Today, April 18th, is the 143rd anniversary of the Brownsville (Sweet Springs) cyclone that killed 10. Below are descriptions of the cyclone (tornado) and the victim list. Sweet Springs Historical Society is currently researching information on the businesses in an attempt to nail down their exact location. At a later date, a book on the cyclone and history of the businesses and people affected will be published. Let us not forget this tragic moment in Sweet Springs history, that so greatly affected the downtown area.
Headlines from Brownsville Herald – April 21, 1882
CRUSHED to EARTH. BROWNSVILLE LAID WASTE.
A Terrible Cyclone Plows Through the City.
Terrible Loss of Life and Property.
Eleven Killed, Many Wounded.
“It is a sickening task to sit down in the midst of death and desolation and write an account of its terrors and miseries. The mind wanders or is dull, the pencil partakes of the vagaries of the stunned brain, the whole sole is sick and weary. We can almost see crumbling walls and splotches of blood on the paper as we write. But the work must be done, however painful; and our report shall be as good as we can make it with such surroundings. Strong winds and threatening clouds have come before, and have gone; and all was the same. We have read of destruction and distress elsewhere, thinking in a vague way that our turn might come up some day, and pitying those who have suffered. Now we are stricken, and the whole blow is indeed a terrible one. Tuesday afternoon about 4 o’clock the cyclone struck us. We have believed it was a hurricane, -a straight blast, as it shot from a cannon, rather than a spiral of whirling wind. But the testimony is against us, and the storm’s fantastic work shows itself. It was a tornado, and its fierce, fiery breath brought desolation upon all in its way. The storm approached the town from the west, and having destroyed a house occupied by Mrs. Boothman, three miles out sprung from the earth, and at one tremendous bound was upon us, clearing the intervening ground with inconceivable swiftness. It struck again at the west end of the brick block on Main Street, in which the Herald office is situated, and missed us about forty feet; demolished Meyer and Duensing’s and the upper part of Thos. C. Andrew’s stores. Here fell Claus Meyer and poor Dicky Ferguson, beneath a heap of ruins. From this point, apparently swerved by the shock of the contact, it darted straight north across the street, demolishing two brick houses, occupied by A.S. Rembert and A.H. Elsea, the ruins of the latter crushing to death George C. Payne. Here it turned again into its former course due northeast, and plunged down the slope into the lower part of town near the depot, sweeping everything before it.”
The cyclone or tornado destroyed a house three miles west of town and from that point to Meyer & Duensing’s dry goods store at the west end of the brick block on Main Street where the office of the Brownsville Herald was located, and about where the present-day Sweet Springs Herald office is now situated. It had crossed Blackwater near the mouth of Davis Creek and “its undercurrent or suction having marked its track through the timer, and almost in an instant” was upon our town. The main path was through the part of the city built on the low ground just south of the railroad. One funnel plunged down and crushed Meyer & Duensing’s store, then took away the upper portion of Thomas C., “T.C.”, Andrew’s boot and shoe store on Main Street, then “in a twinkle” directly north leveling A.H. Elsea’s grocery store and A.S. Rembert’s hardware store, both built of brick, across the street from Andrew’s. This funnel turned again and rejoined the main body going due northeast. Another funnel or “huge claw” was thrown out still further south and “twisted round up the little vale back of” the newspaper office. This one lifted up and overturned Root’s stable and carried away James Wells’ kitchen, a little south of W.D. Carmack’s house on Main Street. A number of frame houses between these two points were “almost entirely unharmed”. Yet another funnel “completely leveled the old frame on the corner of Miller Street, opposite Tisdale & Golay’s meat market, and the little breck next east” and then it demolished a couple of frame buildings just south of Root’s shop further north on Miller Street. At this point all the funnels drew up into the main body of the cloud.
WITNESS DESCRIPTIONS OF THE STORMS APPROACH
Numerous accounts exist from those who witnessed the storm’s approach to Brownsville. Sail Henry Aulgar (1870 – 1972) was working in his father’s field near Herndon and stated the sky was “black all over Brownsville” and they could only guess it was going to be a bad day in town. Perhaps the best description comes from a Mr. James Wells of Brownsville who was with a number of hands engaged in building a new residence for Mr. Rodney Kelly, five miles southeast of town. “…when the wind became threatening, he ran out of the building and up on the high, open ground nearby. Here he stood and saw the cloud as it passed by on one side and not very far from him. He says it was the shape of a gourd, bowl or round part above, stem or handle pointing down, and reaching, as he saw it, almost, or quite, to the ground, but dancing and bounding along, with a movement something like that of a rabbit or a ball held by a rubber string and dropped gently to the ground by a person in paid motion. From the stem, or lower part, long spiral arms or claws reached out in every direction, darting and writhing like so many serpents—to one side or another, not straight out, again plunging direct to the earth, and every time withdrawn to or into the main stem, from which these hideous, winding monsters were continually thrust out. This cloud of uncouth shape, with its straggling array of feeders, or fangs as they might be called, moved with wonderful swiftness, and soon passed beyond Mr. Wells’ vision. It was unquestionably the funnel-shaped terror that thus far wrought death and ruin where ever it has appeared. That its destructive effects are not so much due to more winds as to electricity, or some still greater and unknown force, we regard as unquestionable.”
TEN LOST THEIR LIVES IN BROWNSVILLE CYCLONE
This was a most tragic event for our town. Nine people were killed outright including: Dick “Dickey” Ferguson who had been an apprentice in the Brownsville Herald Office; Con. Enoch Conway White, who at the age of 28 had just been elected City Marshal; Willie Parsons, an 18 year-old boy who walked home after the storm – no one “knew he was injured until he was dying”; Claus Meyer, senior partner in the firm of Meyer & Duensing, who was buried under the crumbling walls of his own store; George C. Payne, “who fell in the ruins of A.H. Elsea’s grocery store”, “one of near and good neighbors of Pettis County” and “a substantial farmer and an intelligent, enterprising citizen”; James E. Miller, son of Calvin J. and E.D. Miller who was born January 19, 1853, and who grave is marked by the only stone in Fairview Cemetery to mention the cyclone; James M. Williams, an old-time Saline County Farmer who was reared in the Brownsville vicinity and was killed in C.M. Kelley’s drug store; Albert Scruggs, son of P.L. Scruggs, a good citizen farmer living just north of town who was killed near J.T. Wilson & Co.’s dry goods store; and Edward T. Arthur of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who was a guest at the City Hotel and was killed in C.M. Kelley’s drug store. He had stopped off at Brownsville for a few weeks stay of rest. Two people who had earlier been believed killed by the cyclone, Mr. Stuerke and Mrs. Halpin, were later found to be all right. William Snow and C. Talbott both suffered broken legs. Mrs. Lee, mother of John and William Lee, was badly injured in the Charles Sherrick residence. Uncle George Rice, his wife and two daughters were all wounded or badly bruised. There were many other less serious injuries. The last casualty of the cyclone was Mr. Jesse E.H. Jackson who had received a spinal injury in the cyclone and was left paralyzed. He suffered only a few hours short of three weeks after the blow struck him and then passed away as a result of his injuries. Mr. Jackson was about forty years of age and a native of Mississippi who had resided in Brownsville about twelve years. For most of that time was engaged as a clerk for Mr. George Washington Smith, prominent Brownsville lumber merchant. He was a charter member of Brownsville Lodge No. 119, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and was given the solemn burial rites of the Order at Fairview Cemetery, Tuesday, May 11, 1882.