As if losing the Civil War wasnt tough enough (if you were fortunate enough to survive), you probably then had to walk home. To add insult to injury, in September of 1865 a devastating hurricane hit the mouth of the Sabine River at Orange. Of the 200 homes in Orange at the time, only four were left standing afterward. I could find nothing about damages in Newton County but logic says it had to have been severe. Wonder how many of our ancestors lost their homes to it. Note the track similarity to 2005s Hurricane Rita. From Wikipedia ref 1865 storms - Hurricane Four[edit] Category 2 hurricane (SSHS) Duration September 6 – September 14 Peak intensity 105 mph (165 km/h) (1-min) 969 mbar (hPa) The fourth tropical cyclone of the season, also the longest-lasting, was first observed on September 6 to the east of the Lesser Antilles.[2] A small cyclone, it tracked westward and struck Guadeloupe as a fully developed hurricane. Many residents in the small nearby island of Marie-Galante evacuated to Guadeloupe, but some died in the attempt. In Îles des Saintes, the hurricane destroyed all but two buildings. Damage was similarly heavy in Basse-Terre. The overall death toll was estimated at 300, including 36 on Marie-Galante.[1] After moving through the Lesser Antilles, the hurricane moved through the Caribbean Sea, passing between Jamaica and Haiti and bypassing Cuba to the south. It curved northward in the Gulf of Mexico,[1] moving ashore on September 13 near the border between Texas and Louisiana with an estimated atmospheric pressure of 969 millibars (28.6 inHg).[7] Upon moving ashore, the hurricane produced high tides as far east as the mouth of the Mississippi River, in addition to as far inland as Calcasieu Lake, Louisiana. Three towns were destroyed, causing two of them to be abandoned. Across the state, there were 25 deaths, many of them in Leesburg.[3] In neighboring Texas, damage was greatest in Orange, where 196 homes were destroyed out of the 200 in the town. The hurricane capsized 19 boats in the Sabine River, causing multiple deaths.[8] The hurricane weakened over Louisiana and dissipated over Arkansas on September 14.[5] It was also known as the Sabine River-Lake Calcasieu Storm.[2] From W. T. Block: In 1865, only four of two hundred homes in Orange survived well enough to be repaired, the remainder disintegrating to debris. More than sixty lives were lost in Texas and Louisiana, and 19 of 20 schooners in the harbor, plus Texas largest inland steamboat, the 220-foot, 2,500-bale Florilda, capsized and sank in the Sabine River. Due to one vessels ignoble career in the African slave trade, it was a strange quirk of fate indeed that the only marine survivor in the Sabine River was the ancient schooner Waterwitch. During the 1830s, the schooner hauled slaves along the Texas coast, but during a subsequent gale in the Gulf of Mexico, the Waterwitch was lost with all hands.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 22:52:42 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015