Buckingham County Crimes: The Murder of Meade Hanes, Part XVI
Courtesy Times-Dispatch
Need to catch up? Click here to begin the series: Buckingham County Crimes: The Murder of Meade Hanes, Part I
On June 9, 1913, the Times-Dispatch printed an exceptionally long article about Buckingham County, submitted to the newspaper from Arvonia. It opened by continuing to discuss the current, beneficial weather and a shocking report of a lightning strike at LeSueur’s slate quarry:
The copious and well-distributed rains which have fallen throughout this section within the past two weeks has served to transform all growing crops and bring about conditions most favorable to farming operations. All grass crops have improved more than 100 per cent, and corn is going off well. Both wheat and oats have improved marvelously, the latter crop promising now to be a good one, whereas three weeks ago failure was predicted.
In the progress of a recent thunderstorm of large proportions a tree was struck at LeSueur’s quarry, the thunderbolt passing down the tree into a nearby blacksmith shop, where fifteen or twenty colored hands had congregated for shelter. The lightning struck one of the colored men on the head, tearing his hat to pieces and rendering him unconscious. The other men, though stunned, made a wild scramble for a place of safety, standing not upon the order of their going, but going at once. Property owners attest that some timber was ruined in the process of this flight. The colored man recovered in a few days.
There was also a well-developed cyclone of small proportions at Penlan, near Arvonia, a few days ago, which did considerable damage to timber. The rotary winds, peculiar roar, funnel cloud, and other characteristics of the cyclone were all evident. The matter is now being investigated by the U. S. Weather Bureau.
Coming Next: Buckingham County Crimes: The Murder of Meade Hanes, Part XVII
slate river ramblings . . . . 
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