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THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
CAPT. STEPHEN B. HANKS,
TORNADOES AND CYCLONES ON THE RIVER
At the close of the season I did not
make the usual trip south but went directly home. My second
by was born October 3rd of this year and I was
anxious to get home and look after my wife and child. My wife
was at her parent’s home with David Hanks and family on
his farm. The two families occupying the same house, and which
my wife and I were there, as we were during this winter of
1859 and 60, there were three families together but the house
was large and roomy as I had built a large room as an
addition, as before stated, so we were all comfortably
situated in spite of the fact there were a lot of us. Dave
Hanks had a large family and a number of father Bennett’s were
still at home but we were not of the quarrelsome kind and the
forbearance was always manifested by both old and young and we
really enjoyed being together. In fact those were felt to be
happy times and are still referred to by the children now
living as the happiest time of their lives. Theo older ones
who are still left, indulge in reminisces of those good old
times, as we are all agreed in considering them.
In the spring of 1860 began up river
work on the Alhambra which was put into the St. Louis and
galena trade. I was coming up the river on her at the time of
the tornado that destroyed the town of Albany and Camanche.
At Albany my hometown, there were five deaths and quite a
number more or less injured and crippled. The buildings were
mostly in ruins and the wonder is there was not a greater loss
of life.
We left Rock Island very early on the
morning of June 1st and reached Albany some time
before forenoon. Before getting down river we began to meet a
lot of debris on the river and knowing that there had been a
severe storm we began to suspect that something unusual had
happened. There were tops of trees and broken limbs lath
shingles and bits of houses floating down the river. When we
came in sight of the two towns it was very evident where the
wreckage came from. My wife and child were in a house not
more than one hundred feet from the river and mud and water
wee blown in their faces enough to strangle them, but they
were unhurt and the house was not wrecked for which we were
all properly thankful. This tornado and inside devastation
became widely known and was fully illustrated in Harper’s
Weekly, one of the few illustrated journals of the times and
accounts of it were written up for the daily press of the
civilized world. Sufficient matter was written concerning the
many strange manifestations in connection with it to have
filled volumes. At that time but little was known,
comparatively, concerning these peculiar storms and there was
intense interest shown, but since then our knowledge had
increased most wonderfully and the laws governing their
formation are being much better understood and as they become
more numerous we accept them without much comment as part of
our every day life.
Note:_ Mr. M. W. Hanks says
regarding this tornado:” While it is of no particular interest
will say that at this time I was eight months old and we lived
in the country at the home of David hanks. As my mother was
expecting father up from St. Louis that day we went to town
(Albany) and at the time of the storm were at the home of
C. Slocomb, located on what was then the main street along
the river front. The house was a large one story frame built
on the slope of the hill running back from the river. My
mother has told me that the storm came up between six and
seven in the evening and that all the people in the house went
into the cellar, the windows of which were open. When the
storm struck, y mother was holding me with my face over her
shoulder and as the wind blew the dirt and rain in thru the
windows we were all covered with mud and I was almost
smothered as my face was completely plastered with it. The
house was not wrecked but the windows were all blown in.”
From a copy of the Albany Review of
June 4, 1915 we get the following data on the big storm.
It was supposed to have started near
Ft. Dodge, Iowa, reached Camanche and Albany abut 6:30 p. m.
on Sunday, June 3, 1860 and continued to Ottawa County, Mich,
a distance of 450 miles carrying death and destruction the
entire distance. The account mentioned as being in Harpers
Weekly was in the issue of that paper June 13, 1860. Twenty
two lives were lost at Camanche and eight at Albany two
hundred and twenty eight buildings were destroyed and one
hundred and nineteen injured at Camanche. Seventy-nine people
were injured in Albany. Seventy-eight buildings were
demolished or injured in Albany. All the freak features of
the later day cyclones were present but we will mention only a
couple of instances. A log raft was passing Camanche past as
the storm struck the place in white or grey hors was blown
from the Iowa shore, high in the air. Out over the raft and
dropped into the river. When the storm subsided the raft was
found to have been thrown against the Iowa shore with a large
portion of it resting on top of the bank. The logs had to be
cut loose, rolled into the river and rerafted. The
peculiarity of this was the fact that the raft was carried in
the opposite direction from the course of the storm, caused
probably by the back rush of the water which had first been
drawn from the Iowa shore by the suction of the storm.
R. Rambo, a raftsman on a log
raft tied up near Camanche and just out of the path of the
most severe part of the storm, declared that he saw the bottom
of the river two thirds of the way across it.
No estimate as to the total loss of
life in the path of the storm was made. It was very great
considering the number of people then in the section thru
which it passed and the towns of Camanche and Albany never
recovered from the disaster. F. A. B.
About July 1st the Alhambra
was sent to the ways by the under writers for repairs and I
was transferred to the City Belle in the same—
One day we were passing a point between
Clarksville and Louisiana, we came upon the steamer War Eagle
which was also running in the St. Louis trade, lying at the
bank with the forward end of her cabin resting on the shore.
She had run in to tie up during a storm, which proved to be
like a tornado in character with the result as stated.
Captain White, her chief officer, was in the pilot house at
the time and told me that he seemed to be lifted up and went
flying as though the whole boat had suddenly taken wings and
launched herself into the air. They were not much injured and
the cabin was moved bodily backed into the hull. The pilot
house was not materially damaged, aside from the breaking of
glass. |
