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LANCASTER COUNTY. 369' 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Hail storm — Proceedings, &c. by the citizens of Lancaster county touching 

 the usurpation of Parliament, in Great Britain — Letter from the commit" 

 tee of correspondence at Philadelphia — Meeting at the court house in 

 Lancaster — Copy of a circular letter from Philadelphia — Meeting called 

 at Lancaster — Subscriptions opened for the relief of the suffering Bosto- 

 nians — Letters from Philadelphia — Meeting called to be held at Lancas- 

 ter — Committees appointed— Meeting held — Letter from Reading — 

 Meeting of the committee of inspection, &c. — Committee men from differ- 

 ent townships meet at Lancaster — Their proceedings, &c. &c. 



Nothing of thrilling interest appears in the annals of 

 this county from the close of Indian incursions, to the 

 time when the indignation of the colonists was generally 

 excited by the attempted oppressions on the part of the 

 mother country. There are, nevertheless, a few things 

 we deem worthy of notice. 



In 1768, in the month of June, Lancaster county was 

 visited by a dreadful hail-storm. A writer in the Penn- 

 sylvania Chronicle, of June, 1768, says, ^'I now sit 

 down,'^ in Avriting to the Editor, '^ under the shade of a 

 friendly oak in the country, in order to give you some 

 account of the late dreadful storm here, the effects of 

 which, I have taken pains to examine, having rid several 

 miles for that purpose. 



" On Friday, the 17th inst. about ,2 o'clock P. M. the 

 sky was overspread with flying clouds, apparently 

 charged with heavy rain. The wind blew pretty fresh 

 from the south-east, and thickened the clouds in the op- 

 posite quarter ; so that about 4 o'clock there was dark- 

 ness visible in the north-west attended with distant rum- 

 bling thunder, and now and then with a small gleam of 

 lightning, without any explosions. The clouds deepened 



