1842 — June 16, Tornado, Adams County, MS [may not have happened] — 500
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard January 8, 2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
Blanchard note: I am including this event given that two of the sources are A. W. Greeley, Chief Signal Officer of the US Army (though in 1888 book), and Nunn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Nashville Weather Forecast Office, in a 1921 paper wherein he appears to repeat Greeley.
We are somewhat skeptical, however, in that Thomas Grazulis did not include this in his authoritative 1,326 page book Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. Additionally we have not located information concerning a deadly Mississippi tornodo on June 16, 1842 in our newspaper archive search extending out to June 23 in an all-State key-word search. Also, we note that the only mention of a tornado in Hazard’s US Register for the first six months of the year is one reported in the Tuscaloosa Monitor on the “4th inst.” Since this note was in the March section (p. 207) it could not be a reference to a June tornado. Only one death was noted.
It seems possible to us that one source (Greeley) was the original source, and all others followed him or followed those who followed him. We can not speculate on the Greeley note of such a deadly tornado, but it appears to us be in error.
— 500 Greeley, A. W., Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army. American Weather. 1888, p. 232.
— 500 New York Times. “Cyclones and Tornadoes. The Damage Caused by…,” March 23, 1897
— 500 Nunn (NWS WFO Nashville). “Tornadoes…Special Reference To…TN,” Nov 25, 1921.
— 500 Searight. “Historic Disasters…” Appendix to The Doomed City. 1906, p. 185.
— 500 Watkins. “Heaven’s Heavy Artillery: Cyclones, Tornadoes, Hurricanes…” 1905, p. 719.
Narrative Information
Greeley: “List of Twenty-Five of the Most Destructive Tornadoes in the United States.” Number 2: “Miss…Adams [County]…June 16, 1842…500 [killed]…” (Greeley, A. W., Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army. American Weather. 1888, p. 232.)
Nunn, Roscoe (Meteorologist, US Weather Bureau):
“…. the loss of life in tornadoes is sometimes appalling. There are several instances in which 100 to 300 people were killed in a single day. There is a record of a tornado in Adams County, Mississippi, May 7, 1840, in which 317 people were killed, and another in the same county about two years later, June 16, 1842, in which 500 were killed. The St. Louis tornado, May 27, 1896, killed 306. On the afternoon of March 28, 1920, at least 13 tornadoes occurred, eleven of them in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, and two in Alabama and Georgia. These storms killed 163 people. But the most memorable date in tornado history probably is that of February 9, 1884, when a series of tornadoes occurred from Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois, eastward to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. On that day there were more than sixty separate tornadoes after 10 a. m. Over ten thousand buildings were destroyed, 800 people killed and 2500 wounded….”
Searight. “Historic Disasters…” Appendix to The Doomed City. 1906, p. 185:
“Historic Disasters By Tornadoes And Other Storms.
“… A list of notable storms, showing a terrible loss of life and property, follows:
“Adams County, Mississippi, May 7, 1840 – 100 killed; property loss $1,000,000.
“Adams County, Mississippi, June 16, 1842 – 500 killed; property loss $3,000,000….”
Watkins: “The same county [Adams] was visited by a similar convulsion two years later – on June 16, 1842 – when 500 persons lost their lives.” (Watkins 1905, p. 719)
Sources
Grazulis, Thomas P. Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events. St. Johnsbury, VE: Environmental Films, 1993, 1,326 pages.
Greely A.W. (Chief Signal Officer, United States Army). American Weather: A Popular Exposition of the Phenomena of the Weather, Including Chapters on Hot and Cold Waves, Blizzards, Hail-Storms and Tornadoes. NY: Dodd, Meade & Co., 1888. Digitized by Google. Accessed 1-8-2024 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=nKMMAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Hazard, Samuel (Editor). Hazard’s United States Commercial and Statistical Register, Containing Documents, Facts, and Other Useful Information, Illustrative of the History and Resources of The American Union, and of Each State…” Vol. VI, from January 1842 to July 1842. Philadelphia: Wm. F. Geddes, 1842. Accessed 1-8-2024 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hazard_s_United_States_Commercial_and_St/uqspAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hazard%E2%80%99s+United+States+Commercial+and+Statistical+Register,+Containing+Documents,+Facts,+and+Other+Useful+Information,+Illustrative+of+the+History+and+Resources+of+The+American+Union,+and+of+Each+State%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D+Vol.+VI,+from+January+1842+to+July+1842.&pg=PR1&printsec=frontcover
New York Times. “Cyclones and Tornadoes. The Damage Caused by Heavy Winds in This Country,” March 23, 1897, p. 1. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D02E7D61339E433A25750C2A9659C94669ED7CF
Nunn, Roscoe. “Tornadoes, With Special Reference To Those That Have Occurred in Tennessee” (Paper delivered before the Tennessee Academy of Science). Nov 25, 1921. Accessed 1-8-2024 at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bna/research/tornadoes.htm
Searight, Frank Thompson. The Doomed City. Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1906. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=TnUUAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Watkins, John Elfreth. “Heaven’s Heavy Artillery: Cyclones, Tornadoes, Hurricanes – Their Origin, Area of Operation, and Methods of Action.” Pages 712-721 in Technical World Magazine, Volume 2, Armour Institute of Technology, 1905. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=CgLOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false