A LIFE RECORD 57 



diary for 1869, he records: " October 4, Saxby gale." 

 From this it appears that Mr. Boardman had read of its 

 prediction in the English newspapers which he received, 

 as Lieut. Saxby had predicted its occurrence ten months 

 before it took place. 



Sidney Perley of Salem, Mass., who published in 1891 

 a volume on the Historic Storms of New England, 

 embracing those from 1635 to 1890, gives a chapter to 

 The Gale of September 8, 1869 but does not allude to 

 the Saxby gale — a storm the like of which never occur- 

 red in the section of countrj^ which it visited, for severit}^ 

 and destruction. 



Writing to Prof. Baird on October 14, 1869, Mr. 

 Boardman says : " Nothing like it ever took place here. 

 It appeared like a whirlwind. It took the roof off my 

 long woodshed, my old store and part of the roof from 

 the barn on the hill. The Universalist church was a 

 perfect wreck ; the railroad bridge over the falls in front 

 of my house fell into the river ; also the covered bridge 

 at Baring. More than one hundred buildings in St. 

 Stephen were ruined, and in our cemetery more than 

 one thousand trees were uprooted and broken. At East- 

 port about forty buildings were destroyed or unroofed, 

 several lives lost and most all the fishing crafts were 

 wrecked. At Eastport and St. Andrews and about the 

 islands the tide was verj^ high and damaged the wharves 

 much. Sixty-seven vessels were ashore — those that went 

 on to soft places came off, many went on to the rocks 

 and were ruined. The blow did not last but about an 

 hour and was heaviest at eight o'clock in the evening. 

 There was very little wind at Bangor and not much at 

 St. John." In a letter to Prof . Baird of October 29, 1869, 



