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New article at Colonial Sense on the upcoming Historic New England homes tour.

One of the most disastrous tornadoes or hurricanes that has ever been experienced in New England occurred in Massachusetts along the Merrimac river; Saturday, August 14, 1773. It commenced its havoc a few rods above Deer island, and took its course up the northern bank of the stream.

THE summer of 1740 was cool and wet. An early frost injured much of the corn crop, and the long season of rain which followed hindered its ripening. One-third of it was cut when green, and the rest was so wet that it very soon molded. There was, therefore, very little seed cor in New England for the next spring's planting, and the amount of dry corn for the winter's consumption was also small. The rain of the summer and fall flooded the lowlands of the country everywhere.

Cotton Mather thought that New England suffered as much as any other portion of the world from lightning, or, as he termed it, thunder, it being in his day generally supposed that thunder and not lightning caused the damage. Lightning had struck buildings, trees, animals and people from the time of the earliest settlement, but it does not appear to have caused very much damage in any one season until 1768. The scattered buildings and people had but slight chance of being injured by lightning on account of their small number and wide separation.

This is not a work of fiction, as the scarcity of old American manuscripts may induce some to imagine; but it is a faithful copy from a diary in the author's own handwriting, compiled soon after her return home, as it appears, from notes recorded daily, while on the road. She was a resident of Boston, and a lady of uncommon literary attainments, as well as of great taste and strength of mind. She was called Madam Knight, out of respect to her character, according to a custom once common in New-England; but what was her family name the publishers have not been able to discover.