Burlington Free Press

Terrible Tempest in Florida. The tremendous tempest in Florida, of which we published a notice yesterday, was one of the most destructive ever known in that vicinity. The city of Port Leon was completely prostrated. The storm commenced with a fresh wind on Wednesday morning, the 13th inst. but subsided at evening. At about 1 P. M. the gale freshened and by midnight the whole town was swept with the fury of a hurricane. Every warehouse in the town was laid flat with a single exception, nearly every dwelling was thrown from its foundation, many of them were crushed to atoms, and the loss of property was immense. At the Lighthouse every building but that was destroyed; fourteen persons, some of them among the most valuable citizens were known to have been drowned. So far as their names were ascertained there were at the Lighthouse Capt. M. C. Robertson, his wife and three children, and a child of Dr. Treadwell, Mr. Joseph Wood, a painter from Tallahassee, a child of R. V. Boffins, and five negroes, and at Port Leon a crazy negro boy. The family of Mr. Edward Walker at Shell Point, including his wife and five or six children also perished. Mr. W. himself escaped by clinging to the branches of a tree.—Tribune.