Hagerstown, Indiana Tornado
March 11, 1917
Richmond, Ind., March 12.-- Two
children were killed and a man fatally injured
Sunday afternoon in western Wayne county, when
the tornado that swept
Newcastle
traveled southeast toward Hagerstown, sixteen
miles west of Richmond. The home of
Ernest
Gray was wrecked and two of his four children
killed. Gray and the surviving children
were not seriously hurt.
Olan Smith, a farmer, stepped from his door
to watch the approaching storm and was caught in
the revolving air shaft, carried nearly 150 feet
and dropped in a pond. He will die from
his injuries. A dozen farm houses and
barns were destroyed.
The Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN 12 Mar 1917
Richmond, Ind., March 12. -- The death toll of yesterday's tornado in
Wayne county was increased to four early today when it became known that two
unidentified laborers on the farm of Clint Milliken, near Hagerstown, had been
killed. The two
 children,
aged 3 and 5, of Harvey Gray, a farmer of the same neighborhood were reported
killed last night. Ora Smith, a farmer, who was hurled 100 feet through
the air, dropping in a pond, sustaining a broken back, was not expected to live.
Hagerstown is sixteen miles west of Richmond and the storm that struck there
is believed to have been the same on that wrought such havoc at
Newcastle. The roads south and
west of Hagerstown were blocked with fallen trees and telephone poles and wires
an it was hard to get information from the stricken section. A number of
farm houses were wrecked and the damage will run into thousands of dollars.
The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, IN 12 Mar 1917
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