
One of the freight cars  was torn from its trucks, and lies overturned 
about sixty feet from the track,  broken up. The other was thrown some 600 feet 
without touching the intervening  ground, and then dashed to pieces. The 
first one contained about five tons of  freight.
JOHN SMITH ran first toward the track and then to a large hollow  stump, to 
which he clung as the storm came down upon him. He says the wind was  so 
strong that it fairly lifted his feet from under him, and he held only by his  
hands with all his strength. While so doing he was struck by a rail or 
board,  and his head, hands and hip badly bruised. MRS. GALVIN came running up, 
and lay  down by the stump to which he was clinging. He knew no more of her 
until he saw  her lying dead about three rods away, having been struck by a 
rail, and her  skull crushed.
The frame barn of WM. BENEDICT was next struck, and almost  entirely 
demolished. Two feather beds from one of the chambers were torn away  and picked 
up afterwards in Lordstown, about six miles away, as were some  sheets, &c. 
It then tore the top off his large cheese house, torn down a  corn house, and 
unroofed his barn.
The storm passed on, overturning and  unroofing houses and barns, and doing 
considerable general damage, as far as  Youngstown, 20 miles below.
No description can do justice to the appearance  of the scene, even 
yesterday, after two days had been actively employed in  clearing away the wreck. 
The ground was strewn thickly with the evidences of  destruction. We asked 
SMITH what the storm looked like when he was clinging to  the stump. "Why," he 
said, "it didn't look like anything. I can't describe it.  It was like a 
thick fog, full of trees, logs, and everything else. It was so  dark I 
couldn't see, and the wind flopped me around any where and every where."  A lady 
who saw it a mile away, says it looked like a huge wheel rolling over the  
earth. The width of the track varied from a quarter to a half-mile.
There  were some curious circumstances connected with the progress of this 
gale. At the  station, MR. MASON, whose wife was injured at MR. GRIFFIN'S, 
saw the storm  coming and crawled into a drain under the depot. The next he 
knew of his  whereabouts he had been carried into a field some forty or fifty 
rods across the  track, and striking upon his head, had cut it severely. In 
the depot were nine  barrels of flour and some bags of rye. After the storm 
had passed nothing was  found of either, except one bag of rye, which was 
in one of the freight cars  which was overturned. No grain had been in it 
before. Many small articles were  carried to great distances. An iron bolt, 
four inches long, and a quarter of an  inch square, was found driven an inch 
into a treet half a mile away. A quarter  of a dollar and a cent from the 
money drawer at the station were found half a  mile off, and pieces of stove 
pipe, and iron piece of a sewing machine,  weighting two pounds, and a shovel, 
equally as far. A handsaw was carried over a  mile, and two feather beds 
five or six miles. A box of hardware having been in  the depot, was evidently 
taken up into the air and wrenched apart, and its  contents were found in all 
the fields and woods in the track of the  storm.
The $700 which were blown away were in one package of $500 and other  small 
parcels. One $1 bill of this was found at Girard, 16 miles distant, and  
just as the train left Warren yesterday afternoon, it was reported that the 
$500  package had been found in Coitsville, about an equal distance. Two pages 
of MR.  WOOD'S Ledger were found in Liberty, twenty miles off, and tickets 
from the  office were found at all distances from five to twenty miles. A 
boy found some  rein snaps, buckles, &c., half a mile off, the mass being 
snapped and  buckled together by the wind in the air. They were from the box of 
hardware,  where of course they were seperate. 
The New York Times New York  1860-07-27



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