There was a man by the name of Joe Howell who lived south of Hickory Grove who was known by many in the mid-1800s as a teller of tall tales. In telling how rich the lands along Broad River used to be, he said that at one time he decided to plant a cucumber patch along the river. He prepared the land as any good farmer would normally do, and when the time came to plant, he carefully placed the seeds in the ground.
Hardly had he finished planting when the ground began to “work” and he mounted his horse to ride away. He had barely gotten settled onto his horse when he looked back and saw the vines emerge from the ground and grow out in his direction. He urged his horse onward up the hill at full speed, but in spite of all the horse’s efforts, the cucumber vines overtook and entangled them so that they came to a standstill. Reaching into his pocket for his knife to cut himself and the horse free, he said he found a fully grown cucumber.
On another occasion Howell told about when he was employed as a wagoner for the iron works at Cherokee Ford, he drove a team of mules that was so powerful, they could pull 10,092 pounds to the top of a tall hill. He also said that when he would stop midway up the hill to give the team a rest, the lead mule would reach out and take a bush in her teeth to keep the wagon from rolling backwards.
He liked to tell about a time he exchanged the trace chains for rawhide. He said after making the change, he was caught in a rainstorm when the wagon was heavily loaded. Sitting atop one of the mules, he encouraged his team with a lot of whooping and hollering to get them to pull the wagon to the top of a steep hill. Once he arrived on the crest, he looked back, but the wagon was nowhere in sight. It seemed that when the rawhide harness got wet, it stretched, leaving the wagon at the foot of the hill.
With nothing to be done during the drenching rain, Howell dismounted, tied the harness to some trees on the roadside, and he and the mules went home. The next day, the sun came out in its full glory, the rawhide traces dried, and in contracting, drew the loaded wagon to the top of the hill.
The Horrific Storm Of 1859
At 9:00 in the evening of May 20, 1859, black, threatening clouds began gathering over King’s Mountain and moved rapidly southward. As the storm clouds gathered and widened out for a mile and a half, they called in wind, rain, hail, and lightening before it unleashed its full fury onto Western York County. Quickly, the storm stretched to a width of three or four miles, and the roar of its coming destruction was described as “a thousand wagons and teams running away in a crowd.” Lightning was constant, “and the whole heavens appeared to be an intensely burning sheet of flame.”
The fury and destruction of the storm that stretched from Clarks Fork to Hickory Grove, Hopewell, Blairsville, just east of the Bullock’s Creek Church, and into Chester County was swift and sure. Within 30 minutes the land that had been bursting with the verdant shades of spring resembled a winter landscape. A solid sheet of water and hail covered the area. Small branches were suddenly turned into swollen creeks and rivers; rail fences all floated away, scattering the timbers for hundreds of yards over the fields and forest; and the land was washed into gullies. Scarcely a panel of fencing was left in the area.
The hail stripped the foliage from entire forests. Cedars were as bare as any deciduous tree, and needles and bark were so stripped from pine forests that they looked as though they had been swept clean with fire. Wheat was beaten down to stubble by the hail and the straw was pounded into the soil. Corn and cotton suffered the same fate. The storm laid waste the plantations of Reverand R. Y. Russell and Samuel Blair in Blairsville. Many fields were washed away by raging water, and what fields were left looked as though they had never been planted. In the bottomlands and along the creeks, debris was piled as high as a two-story house.
The next day the land looked like it did in the dead of winter. Hailstones the size of quail eggs drifted to the depths of two to four feet. One man told that while riding his horse that was 16 hands high, he could easily pick up a handful without dismounting. Along Bullock’s Creek hail was piled up as high as 15 feet. Three weeks after the storm, Dr. Bond E. Feemster, James Guy, and Doctor William McNeel found hail still lying on the ground.
The hurricane-like winds lifted and carried away nearly every roof from houses, outhouses, barns, stables, and tenant dwellings. Many corncribs, deprived of their roofs, had their contents scattered for hundreds of yards. One farmer told how his wagon, braked and attached to a crib, was driven by the winds for 50 yards and then smashed into another building. Both wagon and building were torn into hundreds of fragments. Another person reported that a rock more than three feet square was carried across a hollow, a distance of 20 yards. A wash pot picked up at a spring was tossed into a nearby field 400 hundred yards away, breaking it into large fragments.
Following the storm many area farmers were faced with rebuilding and cleaning the land as though they were settling a virgin land. Houses, barns, fences, corncribs, and various outbuildings had to be rebuilt. Land had to be cleared, roads reworked, and planting had to begin with little hope of making a crop for the season. The 30 minutes of destruction took years of hard work to restore the land, forests, and farms.
The only deaths reported came from a home near the Chester County line just east of the Bullock’s Creek church. A large, log house was blown down upon its six inhabitants, and an elderly lady, Mrs. Nelly Alberson, was instantly killed. A younger Mrs. Alberson and her six children escaped serious injury; however, her mother, Mrs. Sarah Henderson, suffered a broken leg and a fatal, fractured skull.
There was no way of estimating the damage this storm wreaked upon that section of western York County. It took years for the planters to recover their loss and to restore their farms to their former existence. Since the Civil War began within two years, and men were called from their homes, it is likely much of the work was never accomplished. Decades passed before the land and forests renewed themselves, and perhaps, they still bear some scars from the flooding. No local storm of this destruction has been reported; only Hugo that struck the eastern portion of the county in 1980 is comparable.
J.L. West – Author
This article and many others found on the pages of Roots and Recall, were written by author J.L. West, for the YC Magazine and have been reprinted on R&R, with full permission – not for distribution or reprint!
Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.
Do you have information to share and preserve? Family, school, church, or other older photos and stories are welcome. Send them digitally through the “Share Your Story” link, so they too might be posted on Roots and Recall.
Thanks!
User comments always welcome - please post at the bottom of this page.
Share Your Comments & Feedback: