DREADFUL DISASTER – FIVE PERSONS KILLED AND 200 WOUNDED.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 773, 7 February 1871, Page 3

DREADFUL DISASTER - FIVE PERSONS KILLED AND 200 WOUNDED.

The following is an account of a terrible disaster which occurred at Kingston, New York, a town on the Hudson River. One of those wandering eircus shows that travel about America, and beneath a huge tent give exhibitions of mountebanks, jugglery, and horse-back riding, established itself at Kingston, and announced a performance for the evening. About 1500 persons crowded into the tent to see the show, which had scarcely begun when a violent thunderstorm broke over the town. Near the large tent was a smaller one, used as a booth for the sale of fruit, &c, and a willow tree spread almost over it, crowds of people having gathered in this smaller tent and under the tree for protection from the rain. Peals of thunder almost drowned the voice of the ring-master, and torrents of rain poured down, when suddenly a blinding sheet of flame lit up the scene, and an overwhelming thunder-clap suddenly followed. The circus people, after severe exertion, got the audience to keep their seats. Outside the tent the lightning bad done its fearful work. The shaft had struck the large tent, cutting a hole 12 feet square through the canvas at the top; had passed more miraculously over the heads of the frightened audience, and thence across an open

space of about 40 yards to the willow tree; and then to the ground, shattering the iree and the smaller tent under it. Here it killed a horse tied to the tree, knocking the driver senseless, singing his clothing, and tearing the soles from his boots. In the crowd of people beneath the tree and around it the lightning instantly killed five, and more or less seriously injured 200. The killed were all negroes. For a few moments after the shock no one near the tree could stir. All were paralysed, unconscious lying about as the lightning had thrown them. Rain poured down, and inside the circus-tent the forced performance was kept up for a few minutes, while rivers of water came in from the rents in the canvas above. Soon, however, news spread to the audience of the awful accident that had happened, and then there was no holding them. They rushed for the open air, and it then became evident that, excepting in the fact that no one bad been killed, the lightning stroke had had almost as great effect inside the main tent as outside. Scores of persons could not get out of their seats. They sat like statues, gazed vacantly, and could not be roused. One hour after the storm had passed, and the scene, while serene enoifgh above, was below like a battlefield—the dead, dying, and wounded strewn around, friends wailing, and crowds searching for the disabled and carrying them to a place of safety.