"Utter Devastation Everywhere You Looked"

 

Just published (this past May), The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes in Indiana by Janis Thornton (Charleston, S.C.:  The History Press, 2022) features eyewitness and published accounts, photographs, and official weather reports and records detailing the appalling destruction that claimed some 137 Hoosier lives on April 11, 1965.  If you or your family or friends experienced this horror, this book will stir poignant memories.  It certainly did for me.

 

 MPL Book Trailer 813

I was an eyewitness to some of the devastation, although my immediate family was spared.  I was nearly seven years old the night of the terrible thunderstorms.  About 20 miles south of my hometown, Lafayette, tornadoes tore through the tiny farming community of Odell, where my parents later owned farmland that had been struck by the twisters.  We lived on the south side of Lafayette.   Around 7 p.m. golfball-sized hail struck our house, denting our siding.  Tornado warnings were issued on the radio, so my family fled to our basement, huddling in a corner next to the furnace.  We were fortunate not to have been in the tornadoes' paths, but several extended family members in Howard County were not so lucky.  The tornadoes passed directly through their farms and neighborhoods.

As news of the ravaged communities came in across radio and television, we repeatedly attempted to contact my paternal grandparents, who lived southeast of Greentown where tornadoes had been reported to have tracked.  The telephone lines were down, so the next day we decided to drive our 1963 Dodge motor home to my grandparents' home in case it had been reduced to rubble.

We drove east on State Road 26, encountering a trail of damaged homes and businesses in Rossville and Middlefork.  When we reached Russiaville, the Indiana State Police and the Indiana National Guard had setup roadblocks to  detour vehicular traffic.  Seeing our red-and-white bus suggested that we must have been from the Red Cross, so police and soldiers opened their barracades to allow our vehicle to pass.

As we drove through Russiaville, houses and buildings had been wiped off the face of the earth.  In many cases, nothing was left but foundations or concrete slabs.  Debris was littered everywhere, making it difficult to navigate through town along the roads.  It looked like a war zone.  It was utter devastation everywhere you looked.  The memory of this absolute annihilation has stayed with me for nearly sixty years.

Driving through Kokomo, we checked with an aunt and uncle (and cousins) who lived just west of town.  Their house had had minor damage, and fortunately no one was hurt.  So we proceeded east to Greentown, my father's hometown.  The area south of town was a checkerboard of destruction.  Some homes and businesses were only mildly affected; others were absolutely obliterated.  Eastern High School was ripped apart.

Driving down my grandparents' county road just east of Greentown was a nightmare.  Almost every house or barn was mutilated, and many were simply blown to smithereens.  The house about 200 feet north of my grandparents' farm was so heavily damaged that it was unrecognizable.  My grandparents' home, however, lost only three shingles, and their barn and outbuildings were more or less untouched.  The arbitrariness of the injury seemed capricious, even to my nearly seven-year-old sensibilities.  So many had lost so much.  It was heartwrenching, but I was nonetheless overjoyed that my grandparents had been spared.

Janis Thornton has assembled an impressive collection of stories about this fateful day when so many suffered such unthinkable loss.  We can, however, take this positive message from the events of Palm Sunday 1965:  people came together to help their neighbors, and communities rebuilt and unified, sharing each others' strength.  For those who weren't there, it will be a riveting read; for those who lived it, the book is a testament to the best people have to offer in times of crisis, and it honors the dead, injured, and affected families by preserving an important historical event.  Terrible things can happen in life, but it is reassuring that helping hands arrive when the need is greatest to aid in the recovery.

Mooresville's Great Fire of 1842 (Mooresville Moments #16)

Learn about the Great Fire of 1842 that consumed nearly all of Mooresville, Indiana, and the amazing acts of generosity that assured the town's resurrection.

Mooresville's Great Fire of 1842

(Mooresville Moments #16)

by Mooresville Public Library

The fire occurred on Tuesday night, November 22, 1842.  According to the New York Tribune, the blaze began in the home of James G. Slocum, in which an unidentified woman and three unidentified children were sleeping, and all four tragically died in the inferno.  Slocum was apparently away at the time.

The New York Tribune, Friday, December 16, 1842, page 2

(Click images to enlarge)

The New York Tribune article was repeated verbatim in several newspapers, including the following:

The Schenectady (N.Y.) Cabinet, Tuesday, December 20, 1842, page 2

 The Boston (MA) Trumpet and Universalist Magazine, Saturday, December 24, 1842, page 3

The Montpelier (VT) Watchman, Friday, December 23, 1842, page 3

The New York Spectator, Wednesday, December 28, 1842, page 46

The identification of Slocum's residence as the start of the conflagration is an amazingly precise detail for a New York City newspaper to relate about a small Indiana village, especially when one considers the following:

• Mooresville historian Clara S. Richardson stated that the 1842 fire was "of unknown origin," and she does not mention the Slocums nor any deaths from the fire (page 24 of A Brief History of Mooresville, Indiana, 1824-1974.  [1974].  Mooresville, IN: Dickinson Publishing Company--available online here);

• No one named Slocum (or with variant spellings, such as Slocumb or Slocom) is buried in any cemeteries in Morgan County, Indiana;

• No one named Slocum (or with variant spellings, such as Slocumb or Slocom) was listed as living in Mooresville or Morgan County, Indiana, in the 1840 Federal Census, although a James Slocumb was shown to reside in Monroe County, Indiana in the 1840 and 1850 Federal Censuses and was extensively discussed (spelled as both Slocumb and Slocum) in Charles Blanchard's 1884 historical and biographical sketches of Morgan, Monroe, and Brown Counties (available online here). 

• No one named Slocum (or with variant spellings, such as Slocumb or Slocom) was mentioned in Almira Harvey Hadley's A Brief History of Mooresville and Vicinity (1918) (available online here) or in Margaret W. Fogleman's Early Mooresville (1884) (available online here) or in John Matthews' Ye Early Pioneers (1875) (available online here) or in The Pioneers of Morgan County:  Memoirs of Noah J. Major (1915) (available to checkout from Mooresville Public Library).

So, did the 1842 fire start in James Slocum's home and kill four people?  There is no local evidence to support the New York Tribune's claim, but it can't be completely ruled out.  The deceased woman and children could have had a different surname (or surnames) than Slocum, and they might have been visiting from another community (to which their remains could have been returned and interred).  Thus, looking for Slocums in the county cemeteries or federal censuses would not have identified the fire victims, if they were not named Slocum or came from out-of-town.  Nonetheless, the absence of James G. Slocum from the local historical record and U.S. censuses weighs against the Tribune's account, as does the paper's failure to identify the victims.

Let's quote from Clara Richardson's Mooresville history:

"In 1842 a fire of unknown origin hit Mooresville.  Before the fire, there were eleven stores and houses in this wooded area; next morning only the Moore Store and house were left.  Trees were cut, burned, houses and shops were deliberately torn apart to try to check the blaze on both sides of the street.  Work to construct new homes and stores started immediately, so the story goes."  (Page 24 of A Brief History of Mooresville, Indiana, 1824-1974.  [1974].  Mooresville, IN: Dickinson Publishing Company--available online here).

Quoting from Margaret W. Fogleman's Early Mooresville:

"About 1842 Mooresville was visited by the greatest fire it has ever known.  Beginning with Pa's [Samuel Moore's] store there were ten houses and shops before the fire.  Next morning there was Pa's store and our house left.  The Dr's [doctor's] shop at the west and a dwelling house at the east were torn down to check the fire."   (Early Mooresville [1884] [available online here]).  Margaret Fogleman was the daughter of town founder Samuel Moore (and his wife, Eliza Moore).

I'm inclined to give the local sources greater credence than the New York Tribune's account.  Perhaps Horace Greeley's reporters enlivened the tale to make for more interesting reading.  Clearly, the eastern newspapers that reprinted the story didn't check the facts further.

During December 1842 news of the Mooresville catastrophe was related in several papers across the United States as well as one in England (click images below to enlarge).

 

The Bristol (England) Mercury & Daily Post, Saturday, 31 December 1842, page 4

The Philadelphia (PA) Saturday Courier, December 17, 1842, page 3,

reprinting the Iowa mistake from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (see below)
 

 

The Brooklyn (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, Monday, December 12, 1842, page 2,

which incorrectly placed Mooresville in Iowa 

 The Charleston (S.C.) Mercury, Tuesday, December 13, 1842, page 2,

 reprinting the Iowa mistake from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (see above)

 The New York Tribune, Thursday, December 15, 1842, page 1

 

The Niles National Register, St. Louis, Missouri, Saturday, December 17, 1842, page 16

Some of the accounts quoted the original story that appeared in the Indiana State Sentinel, November 29, 1842, without adjusting for the time delay in printing.  For instance, the New York Tribune on December 15, 1842, incorrectly stated that the fire took place "Tuesday night of last week," which would have been December 6, two weeks after it happened.  This mistake was repeated in the Charleston (S.C.) Mercury, The Philadelphia (PA) Saturday Courier, and the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Daily Eagle.   The Niles National Register was only a week off (reporting November 29 as the fire date, when it was actually the Tuesday before, November 22).

Indiana State Sentinel, November 29, 1842

The fire consumed nearly all of the town, sparing only Samuel Moore's general store and residence on the northeast corner of Main and Indiana Streets in downtown Mooresville.  Moore supplied lumber and labor free-of-charge to help citizens rebuild their homes and businesses.