Submitted for your approval are ten of the most intriguing disasters in which Mother Nature raised her threatening hand while human error was less in evidence. For dramatic effect, the writer has arranged this highly subjective list, not chronologically, but from least to most deadly. Readers, undoubtedly, will want to set the author straight on tragic floods, fires, and snowstorms he has missed like the downtown Dover flood; I just remembered or the year without summer.
10. A Day without Sunlight
New England’s darkest day was May 18, 1780. According to Portsmouth historian Nathaniel Adams, “Between 10 and 11 o’clock the darkness increased, and began to assume the appearance of evening. Fowls went to roost, and cattle collected round the barnyards, as at the approach of night. Before noon it became so dark, as to be difficult to read without a candle … The evening was enveloped in total darkness; the sky could not be distinguished from the ground.” The next day was normal although foggy. Bits of burned leaves fell and rainwater was sooty. Researchers at the University of Missouri have suggested that the smoke that blocked out the sun for miles out to sea originated from a massive fire at Algonquin Park, Ontario.
9. The Frozen Piscataqua
Passengers aboard the Navy Yard ferry #1048 from Portsmouth had to get out and walk back to shore in 1918. On February 11, the fast flowing Piscataqua River appeared to freeze solid. In fact, a mass of broken ice from Great Bay apparently caused a jam when the current reversed and the icebergs gathered together. Caught in the ice, the propeller failed on the Navy Yard ferry at 7 am. The New Castle ferry was soon locked in too. When the tide shifted at 1 pm, the ice jam broke up and both boats were freed.
8. Whole Lotta Shakin’.
The “most severe and tremendous earthquake that was ever felt” in this region struck after midnight on November 18, 1755. The weather, according to reports, was serene, and the moon bright when a powerful shaking threw silverware from the drawers. The quake reportedly toppled 1,500 chimneys in the Boston area. Passengers aboard boats, feeling the shock wave, believed they had struck a rock. Awakened by the tremors, Portsmouth citizens feared the end of days as aftershocks continued for two weeks. Samuel Weeks brick house (1710) in Greenland, NH, stands as proof of the seismic event. Cracks in the brick walls and 18-inch thick beam can still be seen.
7. Ice Storm of 1886
Technically, the ice damage of 2008 was more devastating than its sister storm of January 1886. That’s because we have grown dependent on electrical power. In Victorian days, a downed electrical or telephone line did not impact most homes. There were no cars to strand, no airplanes to cancel, no Internet to disrupt business. Portsmouth was temporarily paralyzed in 1886, but the greatest danger came from falling on the ice as residents wandered the slippery streets admiring the frozen landscape. According to the Portsmouth Chronicle, “The glittering trees reflecting the gas lights, presented the effect of bowers of diamonds.”
6. Hurricane of ‘38
At least 600 people died in the northeast, mostly from drowning during the storm. An estimated 8,000 homes and 6,000 boats were lost as a brutal hurricane hit unsuspecting residents on September 21, 1938. But Portsmouth dodged the bullet. In his memoir Home by Nine about life in the city’s South End, Harold Whitehouse recalled downed fences, blocked roads, and cancelled school, but not the devastation felt by other coastal towns. Whitehouse remembers his impression at age 10. “The next morning we got up and couldn’t believe the damage. Most of the trees, the wires, and the telephone poles were down.”
SEE ALL local disasters
5. Downtown in Flames
Although hundreds of buildings were destroyed in three infamous Portsmouth fires in the early 19th century, miraculously, no deaths were recorded. Many stunned residents were robbed, however, as they dragged their valuables onto the city streets during December of 1802, 1806, and 1813. The losses were primarily emotional and financial. One contemporary writer described the victims of the 1813 blaze this way: “the entire fruits of a life of industry were swept away, leaving the sufferers at mid-winter, without a place of shelter, or a dollar to recommence the world anew.” Charitable contributions flowed in from surrounding towns. When Portsmouth residents rebuilt the city center for the third time – they used brick, not wood. Human error did contribute to this one.
4. Killed by Lightning
In the mid-1800s, city historian Charles Brewster chronicled an accidental death that occurred on June 2, 1777. He wrote: “Mrs. Catharine Clark, who had been married but one week, was expecting company. In the afternoon, there came up a heavy shower. After the force of the shower had appeared to pass away, she went into a back room, put her head out of the window to observe the clouds, and was instantly killed by a flash of lightning. It is a remarkable circumstance that this is the only case on record of fatality from lightning within the limits of Portsmouth. In 1782, some Frenchmen were killed by lightning on board of a vessel in our river.”
3. Cyclone at the Shipyard
On August 8, 1901 a portion of the floating drydock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard broke loose under a heavy gale. According to the Portsmouth Journal, Mrs. HV Mealey was struck in the chest and killed by a flying wooden beam when she went into a shed to escape the freak storm. Joel Pierson had both his legs crushed and he later died at the hospital. Although the sudden storm lasted only 10 minutes, seven other workers were injured. Rumors initially set the toll at 30 dead when the large traveling crane on Seavey’s Island was toppled and a contractor’s shed flew into the air and crashed back to earth. But only two actually died, while in Portsmouth and on the mainland, winds were mild to moderate.
2. Shipwrecked at the Shoals
Nature has killed many a Shoaler, including Miss Underhill, an “amiable” young woman whom, writer Celia Thaxter tells us, was swept off the rocks by a rogue wave around 1842. Scores of ships were wrecked in storms. But the case of the “Spanish sailors” remains the most mysterious. In a letter to this writer, the late Shoals historian Bob Tuttle offered this summary: “In the Gosport Town Records it is noted the ship was wrecked on the night of January 14, 1813, during a snowstorm. The body of one sailor was found the next morning, six more bodies on January 17th, and five more on the 21st. On the 27th a body was grappled up from the Hog Island passage [between Appledore and Smuttynose Islands]. On August 8th, another body was found in the same area; altogether, 14 bodies. They were reportedly buried on Smuttynose Island. But where are they
1. Bring Out Your Dead
“Yellow Malignant Fever” killed 55 Portsmouth residents in almost as many days in 1798. The plague arrived on July 23 aboard the Mentor from Martinique captained by John Flagg. Attempts to quarantine the fever within Deer, Green, and Russell streets (near modern Portwalk) were mildly successful. The few locals who traveled through the North End over the next few months covered their faces with handkerchiefs dipped in vinegar. Besides the moans of the sick and dying, the neighborhood was hauntingly silent until early October when the epidemic passed. Funerals were so frequent that processions and the ringing of church bells were banned. The dead were quickly placed into wooden boxes, slid through open windows, and buried under cover of darkness in a mass grave at the North Cemetery.
Copyright © 2010 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
Twins Pose at St. Clair Studio