Adams County, Nebraska - Chapter 28: Great Storms, 1916

Chapter 28: Great Storms

There are many stories current about the "Easter Bhzzard." the great storm of 1873 that caused great loss of jjroperty and of lives particularly in rather more than half of Nebraska. The narratives of the storm selected are by Dr. A. I). Williams of Kenesaw and George Huling of Bromlield, now (iiltner. in Clay County. Doctor Williams was a national figure in religious affairs and was also an author and publisher. Both narratives were written while the incidents were fresh in the minds of the writers and may be relied u])on as portraying with accm-acy the details of the great storm.

"The winter 1872-3," writes Doctor Williams, "was very open and mild. Plowing Avas done in this vicinity (Kenesaw) in each of its months. There Avas not only no rain during the winter, but none of any account from October to April. The ground was very dry and hard, and settlers began to ask each other if it ever would rain again. Sowing, Avhat little there Avas, began in February, and was mostly OA'er before April. But it did not come up, except as birds - mostly snowbirds - picked it up.

"Sunday, April 13, Easter day. was a very bright, beautiful day until a little after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Then, all at once, everyone began listening to the stillness. Xot a breath moved. Xot a soimd was heard, but the stillness was both audible and impressive. Instinctively everyone felt, he knew not why, that something was the mattei'. But Avhat? Avhence? Presently, rapidly rolling clouds appeared low in the northeast, but hurried up and on, like billows on a stoi-my sea. Then an appai-ently onmoving darkness appeared in the southwest, like an inky curtain, that at length was discoA ered to be ra])idly coming on Avithout internal movement.

approaching from opposite directions, came togetlier, apparently just over head, and then the tempest struck us with terrific force from the northwest. Everything movable hurried away most unceremoniously. The air became immediately filled with dust, so thick and whirling and blinding, that sight could not penetrate half a rod away, and persons in the house could not see each other even before the windows, while the roar of the elements was well nigh deafening.

"People felt their way to their north windows to keep them from lijowing in, the family sometimes keeping them in place by their hands and bodies, and in some instances they were not kept in, and the house filled with wind. The roof, and sometimes the whole structure, went before the storm like so many feathers. In a short time Ed ]Moore's house was moved from its foundation, turned partly around and unroofed, and was probably kept from all going before the gale by reason of a lot of hardware and grain being stored in it. The roof of JNIrs. Norton's house, just finished, went kiting towards Florida, and not much except sjilinters was afterwards found of it.

"^Vhen the storm began Cajitain and INIrs. Knapp, living where 3Ir. Long now lives, were sitting by the stove, on the tool chest. The next they remembered they were sitting imharmed on the reversed un.ler side of a piece of their roof - stove, tool chest, and house altogetlier having deserted them. Chairs, bedstead, clothing, everything suddenly started on a journey, much of which was never found, and most of what was found, was in rags and splinters. One bed-quilt s'rack the west side of our house, and George Williams slipped around the south side and arrested it at the southwest corner. A pair of ])ants \\as afterward found in our woodpile, and a feather bed in the ditch on the south side of the railroad, a quarter of a mile east of the residence of L. W. Parmenter. A large quantity of splinters of shingles and boards from the wreck struck our house and one piece of 2x4 scantling struck our north Avindow amidship, but fortunately sidewise. or our house would have been added to the ruins.

"D. R. Rockfeller's house, near Mrs. Osier's homestead, was blown to smithereens. He was at our house when the storm began and during the subsequent lull, tried to reach his own. But he had not proceeded far before the returning violence of the storm, accom]janied by the last 'sand storm' of the vicinity, stinging and cutting every exposed portion of his skin, until he Avas compelled to lie down flat on the ground, with his face to it, and hold on to the tufts of sod and grass with his hands and fingers.

to bed, and stajang there. The three other houses (the four were the first houses to be built in Kenesaw), only a few rods distant, blew down and into kindling wood, but Mrs, Norton knew nothing of it until the next Wednesday. She was the deputy postmistress, but there wasn't much postoffice business done on those days. Her house was probably saved by being sodded up on the north and west sides.

"In a little less than an hour the storm abated a little and our pony, 'Puss,' carried us pretty lively to Captain Knapp's. Finding nothing there, we went to Mr. Moore's, where jNIr. Coplin afterward lived. No one was there. On we went to Mr. Chenowith's (Bert ]Moore's) and found that the Knapps and ]\Ir. jNIiller must have been ;n the sod hen house. jNIr. and jNIrs. JNIoore were at Mr. Chenowith's. But by this time the heavens had gathered blackness again, and Puss' best paces availed to land her rider at home before the storm was upon us again, with apparently increaesd fury. This time, it began to snow fiu'iously, and it was as blinding and bewildering as the dust had Iieen, rendering it impossible to follow any direction unless it had been blindly before the storm.

"At the beginning of the storm, two Stonehocker families, seventeen in number, were camped beside our house. At the first approach of the storm, they fortunately staked down their 'prairie schooner' 'vith log chains, and hurried into the house. And there they all stayed the storm out. Early in the storm INIr. Rockfeller had returned, filling up a complement of twenty-three persons in the three small rooms of the house.

"In order to reach the stable, less than a hundred feet distant, the svell rope Avas draAvn, and with it in hand the stable could be found - we could not see the stable at one-quarter of the distance. W. Z. Parmenter and A. C. Parmenter came in from Thirty-two INIile Creek on AVednesday near night to see Avhat had become of vis.

"It was Wednesday that the storm abated. Immediately after noon, traveling when I could see and remaining still when I could not, and following a well defined track from my house to the dejiot. it was found that INIrs. Norton and her children were safe. Returning, a relief party was formed to see what had become of the Knapps. ]Mr. Rockefeller and one of the Stonehockers accompanied me, taking along a shovel and some food and coffee. We at length reached the place and found Captain and INIrs. Knapp and ]Mr. JNIiller banked u]) in the sod hen house Avith the hens. They had come here when the liouse blew down. So cramped were the quarters that they could neither stand erect nor recline at length. During their stav there, from Sun-

"When dug out, neither of the party could stand alone. But two of the rescuers formed a seat with their clasped hands for Mrs. Knapp on which she jjartly rode and partly walked, while after a little. Captain Knapp and Mr. Miller walked by leaning on each shoulder of the other man. One of the Stonehockers' teams was cut loose and drifted before the storm towards Red Cloud, but fortunately was found alive on Thursday.

"The train passed the Kenesaw station without the trainmen observing it. It had gone to Kearney on Saturday the 12th and stayed in Kearney until the next Saturday, when it dug its way with difficulty through the hardened drifts in the cuts. As the train passed the station witliout observing it. Puss was again brought to the rescue and overhauled the train in a cut below, and the mail was delivered, the conductor remarking that it was the first time he ever knew of an express being overhauled by an Indian pony.

"At no time did the thermometer fall more than two degrees below freezing, and most of the time it was above. Yet so rapidly did the wind absorb the heat of the body that only a fcAv hours' exposure would i^roduce death, and quite a number did perish at different places, though none in the inmiediate vicinity of Kenesaw. The snow completely filled tlie air through constant blowing, though the fall itself was probably considerably less than a foot. There has been no storm lilvc it since those who experienced the 'Easter Storm,' did not hanker after any more of the same sort."

"We left our Missouri home some time in March, 1873, and arrived at oin* new home six miles northwest of Harvard, on the West Blue in Clay County, on the 10th of April. At our destination we found everything as the Creator had made it, save the timber along the stream, which had been culled off by settlers who had come the year before.

"We lived in our wagon a day or two till we put up a light frame structure 12x16 feet, for a temporary shelter; we moved into it Saturday, April 12. It had no floor and the frame was two by four scantling, running horizontally. Boards were nailed on perpendicularly and battened by one-inch stuff. The roof was made in the same way, only it was two-sided or a peaked roof, not a shanty. The next day Mas Easter Sunday.

rible storm was coming and we got our wagon behind a steep bank fifteen or twenty feet high, that gave good jirotection from a northwest wind. We tied our four horses to the wagon, two on a side, and awaited the storm.

"It came about 5 o'clock. We greatly feared when it first struck us that our frail shelter would not withstand the hurricane that accompanied the rain, but it withstood the first onset better than Ave hojied and we Avent to bed and slept .the first night undisturbed. When we awoke the next morning it was snowing at a fearful rate, and so blinding that it Avas impossible to face it and breathe. We made two attemjits before Ave succeeded in getting to our horses. We found them in a fearful condition Avith the snoAv poring upon them in blinding sheets, driven Avith the Avind over a burnt-ofF prairie for over a mile Avith no draAv or obstruction intervening.

"To leave them there Avas certain death in a feAv more hours, and Avhat to do in the circumstances Avas the question. We had besides oiu" family tAvo men Avho had been our companions a portion of the Avay. Our bed Avas in one corner and there Avere seven of us in the house. But Ave decided that room must be made for the horses, so AA'e tied our bedstead up to the collar beams - it Avas a Ioav one - and Ave got it out of the Avay. We then brought up the horses, and as soon as the door Avas ojDened thej^ Avent in Avith a rush, one at a time. AVe got three horses in line Avith the bed, the fourth horse standing behind them, giving barely room for passage betAveen him and the stove.

"I never saAv such suffering as the poor horses exhibited Avhen Ave first got them in. Their tails Avere a foot in diameter, filled Avith snoAv so firmly jjacked that it Avas a difficult task to remove it. Every muscle in their bodies quivered like a man shaking Avith the ague. They Avere so hungry that they soon began gnaAving at the tAvo by four scantling in front of them. To prevent this we had to fill the scantlings Avith shingle nails. 'We had nothing but flour to feed the animals, but this seemed to satisfy their appetite in a measure, till my son and one of the men stopping Avith us (Phillips by name) took one of the horses and made a triji to our nearest neighbor, a little over a (juarter of a mile doAvn the stream.

"This Avould have been impossible had it not been for the lay of the land and the trees and bushes skirting the stream. The direction of the storm gave them a side Avind, both going and coming, thus enabling them to keep their bearings. They got a sack of stove Avood and a sack of corn. This Avas on ]Monday. On Tuesday they made another trip, getting the same as before, but the last trip Avas more

"One of the worst features of the storm was its long duration. It reached its height on Tuesday night. We slept none that night and were in constant fear that our frail structure would collapse, and that would have meant death to all of us. We had a few pieces of scantling left, so I made stakes and notched them in such a manner that when driven in the ground they would prevent the building from sliding or lifting up. 1 also l)raced the shack with two long scantlings at the north end, which made it much stronger. The structure would spring, the sides of it, like a basket and threatened every minute to give way. But the sliack held out and we were saved.

"On Wednesday night the storm abated some and Thursday afternoon it cleared off. JNIany poor homesteaders lost their teams and cows and some lost their lives. I had two cows loose. I found them ten miles from home. They had drifted with the wind and had got behind a sod house and were saved. We had a coop of about a dozen white Brama chickens. The coop was drifted over and all Mere saved but one. This was our only loss.

"There was no snow on the ground after the storm, only in draws, and it was packed so solid that a team could be driven over it anywhere without denting it any more than the solid road. The snow covered the buffalo grass in the draws upon which many of the settlers depended for food for their cattle so that for a time they were deprived of this food supply, and this after effect was a hardship that continued after the storm had cleared."

Storm Of 1888

The great storm of January 12, 1888, was felt in full force in Adams County, but because of the advanced development of the community the hardship imposed was not so great as in 1873. Until aliout 4 o'clock the air was soft and hazy as in Indian summer, but at about that hour the wind changed suddenly to the north and grew ra])idly to hurricane velocity. The snow began first to fall in large flakes and then changed to small, hard pellets, like shot. The air was so filled that drivers could not see the horses' heads. INIore than one hundred persons lost their lives in Nebraska in that storm and more than a thousand were reported to have perished in South l^akota. It is kncnm as the school children's storm, because of the great loss of life among the schools. No loss of life was reported in Adams

Paulixe Tokxado

Sunday, May 24, 1903, a destructive tornado destroyed the sixroom residence of John JNIumma near Pauline. The storm started about four miles southwest of the JNIumma home, where it destroyed the liouse of Charles Daum. Mr. and ]Mrs. Daum escaped from injury by taking refuge in the cellar. The tornado missed the home of William Overy by about seventy-five yards.

At the JNIumma home six Avere killed: John JNIumma, aged 31; JNIrs. Mumma, 47; Gertrude JNIumma, 18; Florence Palmer, 19; John Palmer, 16; Ray Quigg, 21. Those killed in addition to the JNIumma family were young people of the neighborliood who were Sunday guests of the JNIummas. The party wei'e at dinner Avhen the liouse was struck, about 3 o'clock. The farm was tlie property of 'NV. B. Sheldon of Hastings.