Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — SWEPT BY A CYCLONE. [ARTICLE]

SWEPT BY A CYCLONE.

TERRIBLE HAVOC WROUGHT IN KANSAS. Ten Persona Are Killed and Many In* jured In the Viclniny of Halstead—• Property Loss Will Be Large—Children Narrowly Escape. Farmhouses Leveled. Wednesday afternoon a fearful cyclone devastated a atrip of country several hundred yards wide and at least sixteen miles in length in the vicinity of Halstead, Kan., killing ten persons outright and seriously injuring several others, while many have received slight injuries. The cyclone struck the house of Mrs. Frye, a widow, who lived about nine miles southwest of Halstead, completely destroying it and slightly injuring Mrs. Frye. It picked up the house of John Schultzback and carried it away. The fine two-story bouse of Joseph Weir was entirely swept away, killing Mrs. Joseph Weir, Grace Weir, aged 11; Herman Weir, aged 5, and a five-weeks-old baby. Mr. Weir had previously left the house, and when the cyclone struck was about fifty yards away. He clung to a tree, but was badly injured by flying debris and will die. Joseph Weir, Jr., and sister, Maud Weir, the only ones in the family who took to the cellar, escaped with only slight injuries. The home of E. C. Caldwell, which was sixty yards west of the Weir's, was unroofed and the side torn away. The family escaped by taking to the cellar. The next house in the path of the storm was William Armstrong’s, which was completely wiped from the face of the earth. Mr. Armstrong was killed, Mrs. Armstrong seriously and perhaps fatally injured, and Grandma Chapin, who was there sick in bed, was killed. About 100 yards east of the Armstrong house the large two-story residence of B. E. Frizzell was picked up, as was also a large two-story house of J. F. Frizzell, across the road, and both, together with all the outbuildings, were completely swept away, leaving only enough debris to show that a house had stood there. The families of both the Frizzells escaped uninjured. Spencer Ross' bouse was in the line of the tornado, and was carried away, as were also the houses qf A. 8. Powell, J. A. Comas, Andrew Thompson and Menno Hegc. Miss Daisy Neff, at Powell's house, was badly Injured, as was Mrs. J. Comas.

School Children Safe. At the Hoge district school the school children hud just been dismissed. Hege saw the storm approaching, aud, fearing its results, hurried the scholars to his cyclone cellar. His foresightedness prevented an awful loss of life, for just as the last child had been safely stowed away in the cellar, the cyclone struck the house over them and demolished it As it was, not one of them was even slightly injured. The fury of the storm seems to have done its worst about five miles west of Halstead. Near the Frizzell home dead cattle, horses, hogs and chickens are scattered all over the wheat fields. 1 Those who first saw the disaster coming say it made very slow progress, traveling not faster than a person could run. It seemed to waver first in one direction and then in another. As far as heard from, covering a distance of eighteen miles across the country from southwest to northeast, twenty residences, nearly all of them large ones, were destroyed. The loss will bo not less than $200,000. Everybody in the track of the storm lost everything.