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. A Tramp Cyclone on the Rampage.t Last Saturday Mrs. Lease commencedan off year campaign in California., Unable to come herself, she sent us one i of her funnel-shaped colleagues,—a regular calamity howler. No warning sun*. dog told of its coming. But to precipi- | I tote the ruin she 'bewails, she sent us a ; r stem-wlnder. It was: one of her own favorite mashers. From the hills south of Coloma, Messrs. Crawford, Mosley and* An able were the fi rst to obser ve the ominous swirl of converging clouds. Coming from the direction of George-s town and Lotus, two wrathful tempests t 'telescoped, thus uniting their th robbing din am oe in one regulation funnel and one bowling cyclone. With throttle. wide open and big end up, it reversed . the force of gra vitotion and to the sound 1 of its own trumpeting!, went 'tearing , over the hills in a southerly direction.At his home on the road from Coloma toGold Hill, W. H. Crawford saw and . heard it coming, in time to hurry with 3 his family into the 'Cellar under the , house. In less time than it takes toI tell it, he emerged with his trembling jS wife and grand-daughter, to find his * , house a wreck, his household goods * , scattered to the winds and his barn and j out-houses in ruins. Even his chick- * » ens had been swept into the vortex of * 9 the cyclone, which was still in sight, | r hurling trees into winrows and pulling i up the stumps. *As it approached the Veerkamp place *j at Granite Hill, the 'Occupants of the a* house fled to a ditch in which they * flattened themselves out and waited for ^* results. It made short work of a large (« I barn, tumbled wagons and threshing'machines upside down In utter confu* | slon,demolished outhouses,drove a frag- * meat of Bome other building into the * gable and tore' a big bole in the east- £ era side of the house, whirled, a fruit-house and a number of large trays into lt;! the air. lifted a chicken house and a pet ■ deer out at the big end of the funnel, and passed on to the school hou.se, of which it left only the floor. The deer found a soft place to fall and came back the following day. One of the fruit trays, minus the fruit, was found at « the railroad station in Placervllle, six miles from where it was confiscated by1 the Kansas communist.Thence pirouetting on its eccentric cotirse, giving the Anable homestead a close call and drawing in a flock of robins, it twisted giant oaks and pines into withes along its path to Cold Spings. Here it unroofed. Mr Mull’s dwelling and wrecked his woodshed.’ At John Ryan’s ranch a mile and a half further south, it moved, one barn from its foundations, struck another and demolished a cow-shed. Thence by Carter’s place, where it scattered w ash tu bs and the like, it plunged down to Webber Creek and. made a big brush-heap of Victor Roland’s orchard. Farther up the stream, Sheriff Hilbert and Jack Doyle, with horses and buggy had taken refuge from, the beating hall on the covered bridge. The roof was lifted from over them and the horses stampeded. Fortunately no material damage was done. But at Reed *s place, which they had just passed, the ! barn was badly wrecked and the house » rendered uninhabitable.The next and last notable appearance of the roaring monster, was at the -Griffith mine south of Diamond Springs and as the crow flies, about ten miles from where it began to rotate and break things. Having done but little damage at tie Griffith, it pulled itself together and went growling off to parts - unknown. Along its path, which av-’■ eraged about 15# yards in width, noth-2 ing hut the hills could resist its foroe and legs were at s premium. It was accompanied by a storm of hail and D ictcl.es that will only be memorable as a shuddering reminder of a at rolling cyclone from Kansas.
Newspaper Details
Placerville Mountain Democrat
Placerville, California, US
Sat, Nov 13, 1897
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Judy B.
USA 08 Oct 2024
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