The Daily Advertiser

PHILADELPHIA, May.
East Caln Township, Chester County, April 23.

The following melancholy incident of the effect of lightning happened on the 18th inst. The weather being very hot and sultry, in the afternoon, in the evening there appeared a black cloud to the westward, which came over this neighborhood, with uncommon flashes of lightning and severe claps of thunder. Between twelve and one o'clock, the lightning struck the house of William Fisher, in this township; it first near'd the chimney, which was torn all to pieces, and in its descent it greatly damaged the upper floors, with the stair-case, top to bottom, ripped up the lower floor, and thence proceeded out at the cellar door, and tore away a considerable part of the stone wall of the house. The man, his wife and child, about six months old, were in bed in a room where the partition close to it was shivered all to pieces, and the bed thrown some distance therefrom; the man's head was singed and much benumbed, and the woman's arm, on which the child lay, was scorched, but providentially they all received no other hurt; the cradle, in which the child usually slept in the same room, was entirely destroyed. The bed on which two apprentices slept in the upper room, fell to the joists, but they remained unhurt. The house was rendered an entire wreck, not a window but was entirely destroyed, and the glass thrown some rods distant. A scythe, that hung on the wall of the house, was twisted up like a withe, and a great part melted; the smell of sulphur was so strong, that they were in danger of being suffocated.