Weather rambling — July 1880 devestating storm

An optimistic agricultural outlook for the region in July 1880 turned out to be merely a calm before the storm.

“The crops were never looking more finely than before the storm,” The Commercial Advertiser of Sandy Hill, now Hudson Falls, reported on July 21, 1880.

An epic rain, hail, wind and lightning storm on July 18, moving north-westerly to south-westerly, changed everything.

“The largest hail stones we ever saw fell then — bigger ones are reported a little distance from us — one measuring 2 ¾ inches in circumference and 1 ¼ inch in diameter,” the West Kingsbury correspondent reported.

The storm broke many windows in houses, uprooted trees, blew down fences, and toppled a barn that G. Doane owned at the Harris place.

“A horse standing in W. Harden’s barn was deafened — it is supposed by lightening,” the correspondent continued. “All things considered it was the worst storm of the season.”

At Fort Ann, “Slate was torn from the roofs of buildings, chimneys and trees were blown down and windows broken out by the hail. After the storm had cleared away, it looked as though a roller had passed over them.”

At Granville, the storm cancelled the spelling bee that had been planned at Quaker School.

“The trestle-bridge of the Keenan Lime Co., over which the railroad passed to the main line, and thence to the canal, a portion of it was blown from the piers and carried some distance away,” the Smiths Basin correspondent reported.

At Dunham’s Basin, hail stones measure two-to-four inches in diameter.

The local correspondent wrote that it was a wonder that there were no known casualties from the terrorizing storm.

“The electric fluid seemed to fairly hiss as it leaped and flashed through the firmament different places within a radius of two miles.”

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