The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

Hartford, (N. Y.) May 30.

Lightning—Wonderful Preservation. Yesterday afternoon, while a violent thunder shower was passing over this town, the blacksmith shop owned by Chester Harris, was struck with lightning near the ridge, while four men were within. The fluid passed down the end of the building until it reached a window, which Charles Kiney, one of the four, was in the act of shutting; it shivered every particle of glass from the sash, and passed to his right hand, followed his arm to his shoulder, and from thence down to his hip where it was attracted by a vice, and passed off splitting the vice bench, which he then touched, to pieces exactly before him; it tore his clothes to pieces, literally speaking, to rags; setting them as well as the building on fire. The sleeve on his right arm was completely torn off, and scattered in fragments about the shop; his pantaloons had but three buttons remaining on them, some were even melted; and finally his whole clothes on that side presented the appearance of rags shot from a loaded cannon. Apparently every part of the building was visited by the shock, as the fluid reached the ground in three different places, and on different sides, which was considerably injured; the whole four were prostrated by the shock, yet, strange as it may appear, no one was materially injured, except by the burn, although the skin was taken off in spots from Kiney, and one of the others, had his clothes about, and in a fair way to be entirely well in the course of a few days.