A REMARKABLE SPELL OE WE A THER, 161 



ten miles of Topeka the first pointer touched the ground, and the house of John 

 Powell was scattered far and wide. The storm then swept down and licked up 

 the dwelHng of W. L. Frothingham. This house was a frame 25x35 feet, having 

 two sheds attached. The twister lifted the structure from its foundation, Mr. 

 Frothingham, his wife and cousin being in the sitting-room at the time, and car- 

 ried it sixteen feet from the ground down into the valley one hundred and fiftv 

 yards, and dashed it into splinters on the projecting rocks. George Combs' body 

 was found something over fifty yards from the place where the house stood, with 

 a fence stake driven through the back of his head, and that of Mr. Frothingham^ 

 about one hundred yards away, the back of his head crushed in, his left leg crushed, 

 his back broken and his scalp cut at the top of the forehead, and peeled off clean 

 to the back of the neck. His wife was among the shattered ruins, one hundred 

 and fifty yards away, her left arm fractured, skull crushed, and jaw dislocated. 



The other ruins were the house of Mr. Mclntire, one mile east of Topeka ; 

 the house and barn of Mr. Davis, one-half mile further on, and the residence of 

 George C. Parker, from which Lester Parker and Miss Nellie Foote barely escaped 

 with their lives. 



The next work of the cyclone was the destroying of the house of Mr. Keane 

 seven miles east, where the devastation and destruction of property was the most 

 complete. Houses, barns, out- houses and farming machinery of every description 

 were torn to pieces in a way to defy description. The monster took up two horses 

 belonging to Mr. Keane and carried them over the Solomon River, a distance of 

 one hundred and twenty-five feet, and landed them safe and sound on the opposite 

 bank. It also carried a Randolph header weighing 250 pounds into the air some 

 distance; thence passing south by east a distance of five miles. The house of 

 Peter Sullivan was taken at this time. 



John Cleyton was the next victim of the fury. His place is two miles north 

 of Solomon City. His buildings were entirely demolished, his sheep and one 

 horse killed, and his crops totally destroyed. 



After leaving Cleyton's the twister seems to have spent its fury to a great ex- 

 tent. The last of its work was found on the northeast part of Solomon City, where 

 it did considerable damage in a small way to out-houses. A wagon house was 

 unroofed and the wagons raised and left hanging on the top of the two posts twelve 

 feet high. Chickens were divested of their feathers and many of them killed in 

 the eastern part of Solomon City. A large hay press, weighing 6,500 pounds, was 

 raised into the air several feet and deposited upside down. The damage to grow- 

 ing crops was very great. 



FRIDAY, JUNE lOTH. 



A terrific rain storm, accompanied by hail, wind, thunder and lightning, vis- 

 ited Eldorado, Kansas, June loth. The electric display was grand. At one time 

 the clouds that hung over the eastern horizon seemed to be bordered with a fringe 

 of blue and yellow fire. Many people thought that a cyclone was coming, but 



V— 11 



