In the forenoon of the 7th ultimate, the sun had illumined the earth and sky with its lucid rays, but the firmament was dotted with scattering clouds. Ere the sun had reached its meridian height, showers of rain came thick and rapid, the clouds lowering and musky, while their sombre glory brought with them no omen of good for us. The increasing terror of their passing shrouded the earth in gloom and warned us of the approaching crisis. By the time the sun had bid adieu in the far west, darkness veiled the earth while madness and fury controlled the elements above.

The scene was terrific and sublime as the nightly orb with its lurid dimness added a grandeur solemn and fearful. All night long the wind came steady and direct from a little north of east; the clouds emptying a deluge of rain in torrents. Daylight brought with it no abatement; the 8th being the holy Sabbath was sacredly kept indoors by the wily pioneer of Polk. For about sixty hours the clouds, the rain and wind were an unchangeable feature and possessed an unabating firmness. Not until the afternoon of the 10th were signs favorable for its cessation. Fences were blown down, and in many instances swept away by the deluge of water. Fields on low land and others bordering water courses were submerged while the rails mingled with floating logs and brush, drifted to a better resting place. The earth around wells of water melted, enveloping curbs, forming a basin in which the frogs congregated to quaintly chirp their happy jubilee.

Boulders of rock and clay tumbled from our chimneys, embedding our hearth-stones, while just outside lay our chimneys a mass of ruins.

Cane, potatoes, pea and rice crops were exposed to the roving stock, though the damage from that cause is nothing to compare with that of the wind and rain. The orange crop, laden with their golden fruit, are riddled; the earth around strewn with leaves and fragments of limbs, while nearer by lie heaps of the fruit punctured by hundreds of thorns. At least half the orange crop is lost.

Cattle, being poor, many were chilled through and died not long before the storm ceased. The damage to stock is serious, but more to cattle as perhaps one-sixth have died from the cause of wind and rain.

Roads are rendered almost impassable; bridges all swept away and the earth so miry makes traveling much impossible. The extent of damage cannot be correctly estimated at present, but this we know that 1878 has been one of the most disastrous years in South Florida than any known to its oldest settlers. We have encountered storms more terrific in the past, but none more damaging and destructive as the present. We have sustained losses by drought in the farming season, but none to equal that caused by rain this season. Though our damages may be very much, we feel grateful to Him who controls the winds and rides in the storm; that we still live to see again the sun at high meridian in all his glory.

G. W. Hendry, Ft. Meade, Sept. 15, 1878.

This was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of August 24, 2006, 3C.