The Portland Gazette

WONDERFUL ESCAPE.

On the evening of Monday last, about half past ten o'clock, during a tremendous thunder storm, the house of Mr. Offin B. Palmer, of Augusta, was struck by lightning. The electric fluid entered the chimney, which it perforated in the garret, whence it passed down on the outside of the chimney into the third story, where it tore off nearly all the laths and plastering in front of the chimney, and passed down into the second story, where it also stripped off a great part of the plastering in front of the chimney, thence proceeded to the lower floor, whence it passed into the Cellar, causing little further damage. The south west corner of the house in the third story was in some measure splintered by the fluid's passing in that direction; and other parts of the house show evident marks of some portions of the fluid having diverged from the main body.

The house was occupied as a tavern, and the Court of Common Pleas being in session, it contained at the time about thirty souls, not one of whom was injured in the slightest degree. In the third story the chimney projected into the room and formed on the east side a recess in which there was a bed with the head against the chimney: in this bed was a man asleep. In a bed room opposite the recess was another man in a bed placed against the part of the south west corner of the house where the fluid passed. A trunk filled with clothes was thrown from one side of the bed room to the other, and overturned. In the second story about ten feet from the chimney, were a large and a small bed containing Mrs. Palmer and four children: Mr. Palmer was in the room just retiring to rest. The passage of the fluid filled the house with smoke and a strong smell of brimstone: from which it was at first supposed that the house was on fire: but it was found to be otherwise. It would seem that the smoke must have been evolved and the scent of brimstone produced by the decomposing power of the fluid.—Hallowell Advocate.