The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from Newbern, in North Carolina, Sept. 24.

"Since mine to you by Captain Snow I have been a great sufferer by a violent hurricane which began here on Thursday the 7th instant about six o'clock in the evening, the wind at N. E. and so continued until 8 or 9, then shifted to S.E. and about two in the morning the tide was 10 or 12 feet above its usual height; about this time the wind shifted to S.W. which occasioned the tide to fall, or it would have destroyed this town, which is already near effected. Sixty odd houses are totally destroyed, and a large number of others much damaged; eight large wharfs are tore to pieces, five white and two black people were drowned, and many others much bruised in the ruins of the fallen houses. The following vessels were drove from their anchors into the woods on high land, viz. Sloop Diamond, Remembrance Simmons belonging to Rhode Island; Sloop Sidney, John Oliver, and Brig Sally and Betsey, Jonathan Hitch, Newbern; Sloop Deborah, John Pindar, and Charming Sally, Obadiah Yarbrough, belonging to J. Smith, at Newbern; Sloop Sally, Jes Hunt, New York; Sloop Polly, Jonathan Spinnage, Elizabeth town; Sloop Fitzherbert, Stephen Williams, Barbados; Sloop Trial, William Woolcot, New London: Schooner Lucitania, Jeremiah Havens, Casco Bay; Sloop Cumberland, Samuel Spencer, Guilford, in Connecticut; also a number of small vessels of 16 or 20 tons each. The amount of the damage sustained by this town, in the late storm, is estimated at 40 or 50,000 l.

"The loss to this town is not the only one that will affect this province, for the crops of corn are entirely ruined, many houses down, and lives lost, in the country, occasioned by their fall; and we have just received information that many vessels foundered at their anchors in Ocracoke road, and others stranded on the sea shore, not one soul of any of which are left to tell who or what they were.

"To describe the horrors of this hurricane is beyond the art of my pen, therefore must leave it to you to form an imagination of so terrible a night. As you will expect some account of my loss in this calamity, I now proceed to give you a summary account of it: Two sloops, and their cargoes of near 500 l. each, just arrived from Jamaica and Nevis; my wharfs, warehouse, its contents of corn, salt, sugar, &c. my dry good store totally gone, with about 500 l. sterling of goods in it; my books, bonds, notes, papers, paper money, specie (some part of which I found again) together with several other houses, and their contents of considerable value; my dwelling-house, and Mr. Cornell's, which joins it, and stood on a stone wall 22 inches thick and near 9 feet from the surface of the earth, were almost washed down; the lower floors of both fell in, the other parts are miraculously standing on parts of the cellar wall; and all the furniture of both houses that were in the lower floors are broke to pieces and washed away, as also many others. At one in the morning the water was 18 inches on my lower floor. I broke through into Mr. Cornell's garret, with my wife and three children, three of Mr. Cornell's youngest daughters, and many others in both families, amounting in the whole to 28 souls, and escaped out of Mr. Cornell's back door, with the children on our shoulders, and the water up to our chins, wading near 250 or 300 yards to the highest ground, in order to preserve our lives, which under the provident care of Almighty God was most fortunately effected.

"Mr. Cornell's damage is also very considerable. His brig, wharf, warehouses, dwelling-house, cellar, and their contents, were washed away; his dry good store, which stood on high ground, much damaged, and many goods washed away.

"A small schooner is just arrived from St. Eustatia, in 12 days, which brings an account of a hurricane there which had done considerable damage; a whaling schooner is also come into Old Topsail inlet, the master of which says he saw the bulks of several square rigged and other vessels adrift at sea; also a brig belonging to Norfolk in Virginia, laden with rum, from one of the islands, is ashore to the southward of the said inlet, the people of which were all saved, and about 50 hogsheads of rum. Much damage is also done to the town of Beaufort, situate in the same inlet; it is said not above four or five houses are left standing; the trees in orchards and the woods are torn up by the roots, in a most surprising manner, and their number incredible."