The Great September Gale (episode 310)

Transcript

Introduction to the Great September Gale

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe. This is episode 310, the great September Gale. Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m talking about a storm. This episode will be released on September 22nd and 209 years ago. Today, the wind was building over the sea off Boston while the skies grew dark with clouds. The next day, the strongest hurricane in generations slammed into the New England coast causing devastation on the harbor and city streets and in fields and forests all around the region. This storm is remembered as the Great September Gale and it had wide ranging effects causing everything from a collapse in the local glass industry to a construction boom to an acceleration in westward migration from Boston and New England.

Jake:
[1:04] But before we talk about the Great September Gale, I just want to pause and say a big thank you to everyone who supports Hub History on Patreon. When I first started this podcast, the research I would do was pretty well minimal. One good Wikipedia page or a magazine article would give me enough of a framework to put together a few minutes worth of material. And that was good enough at the time. Nowadays, I try to be a bit more comprehensive and an episode like this one requires access to both newspaper archives and scholarly papers. That’s why I’m glad that I have paid access to research databases that I couldn’t access in the early days. And that is thanks to our sponsors, Their support means that I can subscribe to needed services like that. Along with paying for web hosting and security podcast, media hosting and all the other expenses that go into making a podcast. To everyone who’s already supporting the show. Thank you. And if you are not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com/hubor or visit hubor.com and click on the support us link and thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

The Calm Before the Storm

Jake:
[2:21] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

Jake:
[2:25] When you picture the Charles River Basin, you probably imagine something like cruise shells carving silent paths across the glassy early morning waters. As joggers navigate the, as joggers navigate the esplanade paths and maybe a few geese and ducks feed in the shallows.

Jake:
[2:43] A storm tossed sea whipped to a foaming frenzy by driving winds. Probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. And yet that’s exactly what Harvard’s highest professor of mathematics. John Farrar describes having seen on the morning of September 23rd, 1815, Charles River raged and foamed like the sea in a storm and the spray was raised to the height of 60 or 100 ft in the form of thin white clouds which were drifted along in a kind of wave like snow in a violent snow storm. I attempted with several others to reach the river, but we are frequently driven back by the force of the wind and we’re obliged to screen ourselves behind fences and trees or to advance obliquely. It was impossible to stand firm in a place exposed to the full force of the wind. While abroad, we found it necessary to keep moving about and in passing from one place to another, we inclined our bodies toward the wind as if we were ascending a steep hill. It was with great difficulty that we could hear each other speak at the distance of two or three yards. The pressure of the wind was like that of a rapid current of water and we moved about almost as awkwardly as those do who attempt to wade in a strong tide.

The Storm’s Fury Unleashed

Jake:
[3:59] Boston of course, gets its share of nor’easter and tropical storms do sometimes make their way to our shores but nobody in Boston in 1815 could remember a storm with as much fury as the Great September Gale.

Jake:
[4:14] In a story published just two days after the storm passed. The Boston gazette reported on September 25th, the melancholy record which it is the melancholy record, which it is our painful duty to make in the subsequent narration shows the occurrence of a storm unprecedented. We believe in the annals of this town or at least there is no one now living who recollects a similar event, either in the violence of the tornado or the destruction that has accompanied its progress.

Jake:
[4:45] Gulf storms had already spawned several hurricanes or tropical storms among the islands of the Caribbean in 1815 and several subtropical Atlantic storms had lashed the east coast of North America during the late summer, the gale that started in late September was stronger than any of the season’s preceding storms. However, an account of the September storms that was published in the November 1815 edition of the North American Review and miscellaneous journal describes the year’s already very active hurricane season. The months of August and September this year produced repeated hurricanes and more extensive disasters at sea than have happened for upwards of 30 years. Many of the islands in the West Indies have been visited by them and a great number of vessels lost particularly at Martinique and Saint Bartholomew, which latter island has encountered two of them at sea. The whole extent from the West Indies along the Gulf stream to the banks of Newfoundland has been swept by successive gales. The shore of the United States has experienced several fresh gales but only two that have done much damage. One on the coast of North Carolina on the third of September, in which many vessels were driven on shore and many buildings unroofed or blown down. The effects of this did not extend beyond the sea coast of that state. The other which happened on the 23rd of September was more violent and destructive.

Jake:
[6:11] David Ludlam’s 1963 early American hurricanes surveys the impact of tropical cyclones on North America from European colonization to 1870. Starting with documented accounts of the September 1815 storm. Ludlam uses the known tracks of later storms to extrapolate the origins of the Great September gale.

Jake:
[6:34] The storm of 1815 was of great stature. It constituted one of a family of severe summer and fall oceanic storms that struck the North American shipping lanes in the first season of peaceful commerce following the conclusion of the war of 1812. And the Napoleonic struggles of definite tropical origin. This most destructive storm of a major hurricane season probably developed in the central Atlantic Ocean close to the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa, a region of warm seas, humid air and frequent squalls where most of the Great September hurricanes have their birth. The first reported landfall in the West Indies came at little Saint Bartholomew and the exposed Leeward Islands group, great destruction to shipping and shore installations occurred there on September 18th spinning northwestward. The storm struck a blow two days later at Turks Island in the extreme southeastern Bahamas north of Hispaniola. Its forward movement at this time was relatively slow as is characteristic of big hurricanes at this stage.

Jake:
[7:41] Today. This larger and more destructive storm is believed to have been a category four hurricane when it impacted British colonists on the Turks and Caicos Islands. And it was still a strong category three when it reached New England. Days later, Bostonians remembered the snow hurricane of 1804 which we discussed back in episode 153.

Jake:
[8:04] That storm caused enormous damage in the city including destroying the steeple at Old North. But most of the devastation in that case was caused by the huge quantity of wet, heavy snow that was driven by the winds of a category two hurricane.

Witnessing the Chaos

Jake:
[8:19] The last time New England encountered a storm with sustained winds. This strong had been nearly 200 years earlier when the great colonial hurricane of 1635 swept across Rhode Island and Massachusetts as a decelerating category four or five storm. However, nobody who is still alive in 1815 could remember a storm with winds as strong as that which arose in Boston and the wee hours of Friday, September 22nd with Sydney Pearly noting in his historic storms of New England, the storm began at three o’clock in the morning of Friday the 22nd when the wind was at the northeast and rain fell copiously until sunrise, shortly after the clouds partly broke away and fair weather seemed about to return during the forenoon. However, the clouds became thicker, the sky darkened and in some sections of New England, rain fell to a considerable amount. In the afternoon, the wind blew with increased force and rain continued to fall in small quantities through the night, The wind was moderate and there was a slight fall of rain.

Jake:
[9:30] Now, one rainy day with a moderate wind doesn’t sound all that bad. But the accountant November’s North American journal explains that this was just the beginning. By the time the sun rose on Saturday, September 23rd, the wind was shifting, strengthening and beginning to rotate around in a cyclonic pattern. With the journal noting at Boston, there was on Friday the 22nd of September, a strong gale from the northeast which increased in violence. On the next day, the wind changing to the east and blowing till about 11 o’clock when it shifted to the southeast and bore a hurricane character of great fury for about two hours between one and two o’clock. It came to the South West and the afternoon was quite mild and pleasant and the atmosphere pure, clear and calm. The edition of the Boston Gazette published on September 25th again two days after the storm confirms this timeline and that’s a few more details.

Jake:
[10:33] The storm commenced on Saturday morning last at four from the east when brisk and heavy showers at nine blew a fresh gale from the east with slight rain at a quarter. Before 11 wind shifted from east to southeast and then south without rain. And by 12 had become a most violent hurricane at 2 p.m. The Gala ad and at six moderate weather. So after Friday’s prelude, the fury of the storm increased on Saturday morning and peaked in the early afternoon with an awareness even then that this must be a hurricane. In his review of colonial hurricanes, David Ludlam concludes that the 1815 storm caused only minor damage in New York City after making first landfall near Sag Harbor at the eastern end of Long Island. Then his article continues, it was not. So in New England rushing almost due north now to speed close to 50 MPH. The great cyclically spinning whirl churned across Long Island Sound in a few short minutes to roar inland east of New Haven and very close to Seabrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River.

Jake:
[11:48] The time of landfall is not known exactly one account stated between eight o’clock and nine o’clock. Our analysis would place the time very close to nine o’clock. Both the river ports of New London and Norwich lay close to the path of the center in the dangerous eastern semicircle where forward momentum of a hurricane is added to maximum wind speeds. Both places had excessive river ties as long as the winds came out of the southeast and south continuing northward at undiminished speed. The eye of the vast storm crossed the plateau of eastern Connecticut and central Massachusetts. Well to the east of Hartford and Springfield, the line of advance lay very close to an axis passing through Seabrook and Willimantic in Connecticut through the Massachusetts settlements of Southbridge and Gardner and into New Hampshire close to Jaffrey in Hillsboro. The peak of the storm passed between Amherst and Worcester in Massachusetts at approximately 1100. The peak of the storm passed between Amherst and Worcester in Massachusetts at approximately 11 o’clock and thence into the hill country of New Hampshire.

Jake:
[12:57] Sidney Perley notes that during the peak of the storm, it was impossible to light a fire in the houses of Boston because the wind in the chimney would immediately blow it out. Modern estimates based on descriptions of the damage say that winds might have been gusting to 100 and 50 miles an hour or higher south of Boston. The peak of the wind hit Providence at high tide, driving water directly up Narragansett Bay and causing a massive 12 ft storm surge that carried ships many blocks into the city, streets, destroying both buildings and shipping and killing dozens.

The Aftermath in Boston

Jake:
[13:34] In comparison, Boston got off relatively lightly as the highest winds hit about two hours before high tide and not from a direction that would have caused a storm surge in Boston Harbor. As noted by the New Hampshire gazette of October 3rd, about 12 o’clock. More than two hours before the calendar time for high water. When the gale from the southeast was at its height, the tide was very high. But after the changing of the wind, it fortunately did not continue to rise, but the force of the wind compelled it to subside earlier than the natural period. After the high wind and salt spray foiled John Farr’s attempt to reach the banks of the Charles. During the height of the storm, the professor returned home and continued making observations from his notes that were later published in a British scientific journal. We can see just how close the storm came to passing directly over Boston. A clear sky was visible in many places during the utmost violence of the tempest and clouds were seen flying with great rapidity in the direction of the wind. The air had an unusual appearance. It was considerably darkened by the excessive agitation and filled with the leaves of trees and other light substances which were raised to a great height and whirled about in eddies instead of being driven directly forward as in a common storm.

Jake:
[14:59] Farrar’s observation that clear sky was visible during the height of the storm. And while the wind was from the south indicates that Boston was hit by the hurricane’s eye wall with the eye of the storm visible just to the west of the city. If Professor Farrar’s observation of the eye of the hurricane passing just west of the city is correct, then the resulting damage followed a pattern that’s since become expected for a cyclonic storm. All northern hemisphere hurricanes rotate in a counterclockwise motion and whatever direction the storm’s moving in the front, right quadrant of the cyclone has the most energy with the highest winds and the most damaging storm surge.

Jake:
[15:40] The left side of a storm tends to have lower wind speeds but can carry massive amounts of rainfall. This is consistent with the damage in September 1815 as the storm moved nearly due north across New England, Western Mass in Vermont were on the west side and the left of the hurricane’s eye where bridges and mills were washed away in the floods that followed the storm’s heavy rains, in Boston and along the Massachusetts coast, high winds would cause the most damage as hinted at by an article in the Colombian register. It appears by accounts from the eastward that the storm raged more severely and that more disasters were sustained by seacoast towns between this and Boston than in any other part of the country. The account of the gale in the North American journal helps confirm the extent of the wind damage caused by the storm. The strength of the wind and its tornado character was principally felt over the range of country between New London and Newbury port. And its greatest intensity between Rhode Island and Worcester in Massachusetts.

Jake:
[16:49] With the benefit of newspaper archives from all over the region. David Ludlam was able to more precisely locate the transition point between heavy rains that caused flooding to the west of the storm and the damaging winds to the east. Writing the line of demarcation between light and heavy destruction in central Massachusetts was noticed by the Albany to Boston post writer in the vicinity of Brimfield about equidistant between Springfield and Worcester on present route 20, from Brimfield to this place. Meaning Boston, there appeared to be one continued scene of devastation and the unroofing of houses upsetting of barns, sheds and other buildings. And in the general prostration of fences, trees, grain, and every description of vegetation.

Jake:
[17:37] The devastation along the sea coast is captured in the September 27th edition of the Hartford Kant which catalogs the destruction done to the ships that were anchored in Boston harbor or tied up at Boston’s wharves. It lists the damage at Long Wharf Union wharf, Hancock’s Wharf, Ros Wharf Lewis Wharf, Russell’s wharf, Fort Hill Wharf Foster’s Wharf and India wharf comprising dozens and dozens of ships in all. As an example, I’ll quote just one of the six different incidents reported from just Battery Warf alone. The new brig Washington of Boston from the eastward with wooden lumber with wooden lumber drove from her anchors in the stream ran afoul of the ship Margaret Ann of Liverpool, nearly loaded for the West Indies lying at the end of Union wharf, part of their fasts, meaning broker dock lines swung around, got foul of the ship, Pacilli of Boston, which was lying at the north side of the wharf which parted her fasts when all three of them drove foul of the Brig Mary at the Battery wharf finally got clear and brought up on the flats near the navy yard in Charlestown. With the exception of the Pacilli whose anchor being let go dragged over the cable of the Constitution frigate. And by that means she was saved.

Jake:
[18:57] The Margaret Ann carried away her bowsprit foremast for top gallant mast, main top mast and main top gallant mast run foul of a US store ship in the stream and injured her hull. The Pacilli had her stern stove in the brig. George Washington had one man drowned, carried away your bowsprit and foremast by the board and filled and so sank.

Jake:
[19:24] So that’s five ships. Six. If you count the US S Constitutions Anchor Cable, they were in a single incident.

Devastation at the Wharves

Jake:
[19:31] So multiply that by dozens of problems at all the different wars and you get some sense of the extent of the damage done to merchant shipping in Boston Harbor with about 60 vessels damaged, but at least we didn’t have ships crashing into houses like down in Providence. The damage was by no means limited the ships on the harbor. The September 25th, Boston gazette describes the damage to homes and businesses on shore in Boston in scenes that would be repeated in many more towns and villages along the coast.

Jake:
[20:04] The effects of this storm though restricted in its utmost violence to a few hours were sensibly felt by the inhabitants of Boston in the course of its ravages. Every building in town, however situated, experienced more or less damage. Many of them being unroofed, their chimneys, battlements and balustrades blown down and windows broken the tiles, bricks and lumber were hurled through the air in every direction and rendered the passages of the streets extremely dangerous. The trees, fences, sheds and other wooden outbuildings exposed to the blast were almost entirely demolished. The uproar and confusion was terrific and appalling in the extreme and defies any adequate description of the fearful apprehension that pervaded every breast during the afflicting scene.

Jake:
[20:55] One of the houses that had its battlements and balustrades blown down belonged to Abii homes, father of physician, poet and publisher Oliver Wendell Holmes, Holmes witnessed the storm as a boy of seven years and captured his memories in an essay. Decades later, I have besides more specific recollections, a general remaining impression of a mighty howling, roaring, banging and crashing with much running about and loud screaming of orders for sudden taking in of all sale about the premises and battening down of everything that could flap or fly away. The top railing of our old gambrel roofed house could not be taken in and it tried an aeronautic excursion as I remember.

Jake:
[21:41] That level of damage isn’t too surprising recall. If you will, the mess that Hurricane Bob made out of the Cap and Islands back in the nineties. Even here in Boston, we had to put a new roof on our house after Hurricane Earl in 2010 and that one passed us over 100 miles offshore. In his 1871 book, a topographical and historical description of Boston. Nathaniel Shurtliff describes the effects of the 1815 hurricane on Boston’s public buildings.

Jake:
[22:13] The damage to buildings was exceedingly great. Several of the chimneys of the statehouse were upset as were also about 60 others in different parts of the town. The steeples of the old South Hollis Street, Charles Street, Baptist and Park Street meeting houses were much injured and barely escaped being blown down. The roofs of several buildings were taken off and a great destruction of slates and window glass ensued from the violence of the gale. One building was entirely blown down and burned the old wooden glass house in Essex Street and the shipping in the harbor and at the wharves was very much injured.

Jake:
[22:53] The glass house that was blown down and burnt refers to the factory, the Boston Crown glass Company, which was the second attempt to manufacture glass in the Boston area. Longtime listeners will recall our episode number 279 about the construction of King’s Chapel when we discussed the glass works set up by Bin’s brother John Franklin and John Quincy at the mouth of the town of Quincy’s four river, staffed by German immigrants. The area around the glass works came to be known as Germantown. However, the Quincy glass works could only make green tinted window glass in small panes, pure clear or white glass in larger sheets, which was known as crown glass still had to be imported from England. An 1899 retrospective on the Massachusetts glass industry records how Thomas Hancock sent away to London in July 1737 to order the glazing for the lavish Beacon Hill mansion that his nephew John eventually inherited. Requesting three 180 squares of best London crown glass all cut exactly 18 inches long and 11.5 inches wide of a suitable thickness to the largeness of the glass free from blisters. And by all means, be careful, it don’t wind or war.

Jake:
[24:15] During the 17 sixties, window glass was subject to one of the taxes that American colonists called intolerable. And then of course, imports became impossible during the American revolution, creating a pin up demand for locally produced glass. After the war. To that end, the state legislature granted the new Boston Crown Glass Company a 15 year exclusive charter on glass making in the Commonwealth on July 6th, 1787. Though production didn’t get underway until 1793 due to a delay when their first furnace proved ineffective and it had to be completely taken down and rebuilt in the 1899 article. The glass works are described as being at the foot of Essex Street, which if my historical map reading is correct, puts them very close to the ventilation

The Glass Industry’s Collapse

Jake:
[25:05] stack from the expressway tunnel near the corner of surface road in Essex. Today, they’re also described as being built out of wood and lined with brick 100 ft long and 60 ft wide.

Jake:
[25:19] That wood construction would prove to be their undoing. But before the storm hit, Boston crown glass was in a boom time. The war of 1812 had meant that silica sand and red lead, which were the key components of crown glass couldn’t be imported. Now, with the war over, the key ingredients were pouring in and the company was switching over to a new manufacturing process using flint that wouldn’t rely as heavily on imports in the future. This new flint glass process will be manufactured in a new factory in South Boston. And the Great September gale accelerated the transition.

Jake:
[25:58] The Boston evening gazette from the day of the storm gives us the fate of the Essex Street factory in Boston. The effects of the tornado were very alarming and afflict roofs, chimneys, battlements, railings, turrets, windows, blinds, slate signs, sheds trees, branches, fences, et cetera were continually scattered and hurled with astonishing velocity in all parts of the town. The noise and confusion which was created may well be imagined. We shall not attempt the description further than to remark that both fear and horror were universally excited. During the height of the tornado, there was a deep cry of fire. It proceeded from the glass house. The wooden building had been blown in upon the furnaces which set it ablaze. We learned that several persons were much injured by the fall of the building. And a report says the truth or falsity of which we have not had time to ascertain, several were killed.

Jake:
[27:02] I’m not sure that that early report of several people being killed in the glass house fire is accurate as the new Hampshire gazette later reported on October 3rd, the only building entirely demolished is the glass house. It was a huge rickety wooden building and was considered so unsafe that it was early deserted by the workmen. It blew down. About 11 o’clock immediately took fire and was entirely consumed. Notwithstanding the violence of the wind at the time which excited just apprehensions for the safety of the town. Such were the exertions used to repress the flames that the neighboring buildings were preserved.

Jake:
[27:44] Whether in a city or in a forest, wind driven flames can quickly become uncontrollable but somehow Boston avoided that fate perhaps because of the accompanying heavy rain. So, while damage was widespread and the glass house was a total loss. Boston avoided a great fire that could have destroyed huge swaths of the city, as the largest city in the region. Boston sustained the most damage to homes and businesses but the surrounding towns didn’t escape unscathed. Coverage of the storm in the September 25th. Boston gazette included a report on the damage in the neighboring rural town of Roxbury.

Jake:
[28:24] On the north side, the stacks of salt hay are principally blown down and scattered in the wind. On the south side, the factories and stores, barns and sheds belonging to a Davison company are very much damaged, several chimneys and about 200 ft of shed blown down a large new barn having within it, 40 tons of hay and several horses was moved from its foundation 5 ft, and an immense number of other buildings, fruit trees, et cetera throughout the town are destroyed. The East Meeting House was partially unroofed and many houses much damaged in that vicinity, as we move outward from downtown Boston in the harbor, the nature of the damage

The Impact on Surrounding Towns

Jake:
[29:09] shifts from factories, wharves and churches to crops and trees. The October 3rd, New Hampshire gazette takes us from Roxbury to Dorchester next door in Dorchester. The devastation was unparalleled since its settlement, 17 houses were unroofed. 60 chimneys blown over about 40 barns unroofed and demolished. Upwards of 5000 fruit and forest trees were prostrated. The South meeting house partly unroofed and the north meeting house much injured.

Jake:
[29:42] In an 1891 history titled Good Old Dorchester. William Dana Orcutt says that the damage to the north meeting house was severe enough that the congregation had to replace it with a cornerstone being laid the following may, or also describes the fate of the original bridge at Dorchester Lower Mills that joined the independent town of Dorchester to Milton. In 1815, there was a great gale which destroyed the arch of the bridge over the Neponset river. This arch was erected over the bridge at the dividing line of the towns in 1798 to commemorate the ratification of Jay’s treaty. The inscription on it in letters of gold read, we unite in defense of our country and its laws. 1798 this bridge had been built by the towns of Dorchester and Milton in 1765 the former town building, the two northern sluices covering them with stone and the latter town, the southern sluice, the expensive building, the two large ones and the wooden bridge was equally shared by the two towns, on the other side of Boston, the Cambridge port neighborhood that was recently featured in our episode about the origin of the modern pipe wrench lay barely above sea level and that was shot through with canals.

Jake:
[31:02] When the hurricane winds struck, a schooner was carried up on the shore and deposited in the middle of main street. The post storm coverage in the gazette describes the other problems in the port as well as surveying the scene and further flung locales.

Jake:
[31:19] And Cambridgeport were told the destruction was the greatest. The two dwelling houses of Mister My Hall and some others contiguously situated were blown down and scattered in ruins, that 40 other valuable buildings were unroofed and otherwise much damaged. And that scarcely a chimney tree or fence has survived this dreadful storm on the road to Dedham. Milton and Quincy. The barns, trees and fences are generally prostrate and the houses exhibiting marks of devastation on Jamaica plains. The damage has been great in the total destruction of houses, barns, fences and fruit trees in Weymouth, Quincy, et cetera. They found a similar scene of destruction and the fields covered with people assisting in preserving the fruit and replanting such of the trees as were thought capable of preservation.

Jake:
[32:14] Besides the damage, the ships wharves, churches and industries, the great September gale had profound effects of the natural world. If you’ve ever seen the grass along the sidewalk turn black in the spring after somebody heavily salted during the winter, you’ve seen one of the issues caused by the storm after witnessing the salt spray billowing off the white crested waves on the Charles. Professor Farrar noted that it was observed. Soon after that, a singular effect had been produced upon the leaves of vegetables near the seacoast. Their vitality was destroyed and they exhibited an appearance similar to that which is produced by a frost except that they retain more of their original color. And in some instances, they assumed a darker hue. This was ascribed to the spray from the salt water which was known to have extended many miles into the country. From the circumstance of window glass being covered with a thin coat of salt.

Jake:
[33:11] In early American hurricanes. David Ludlam describes how the salt spray that Professor Farrar saw frosting windows and killing plants settled on the countryside far from the coast. Practically all accounts from southeastern New England made mention of the salty flavor of the rain.

Effects on the Natural World

Jake:
[33:30] This was noticed as far inland as Worcester where grapes were said to have a salt taste and windows to have lost their transparency. The air seemed impregnated with saline particles quite perceptible to the taste, houses took on a whitish appearance, leaves of trees turned white as if frosted and then became black as the froth and spray of the Atlantic Ocean was carried through the New England atmosphere.

Jake:
[33:57] The North American journal carried a report on the same effect as well as the prevalence of seabirds that were carried far inland. The air was hot and suffocating at intervals during the time that the wind came from the south and southeast. The atmosphere was filled with the saltwater which was taken up and dispersed into mist by the force of the wind. This salt mist was left upon objects at a distance of 40 miles from the sea. So as to be perceptible to the taste, large numbers of gulls and seabirds were also carried to the same distance. And it was said in one place that an immense flock of white headed eagles and hen hawks amounting to thousands passed over towards the westward the day preceding the hurricane.

Jake:
[34:44] Now, I’m not quite sure whether to believe that an unusual concentration of thousands of red tailed hawks and bald eagles descended on central mass the Friday before the storm. But we did hear that there was a strong wind from the northeast that day. Certainly on the day after the storm, it would make sense for offshore species to show up inland Nathaniel Shurtliff history of Boston says, sea birds were driven in quantities 40 or more miles inward from the sea and sea swallows, commonly known as Mother Carey’s chickens were seen in the vicinity of the wharves. A circumstance never before known as they are rarely seen within several leagues of land. Their home being upon the deep waters of the ocean sea swallows or mother carries chickens or petrels, which would otherwise be very unusual to find on land at all. Much less hanging out along the waterfront.

Jake:
[35:44] Of course, the storm strong enough to blow a petrol to Boston Harbor was gonna be strong enough to wreak havoc on New England’s trees. Professor Farrar’s account of the storm and its effects, notes the impact on orchards and forests in the immediate vicinity of Boston. Many old buildings and such as were slightly built are particularly exposed, were blown down. Great numbers were unroofed or otherwise injured. Few entirely escaped. The greatest destruction took place among trees. Our orchards and forests exhibited a scene of desolation which has never been witnessed before to such an extent in this country.

Jake:
[36:26] The roads in many places were rendered impassable, not only through the woods but in the more cultivated towns where they happened to be lined with trees. Many of the streets in Boston and the neighboring towns were strewed with the ornaments of our finest gardens and fruit yards. A considerable proportion of the large and beautiful trees in Boston Mall and in the public walk near the granary burying ground, several of which measured from 8 to 12 ft in circumference were torn up by the roots and prostrated, apple trees being separated at a considerable distance from each other were overturned in great numbers. It was computed at the time that no less than 5000 were blown down in the town of Dorchester alone. Roxbury had long been known as a major center for apple orchards. Man. Dorchester wasn’t that far behind between the salt spray and the wind damage. There wouldn’t be much of a Massachusetts apple harvest that year in an essay about the changing of the seasons that was published decades later, Oliver Wendell Holmes senior recalls his experience of the storm as a seven year old in Cambridge and his memory of the gale was bound to apples.

Jake:
[37:39] Do you know dear reader that I can remember the great September gale of 1815 as if it had blown yesterday. What do you think is really independent of all imaginative, poetical statements? The first image which presents itself to my recollection at this moment connected with the September gale.

Personal Memories of the Gale

Jake:
[37:58] Boys are boys and apples are apples. I can see the large Rhode Island Greenings promise of many a coming banquet strewed under the tree that used to stand in the garden. These are what I’m really thinking of. They lie strewed about on the floor of my memory at this very instant of time just as they lay beneath the tree on the 23rd of September 1815.

Jake:
[38:24] Before the essay Holmes also recorded his memory of the storm in an 1836 poem called the September Gale. The last time I quoted a poem from Doctor Holmes on the podcast was episode 177. And that time it was a truly terrible verse about Long Wolf. The September Gale is a better poem though. It does wander a bit thematically. The middle stanzas go. It came as quarrels sometimes do when married folks get clashing. There was a heavy sigh or two before the fire was flashing a little stir among the clouds before they went asunder a little rocking of the trees and then came on the thunder. Lord, how the ponds and rivers boiled. They seemed like bursting craters and oaks lay scattered on the ground as if they were potatoes and all above was in a howl and all below a clatter. The earth was like a frying pan or some such hissing matter.

Jake:
[39:31] Then he diverts into a long reflection on his favorite pair of Sunday breeches that had been hanging to dry and blew away in the storm. Of course, apples weren’t the only trees that were destroyed by the gale before Tremont street was widened to accommodate increasing street car and then automobile traffic. It was lined with stately elm trees in front of the granary burying ground. The grand canopies of these elms made spectacular sales when the hurricane came with Shurtleff’s topographical and historical description of Boston. Noting we are told that the most impressive scene was exhibited on the common and its immediate vicinity. Many of the old and stately trees which formed the old mall and skirted, the common were torn up by their roots and prostrated, carrying the fences with them. And several of the large elms of Paddock’s Mall shared the same fate, overturning a portion of the brick wall of the burying ground. One of the trees of the old mall measured then 7 ft and 11 inches in girth. The sycamores and elms fared alike. The trees which suffered the most run the westerly road at the north part of the mall and several were opposite the statehouse.

Jake:
[40:48] It is remarkable that the older trees on the outside of the mall which had been planted more than 80 years withstood the tempest comparatively unharmed. While those in the most leeward row which were of younger growth were prostrated. The wind at the time of its greatest violence coming from a south easterly point, in a short time, the trees were trimmed and raised to their places and though they made a sad appearance, the remainder of the year, most of them lived and have endured several hard blows since.

Jake:
[41:20] And an editor’s note will point out that they did not endure Dutch elm disease. Sidney Perley notes the arboreal impact of the storm on crops beyond fruit and ornamental trees. The law and timber trees was exceedingly great. And in order to save as much as they possibly could from the ruins of their forests, the owners had the log sawed into lumber with which they constructed houses, barns and other buildings. Probably New England never knew another season of such building activity as prevailed in 1817 and 1818, the logs having been sawed in the winter of 1815 to 1816 and the lumber season during the following summer, had the storm occurred a little earlier when there was so much more corn and grain in the fields. It would have produced a great deal more suffering as it was. Besides the great quantity of hay that had been gathered into barns and was now scattered to the winds. Much of the apple crop was ruined and also corn and grain. At least some good could come of the destruction of forests and orchards across the region with a mini building boom following in the years after the storm.

Jake:
[42:35] Based on eight years of meteorological observations that he had carefully recorded since joining the Harvard Faculty as Hollis Professor of Mathematics. And based on his observation of the shifting winds throughout the storm on September 23rd. And in this close reading of accounts of the storm from up and down the coast, John Farrar reached a novel conclusion. In his description of the storm. He wrote, it appears to have been a moving vortex and not the rushing forward of the great body of the atmosphere.

Jake:
[43:08] Today. Of course, it’s easy to see that hurricanes are cyclonic storms whenever we look at a satellite image of a giant spiral cloud moving up, the, whenever you look at a satellite image of one of those giant spiral clouds moving up the coast, that was not an accepted idea in Farrar’s time as a blog post from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the 2/100 anniversary of the storm points out, the prevailing assumption of the time held that hurricanes were great forward straight line surges of wind that originated in the tropics and came rushing northward until they encountered land and then blew themselves out. Farrar’s notion of a moving vortex would not become fully accepted until nearly 20 years later. With the publishing of a paper by William Redfield, modern meteorologists believe that the Great September gale was a category three hurricane, one of only a handful to ever hit New England before they were downgraded.

A Lasting Legacy of Destruction

Jake:
[44:10] It followed almost the same track as the hurricanes of 1635 and 1938. With the latter being the most destructive to property and human life ever experienced in the region.

Jake:
[44:22] The port of Boston was repaired quickly and merchant shipping recovered just as quickly. But the devastation that the gale brought to New England agriculture was just the beginning. The apples and other fruit trees were a complete write off in 1815 but most of the livestock and a fair amount of the grain in New England fields had survived the storm. The next year, things would get even worse when Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted in a giant volcano in April 1815. Its explosive power was so great that it ejected nearly nine cubic miles of dust into the stratosphere. This cloud of pulverized rock dimmed the sun’s power all over the world. And 1816 would be known as the year without a summer that spring, the ice in rivers and lakes didn’t break up until July and there was snow in June from Albany to Maine. There wasn’t a month without a hard killing frost in all the New England states devastating grain and vegetable crops across the entire region. Farms failed and food prices in Boston skyrocketed, encouraging the start of a second great migration. As New England farm families took their chances in Ohio, Indiana and the New Illinois territory.

Jake:
[45:47] To learn more about Boston and the great September Gale. Check out this week’s show notes at hubor.com/three 10. I’ll have links to Harvard, Professor John Farrar’s account of the gale. The account that appeared in the North American review and journal and news reports from the Boston gazette, Hartford, Kant and New Hampshire gazette. I’ll also link to Nathaniel Bradstreet Shirt Lift’s topographical and historical description of Boston Sydney. Pearly’s historic storms of New England and Good Old Dorchester by William Dana or David M Ludlam’s early American hurricanes provides important context. And the poem and essay from the elder Oliver Wendell Holmes allows us to see the storm through the eyes of a seven year old boy.

Jake:
[46:36] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubor.com. We’re Hub history on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and I’ve been active on Twitter for the first time in ages. If you’re on Mastodon, you can find me as at Hubor at better dot Boston, or you can go to hubor.com and click on the contact us link while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review, if you do drop us a line and I’ll send you a Hub three sticker as a token of appreciation.

Jake:
[47:18] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners, to add a personal postscript to this episode. As I record this, I’ll be departing for the Gulf coast in five days which will be at the very height of the annual hurricane season. I just looked at Jim Cantor’s Twitter and he says that there are five storms to watch in the Atlantic and Gulf right now, but none of them are expected to develop into much so cross your fingers for me. Ok.