OLDER RESIDENTS HOLD

MEMORIES OF CYCLONE

The few hints of the winds pranks in recent days - the tiny tornado that stuck neighboring Bowersville and the huff and puff around Cederville that resulted in a roof being lifted and tossed to the ground - are still merely token cyclones. The “big wind” of 1884 remains “the cyclone” in the parlance of the people “even unto the third and fourth generations.”

Describing the course of the cyclone through Jamestown, a writer says, “as if its direct intention was to commence at one end of the town and sweep relentlessly to the other, the appalling funnel-shaped cloud first touched the earth at the fairgrounds. What had been a scene of beauty and order was in an instant a wreck of such utter confusion as to baffle description. The wind left not a building standing in its path. Beams, lumber,, shingles and posts were whirled about like straws in the air.”

DAYTON did not tarry in its efforts to lend a helping hand to stricken Jamestown. “At the mass meeting, a report was read from J. F. Chew, Xenia newspaperman and Alf Johnson, one of the Greene County Commissioners. It was to the effect that they had visited the village and made a careful estimate of the damage. They placed the damage at $120.000. This, however, excluded the value of household goods, which was placed at $80.000.” (Editors note: this total of $200.000 was in money values of 67 years ago. Present- day values would be easily three times that sum - 1951 values) (2000 values would be far exceed the values of 1951)

Dayton’s contribution included $1.500 that had been left from a “flood fund.”

As an example of casting bread upon the waters, Jamestown was among the first towns neighboring to Dayton to rush assistance when the 1913 flood deluged the city with terrific loss of life and property. Thus, after the short space of 29 years, Jamestown was able to lend a helping hand to the city that had acted similarly in its behalf disaster had swept through Jamestown.

COMMUNICATION was nothing like it is today 67 years ago. So different was it that the first Dayton knew of the cyclone was when Louis Steinberg was driving into the city with his wife and child. The Steinberg’s were caught in the tornado on the Springboro Pike six miles south of Dayton.

He said that his buggy was almost swept from the road before he realized a storm was approaching. He saw the odd-shaped storm cloud and thought it was a dense cloud of smoke. As the storm bore down on them he saw shingles, cinders and dust whirling around with remarkable rapidity. Through only the edge of the cyclone struck the buggy it was raised three feet off the ground and the horse was dragged with it for several yards along the highway.

HISTORY records the names of the officials of the special train held up near town by the wrecked coal train as Supt. Cummings, Alton Salters, his clerk; and Roadmaster Fern and Prof. McFadden. As has been related, they left the train and were among the first of the outside world to see the havoc the storm had wrought.

Two items of the original story of the pranks of the cyclone have been retold many times. One was about a barn that was lifted into the air, carried over the entire town and the framework dropped a mile from where it had stood.

Farmer Michael Dean living near town, had two sheep carried 200 yards, into a nearby field. Neither was injured but the wool of both was singed as though it had been done by fire.

“Jamestown residents had suffered untold agony through the long Sunday night and the cold damp day that dawned to find their homes leveled or swept completely away,” a writer says depicting the situation in which the storm left the people. Darkness interfered sadly with the work of rescuers. The day, the night that followed with its agonies, the horrors of the indescribable havoc wrought in that fatal few minutes remained during the life of many people as indelible memories. A few persons now living recall the incident, like George Bishop who was 20 years old at the time, and now nearing 90, his recollection of the town’s greatest disaster is vivid.

(This is the last edition of Jamestown Cyclone of April 27, 1884 - Jim Sutton) I hope you enjoyed this reading of the History of the Great Cyclone that struck Jamestown in 1884. If anyone has old newspaper accounts of the cyclone and are willing to share them with the Historical Society we would be glad to make them part of our Local History and display them so all may see.