Re-post from original blog: One of the most catastrophic events in Grayson County’s history was the Sherman tornado of 1896 (a little over a decade after my book manuscript subject, Sallie B. Capps, moved from Sherman to Fort Worth). Though little evidence (Us historians would like more on it) remains on what happened during the tornado and in its immediate aftermath, the surviving records indicate that the high-volume storm rattled the foundations of the county and its close community, and prompted many to move to surrounding areas after their Texas livelihoods and residences were destroyed (photograph on left is the tornado aftermath, Frontier Times Magazine).
After terrible storms in 1860 and 1867, Grayson County suffered from a tornado strike on May 15, 1896. Professor H.L. Piner of Grayson College and resident of Sherman, who would later write an account of the tornado incident titled Sherman’s Black Friday, predicted correctly the day on which the storm would struck Sherman as the old-fashioned meteorological logistics had suggested cyclonic conditions– very high daily temperatures, unusually cool nights and a persistently low barometer. On that day of the storm, the weather was unusually hot and sticky, and the wind could not find a definite direction. The day started out as a usual one, with children running off to class and merchants trying to captivate the attention of potential buyers in the downtown square, before the weather turned to worse in the afternoon.
At 4:45pm the shape of a grey tornado funnel appeared in the plains southwest of Sherman and rapidly moved towards the city in a “gyratory, ricochet, progressive manner.” Within five miles of the city’s limits, the “death-dealing blast of the tornado’s breath” could be heard, frightening local residents and prompting many to take shelter or flee the city on Grayson County’s dirt trails. Families ran to shelters with their children, shopkeepers fled their front counters, and city officials abandoned their elected posts. Fortunately for historians and the specialists who study weather, the wind direction was recorded during this event– the weather cock on the First Presbyterian Church pointed north, while the cock on the Oil Mills five blocks east of the church pointed south. Due to these air differences, the wind swirled in all directions, making it tougher for residents to evacuate the city. It is hard to exaggerate the extent of the force and velocity of the storm, however, some suggest that the progressive movement of the storm had a velocity of 70-100 miles per hour.
The storm viciously attacked the City of Sherman. On the northern side of Sherman, Mary Nash College and North Texas Female College (Capps’s former high school) were both in the direct path of the storm, and though these institutions suffered some damage, their foundations survived as the storm suddenly zigzagged to the west– the 400 schoolgirls, who had clung on to their classmates fearing for the worse, were relieved to find out that Mother Nature had not picked them for death. Lucy Ann Kidd-Key, the director of North Texas Female College, later declared that the prayers of the school’s innocent young women had diverted the path of the storm (an artist’s rendition of a tornado in the Texas countryside, IAGenWeb).
The rest of Sherman was not as lucky as the two prestigious female academic institution. Telephones crackled with electricity, vegetation and dead bodies in the path of the storm blackened (presumably by intense levels of heat), trees flew out of the ground with roots exposed, flower beds and gardens were destroyed, tombstones were scattered, homes were wrecked, wagon tires were ripped from their wheels and scattered in various places around the city, and the Houston Street bridge crumbled under wind pressure. Bodies were later found in the city’s creeks (death by drowning), some were battered to jelly. A Negro woman was found under debris in a creek with water up to her chin. After two white men lifted her from the stream, the woman died from injuries. Many more victims were found in the streets, under piles of leaves, tree trunks, and wood.
Some Sherman individuals were lucky like the schoolgirls and escaped the brutality of the storm. At the beginning of the tornado, the Chisholm family, who lived south of the city cemetery, was safely blown into the basement while their house disintegrated moments after. It was observed that though a nearby house was tossed thirty feet into the air and dropped on the other side of the city, the family inside were all safe when the storm was over (except for several bruises). Miss Mollie Strong reported that she was swept into the air and carried at a height she could not determine for a distance of 900 feet. Others were also saved from the storm (presumably due to luck or faith in prayer).
In the face of danger, heroism was displayed in the Sherman tornado of 1896. One man, who had seen the storm approaching, grasped his baby and crawled underneath his house. After the storm the volunteers could not recognize the limp man as dirt and gravel had pounded his face, however, the child was safe and alive. According to legends and rumors, there were other incidences where parents and guardians sacrificed themselves to protect their loved ones (plaque in Sherman remembering the 1896 storm, Flickr).
Peculiar occurrences also were in the aftermath of the tornado. A splinter was driven through six cans of concentrated lye; a piano was found covered with a carpet and still in good tune; a dead snake was wrapped many times around the limb of a surviving tree; a cabinet phonograph was picked up thirty miles outside of Sherman; and a man with silver in his pockets was swept across town only to be dropped and find that the silver in his pockets had mysteriously disappeared.
After the storm (which lasted on a path totaling 28 miles) and a subsequent downpour, the injured and heart-broken residents of Sherman emerged from their wrecked homes to see their beloved community in pieces. Roads and paths were piled with wood, bricks, and other materials. Whole residence were gone, blown away, leaving many without homes. Sixty-six people were killed by the tornado — twenty-five of these victims were Negro and forty-one were white. Though death was prominent and lingered among many minds in the days after the terrible incident, the Sherman community came together to quash their fears, anger, and sadness, and consoled each other. Sixty men were reported digging graves at one time. Carloads of wooden coffins were shipped in, wagons piled with the dead were a common sight on the roads. Volunteers extracted the bodies from the wreckage, identified the victims, and gradually rebuilt the fallen buildings. Mothers, wives, and sisters picked flowers from the nearby fields to remember their loved ones. Most of the victims were buried in the West Hill Cemetery, where they remain today.
The news of the destruction brought grief to many in the cities around Sherman and in North Texas, and many sent contributions of money and supplies to the devastated community. Moreover, many women in Texas traveled to Sherman to offer their aid as nurses. Willing hands were prominent, and differential factors like race, sex, and social class were forgotten– everyone bonded together. In sum, though the tornado of 1896 was catastrophic for Sherman and parts of Grayson County, the definition of community was prominently defined as the people in this region faced Mother Nature’s wrath with bravery, bonded over fear and sadness, rebuilt their industrial structures, and gradually obliterated the horrific event from their memories (on right, a grainy photograph of a man sitting on the wreckage of his Sherman house, GenDisasters).
**In later years, a poem about the tornado was written by Mrs. Mattie East. This version was taken from a copy found in the papers of Mrs. W.H. Lucas of Sherman. Below:
Sherman Tornado
Kind friends, if you will listen, a story I will tell; ‘Tis of a great tornado, you all remember well. It reached the town of Sherman, the 15th day of May. And a portion of our city, was completely swept away.
We saw the storm approaching, the cloud looked deathly black, and through our little city, it made its dreadful track. We saw the lightening streaming, we heard the thunder roll, it was but the shortest moment; and the story soon was told.
We heard the crash of timber, of buildings tumbling down, distressing screams of victims, oh! what a dreadful sound! It would melt the hardest hearted, to hear them loudly cry, “oh God have mercy on me. Is this my time to die?”
Some sought homes of refuge, their lives to rescue there, while others dashed in cinders, and whirled into despair. The rain it fell in torrents, the storm was quickly o’er; The like of dead and dying, was never here before.
The loss of life and ruins, are hard to estimate. The happiest of families, they had to separate. God help the broken hearted, that yet are left behind, to make their preparation, for soon may be their time.
Soon as the storm was over, the people gathered round, and there the dead and dying, lay prostate on the ground. To render their assistance, so quickly they began, to remove them from their struggle, soon all were taken in.
By aid of kind physicians, we dressed their ghastly wounds, our town has never witnessed, such a horrid afternoon. The good people of our city, you may safely be assured, will nurse the sad afflicted, till health may be restored.
***
For more information about the Grayson County/Sherman Tornado of 1896, read H.L. Piner’s Sherman’s Black Friday.
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