1728 — Aug 13-14, Hurricane, coast and coastal waters south of Charleston, SC — >10

Narrative Information

NWS WFO, Charleston: “1728 Aug 13-14 Hurricane made landfall south of Charleston causing much property and crop damage, particularly to shipping.”

Rubillo: “The hurricane of 1728….William Bartram wrote that in early August

We had a violent hurricane, the wind being north-northeast and continuing from north-northeast to east-northeast for about six hours, from nine o’clock in the morning to three in the afternoon; and as the tide began to ebb the wind shifted to the southeast and east-southeast, still blowing violently until four of the clock on Saturday morning; at which time it began to thunder, attended with violent showers of rain, and then it broke up. But the wind continued at southeast, or thereabouts, for several days.

“Some eight ships were lost, along with 1,531 barrels of rice. Another fifteen ships were damaged in this storm. Two men-of-war that were stationed in the area to protect shipping from piracy, the Fox and the Garland, successfully rode out of the storm at sea. Also, according to a news account from the Boston Weekly Letter of October 24, 1728, the fury ‘hath done a vast deal of damage on the land to the houses, wharfs and bridges, besides the destroying [of an] abundance of corn, and other fruits of the earth.’ The same story reported that ‘[s]several lives were lost, both White men and Negroes.’….” (pp. 40-41.)

Sources

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Charleston, SC. Tropical Cyclone History for Southeast South Carolina and Northern Portions of Southeast Georgia. Charleston, SC: NWS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce, updated 12-22-2016. Accessed 8-14-2017 at: https://www.weather.gov/chs/TChistory

Rubillo, Tom. Hurricane Destruction in South Carolina: Hell and High Water. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006.