Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1893 — SLAIN BY A CYCLONE. [ARTICLE]

SLAIN BY A CYCLONE.

FIFTEEN PERSONS PERISH IN A KANSAS TORNADO. A Fearful Storm Sweeps Over a Section of Country in the Kansas Biver Valley— Many Killed, Some Fatally Hurt and Others Seriously Injured. Work of a Windstorm. One of Jhe most destructive cyclones that ever visited Kansas swept over the section in the vicinity of Williamstown Wednesday night, completely devastating a strip of country about two miles east and west of the town, and killing instantly fifteen people. The storm was preceded by a heavy rain and its • approach from the northwest was heralded by a sudden darkening of the skies and the terrible rush of the wind. In the path of its destruction nothing remained that could be at all recognized. Trees were twisted up; fields of grain were completely wiped out; hedges were completely stripped of foliage; stock was killed and horribly maimed, and houses and barns and all buildings were swept out of sight. The list of killed is as follows: EVANS, L. F. EVANS, EMERY. GRIMES. L. M. GRIMES, MARY, and two children. HUTCHINSON, MRS. JOHN. KINCAID, SAMUEL. KINCAID, CLARA. KINCAID. SADIE. KINCAID, WALTER. KINCAID, EVA. KINCAID, WILLIAM. PETERS, W. F. STEWART, SAMUEL. Three others were fatally hurt and a score more or less injured. The bodies of all those killed were shockingly mangled. Mrs. Hutchinson’s arms and legs were found in a tree a mile from the house. Eva Kincaid’s head was severed from her body. Samuel Stewart and L. M. Grimes were carried 300 hundred yards in different directions and mutilated almost beyond recognition. Stewart’s body was cut in two as if by one stroke of a great knife. The strip of country swept by the cyclone is left as barren as a floor. In Williamstown schoolhouse were found the dead bodies of the Kincaid family, consisting of father, mother and four children. The youngest child is without its head, it being blown or cut off and carried away by the wind. One of the children was found three miles from the house. At Arthur Evans’ farm, a quarter of a mile northeast of Williamstown, everything is destroyed. Evans ran into his basement, but was found dead three rods from the house in the field. Mrs. Evans also took shelter in the basement, but escaped with her life. At the Hutchinson farm, which was northeast of Williamstown, r Mrs. Hutchinson lost her life and Mr. Hutchinson was slightly injured. Seven head of horses were killed here. Some of the horses were blown a quarter of a mile away. In the cemetery at Williamstown the monuments are all blown away and some of the base stones were blown many rods. Fully thirty horses were completely demolished and the little village of Williamstown wiped out of existence. The storm was only about six minutes in passing. At Winfield many small houses were destroyed and a number of people injured, two fatally. The Episcopal Church is completely destroyed. The Babbitt Hotel and Thompson block, a three-story building, are badly damaged and the plate-glass front of the First National Bank was blown out. The west wing of the courthouse was also blown away. Emporia also suffered from a windstorm but to a lesser degree.