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Weather Stories and Events
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
June 18 1823 Page 3
Rise of the Mississippi
An extract of a letter dated Natchez, May 15, 1823 says: “There is a tremendous inundation from the Mississippi,
which is destroying all the hopes of the Louisiana planters. The low lands are all under water and, with but here
and there a high ridge, this immense stream presents a breadth of thirty miles. It is a grand but overwhelming
disastrous prospect. Immense crevices are bursting the levees below, which strike terror into the planters all
along the coast. The levee is an artificial bank to keep out the water, which is now much above the natural level
of the land; and these levees are the only barrier between the lands and general devastation; but the back water
from the swamps, and the heavy rains, are fast effecting what the levees have from some time prevented. The overflow,
it is apprehended, will be as great as in 1815. Crops are pretty generally abandoned. The destruction among the
cattle, the deer, and the inhabitants of the forest generally, will be great. As the water approaches, they take
refuge upon the highest points they can find, until surrounded and famished, they sink down and perish. Families
flying from this irresistible evil, present a melancholy sight. The visitation will be a most severe one, and the
calamity does not cease with the destruction of the crops. The immense quantity of vegetable matter borne along
and deposited by this mighty river, when exposed to the sun, will, we fear, product much disease. – Balt. Amer.
Submitted by Nancy Piper
The Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, PA)
29 Oct 1823 Page 3
New Orleans, Sept. 22
In the late gale Gen. Hampton’s sugar house was unroofed – and his sugar crop is expected to fall short 300 hogsheads,
in consequence of the destruction of cane.
At Alexandria, and the neighborhood, the gale was severe.
We learn from St. Francisville that the crop of cotton and corn lay prostrate on the ground; fences and shade trees
blown down, and forests exhibiting one continued ruin. The injury sustained in the crop is incalculable. It is
believed one third is destroyed.
The water courses were swollen to a greater height than for the last 25 years. A new bridge, which has just been
completed by the parish, over Bayou Sarah, is swept away. Another over Alexander’s Creek, not completed, is in
ruins. Two others just completed, over two branches of Thompson’s creek, it is learned, have shared the fate of
the others.
The injury done in the parish of Point Coupee, is still greater than in Feliciana; and to add to the general calamity,
the river has undermined its banks in several places, and acres of ground have sunk beneath the water.
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
July 28, 1824
From New Orleans
By the steam ship Robert Fulton the editors of the New York Gazette received papers to the first inst. The Eagle
steamboat, just arrived there in 5 days from St. Louis, brought information that the waters in the upper country
were rapidly on the rise. The Missouri, above its junction with the Mississippi, was five feet higher than ever
before known. At St. Louis it was nine inches higher than last year, and still swelling. Rain had fallen continually
for ten days, and a great part of the State of Illinois was reported to be inundated. The Ohio was also on the
rise. There was serious alarm at Natchez and New Orleans, as the rising had commenced at the former place. [submitted by Nancy Piper]
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