Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Details of Cyclone That Hit Mt. Gilead and Pekin, May 10, 1923

Mt. Gilead and Pekin Hit by Cyclone

From the Montgomerian and the Pilot we get some facts about the recent cyclone, an account of which appeared in issue of The Courier.

The Cyclone visited Mt. Gilead and Pekin sections and did considerable damage to property and injuring a number of people. The first place hit by the cyclone in the Mt. Gilead section was the farms of Dr. C.B. Ingram and I.W. Andrews, uprooting and destroying valuable timber. The home of James Mayner was completely destroyed and the members of the family injured. Telephone poles and wires were broken down and many roofs blown from houses.

Several families in the Pekin and Harrisville sections were left homeless.

In the Jackson Springs section the cyclone set a recently completed church off its foundation. Hitting C.W. Poole’s farm and uprooting trees and damaging several building. The potato and other houses were carried off and strewn for some distance. The chicken house with chickens were carried away, but the chickens came back the next day. On a Mr. Scarboro’s farm there were three calves and 14 sheepin a pasture and they have not been seen since the storm. The cyclone crossed Drowning Creek and hit the home of Ed Ingram taking the ell part of the house awa. The chimney fell in the front part of the house, brick falling in the room with the family. Much damage was done to the furniture.

The storm was worse in some places than others, and in some places it was half a mile wide.

Lewis Dorsett of Mt. Gilead was in Asheboro Monday of this week and states that a colored church outside the corporate limits of Mr. Gilead was blown to pieces.

The dwelling house of James Mayor was blown down. Mr. Maynor and his wife and her sister were in the house and Mr. Mayor was badly injured. His wife was an invalid and both jaw bones were broken and the injuries received caused her death on the following Wednesday.

Just across the road from Mr. Maynor’s, the house of Laura Haywood, colored, was blown to pieces and so were all the out buildings. No more houses were blown away until the storm reached the Pekin section nearly seven miles from Mr. Gilead, although much damage was done to timber, the traxck of the cyclone being from a half to a mile in width.

Near Pekin Will Cook’s house was completely demolished and everything blown away, the family not having even changing clothes. All the household woods in Maynor’s and Laura Hargrove’s house were also blown away and nothing left.

Tom Fesperman’s house between Mt. Gilead and Pekin was blown off its foundation. Will Cook’s smoke house was blown away and his meat has not been found when last heard from. The chimneys of the half dozen more houses in Pekin were blown off even with the roof. A number of farm tenant houses were blown away.

The storm went in the direction of Southern Pines, but not so much damage until it reached the vicinity of Southern Pines and Pinehurst.

The storm was an hour or two earlier in the day than the one in Randolph.

James G. Steed was in Asheboro Tuesday and says that the three calves and 14 sheep have been found about three miles from the Scarboro farm. He further states that there is great damage to timber in the track of the cyclone and gave an instance of the total destruction of something like 100,000 feet of timber on the farm of “Little Ben” Ingram. On Ingram’s land the cyclone struck the timber more than half way up the trees from the ground and broke off and so shattered the timber that it cannot be cut into lumber.

From the front page of The Courier, Asheboro, May 10, 1923

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