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New England Weather

1770 Summer

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1770 Great Freshet

The Storm of October 20, 1770

IT was said centuries ago that lightning strikes churches oftener than residences. In reference to this saying Cotton Mather wrote in the seventeenth century: " New England can say so. Our meeting houses and our ministers' houses have had a singular share in the strokes of thunders." This summer of 1770 seemed to prove these assertions, and if Mather had then been alive he would doubtless have mentioned this evidence in support of his claim. The principal showers during the summer occurred as follows.

About eleven o'clock in the forenoon of Tuesday, May 29, during a shower a barn belonging to Capt. Enoch Angell in North Providence, R, I., was struck by lightning, and burned to the ground. A house was also damaged from the same cause at Voluntown, R. I., and two persons were much hurt, one of whom it was then thought would not recover.

During the second week in June, a similar shower occurred in Danvers, Mass., during which a tree was struck by lightning, and four sheep standing near it were killed by the shock.

About July 10, in the midst of a drought at Natick, Mass., there was a shower, during which the barn of Capt. John Coolidge was struck by lightning, a spar being knocked out, and the building otherwise damaged to a considerable extent. The lightning also struck three trees within a circumference of seventy rods; and under one of them was a cow belonging to Lt. John Bacon, which was instantly killed. A large oak tree that stood in the line of a fence near Chilewet pond was also struck, the tree being torn to pieces and the rails of the fence split for three lengths. Hail also fell, damaging the corn and other cultivated crops.

The drought continued, and the earth became so dry that the crops were in a precarious condition. On this account, Thursday, July 19, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer by the people of several towns in the southeastern section of New Hampshire; and before the day closed a plentiful and refreshing shower fell throughout that region. At Rochester, it was accompanied with a violent tornado, which blew down several houses and barns, many trees, much of the fences, and a great deal of corn. The church and several other buildings were much racked and shattered, the hail smashed many windows, and left deep dents on the sides of the houses, which evidenced the great force with which it came. Thirteen sheep there were killed by the lightning, and a cow by the falling of a tree. During the same shower, in the West parish of Newbury, Mass., Benjamin Poor's bam was struck by the lightning and consumed.

At Bedford, Mass., on the next day, the house of Hugh Maxwell was considerably damaged by lightning, which exploded in a room where there were eight persons, and melted two plates, out of which his children were eating, but they all escaped uninjured.

On Sunday, the twenty-second, the steeple of Rev. Mr. Thayer's church at Hampton, N. H., was shattered to pieces by lightning while the people were coming out of the church, the services being over but no one was injured.

As the month drew toward its close, the weather became very hot, and showers accompanied with thunder and lightning, occurred with great frequency. On Wednesday, July 25, two houses at Plymouth, Mass., were struck and greatly damaged by lightning.

On Wednesday, August 1, the heat was very extraordinary, the temperature being a hundred degrees above zero in deep shade, four degrees higher than " blood-heat." This was at Sharon, Conn. The next day, the temperature was two degrees lower, and about five o'clock on that afternoon a thunder cloud arose in the southwest, and travelled toward the northeast. Before it was overhead, while the sun was shining brightly the thunder pealed violently and loudly, and out of the head of the cloud shot forth a stream of lightning which struck the steeple of the church at Sharon, and would doubtless have torn it into fragments, but for the lightning rod which had been placed upon it for protection. The rod carried off the current, and left the steeple uninjured. The same effort of the lightning was repeated ten or fifteen minutes later, with the same result. This is the earliest lightning rod the writer has found mentioned in New England. The newspapers of that date contain long dissertations on the usefulness of lightning rods, referring to this instance as evidence in support of their theory. In the same shower a house at East Greenwich, R. I., was struck and much shattered, and at another part of Narraganset the lightning killed five hogs in one yard.

On the next day at five o'clock in the afternoon, at Waltham, Mass., the steeple of the " new meeting-house " was struck by lightning in a shower, and set on fire, being considerably burned before the flames could be extinguished. On the same night, it rained a great deal in Falmouth, Maine.

On Sunday night, August 5, the lightning struck a large bam at Epping, N. H., and burned it with its contents, there being in it at the time about twenty tons of hay. In the same shower at Newbury, Mass., a bam belonging to Moses Newell was struck and entirely consumed with a large quantity of hay and a valuable horse, which were therein. Mr. Newell's loss was estimated at about three thousand dollars.

On the forenoon of Saturday, the eighteenth of the month, there was a violent shower, accompanied with thunder and lightning, during which the rain poured down in torrents. A whirlwind or hurricane was created by it at Salem, Mass., which moved with impetuous fury from west to east over the lower end of the town. The wind blew but a few minutes, and its track was only a few rods in width. No persons were injured, but the damage done was considerable, trees .and chimneys being blown down and barns unroofed.

The last shower of the season of which we have any record occurred on Monday, August 20, when a man was killed by the lightning at Sudbury, Mass.; while he was at work in a field.

Source: Historic Storms of New England by Sidney Perley, 1891

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