The New Hampshire Gazette

FREETOWN, (Mass.) May 25.

THUNDER STORM.

On Friday, the 22d inst. about 3 o'clock P. M. the clouds being collected, heavy, though distant thunder was heard. The lightning appeared strong and vivid; but from the distance, nothing uncommon was expected. About half past six, the electric fluid, in a column apparently a foot in diameter, descended to the ground, about 15 rods from the dwelling-house of Mr. J. Morton; broke an apple-tree off by the ground, and stripped the branch nearly to the top. On entering the ground in a body it proceeded about two feet, and then divided into three parts, each pursuing its own direction, and each opening a fissure in its progress; then subsiding till it ceased to leave any visible track. A quantity of earth and gravel, estimated at five tons weight, was thrown into the air to a considerable height.

—Four men were eye-witnesses to the potent scene; their opinions of the elevations of the bodies are different, from forty to sixty feet. One fact is sufficient to prove they must be to a considerable height: stones of the bigness of a man's head were found three rods from the cavity, which had been impelled to such a height as by their returning gravity to bury themselves wholly into the earth through a tough sward. Large bodies of earth, some supposed to weigh 200, were removed to the distance of 40 feet.— A person standing in the door fronting the explosion, was forced from the door to a partition about eight feet back.

A scene so grand, so sublime, and so majestically powerful, was never before witnessed by the beholders.