The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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AN APPALLING CALAMITY BY LIGHTNING
By S. C. Turnbo
The following interesting pioneer reminiscences was furnished me by Joshua Baker, who was one of the early residents of Washington County, Ark. which he told in this way.
My father ______ Baker said that Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1837 was a very
small village but was an important trading point for the Indians and white
settlers. The United States arsenal was kept there at that time. Among the
earliest occupants of the village was a man of the name of Brunarige, Steven
K. Stone and an old man of the name of Sutton father of Jim and Seneca Sutton
who were afterward prominent merchants there. Two physicians of the name
of Pollard and Dean were also early residents there. "I remember"
said Mr. Baker, "when the town contained only a few log houses and
religious matters began to take a little shape. A few Presbyterians formed
a small church class. There was no church organization of any kind there
but finally a few of the men and women that belonged to the class become
interested in having a church house built and they bought lumber that had
been sawed with a whip saw by old Jimmie Claridy and his son Wash in the
White River hills east of the village, and built a small house of worship
and they made up money and bought a small bell and belfrey and hung it up
for use and they invited Andy Buckhanon to preach and he carried on a series
of meetings in this house until a small church organization was formed.
But as a rule the people were so desperately wicked that religious matters
progressed very slow. All the preaching and exhortations that Buckhanon
and others could do seem to have but little effect in civilizing the wickedness
existing among the settlers. This went on until one day in 1843 when a violent
thunder storm visited Washington County and Fayetteville in particular.
At the time the thunder cloud was forming a number of gamblers and others
were in Jim Suttons Store and 5 men were playing cards on a table which
stood near the center post in the store building. There was a black smith
shop which stood a short distance from Mr. Suttons store house where a lot
of the men who had come in from the country that day took shelter when the
rain began falling. 5 of the men began to play marbles and bet on the games
and used awful wicked language while they were playing. The same kind of
words was carried on in Suttons Store when a blinding flash of lightning
which was instantly followed by a crashing peal of thunder occurred in Suttons
Store and tore the center post into splinters and killed two of the gamblers
dead without injuring anyone else in the store. Jim Sutton was standing
behind the counter opposite the table around which the gamblers were sitting
and only a few feet from it but strange to say the electrical bolt did not
shock him. Before the news of the disaster had time to get out of the store
building a deafening report of thunder terrified the survivors in Suttons
Store again. A ball of electricity had darted down from the black mass of
angry looking clouds and struck the roof of the black smith shop and penetrated
through the rough clabboards and reached the block of wood the anvil set
on and killed three men dead: the horn of the anvil was found imbedded in
the breast of one of the dead men. The explosion had knocked the anvil off
against the man. Beside the dead in the shop two more men were severely
shocked. These two managed to crawl out of the shop into the rain where
they partially recovered sufficiently to get further away, and one of them
made all the exertions in his power to reach a cellar which he crawled into
and was found in it on the following day in a delirious condition. The other
man was discovered in another part of the village where he had concealed
himself. It seemed as though both of these men had made an effort to hide
themselves from the wrath of God. The excitement following the death of
the 5 men was remarkable and it had the effect to break up the gambling
dens for a while at least and people were not quite so wicked as they were
before."
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