The New York Packet

Accounts from Framingham, Sudbury, Marlborough, &c. in the county of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts, contain distressing particulars of the devastation made by a hurricane, which passed through those towns about 6 o'clock on Wednesday the 15th inst. The meeting of the currents of air which occasioned this destructive whirlwind, was attended by a report similar to that of heavy cannon, with flashes like sharp lightning. Great damage was done thereby to the fields of rye, corn, flax, &c. of which numberless acres were levelled with the ground, and with them the hopes and prospects of many an industrious husbandman, whose sole subsistence the ensuing winter, perhaps, depended on the crop which his labours had nearly perfected, and which this event had cut off. Whole forests were levelled, the herbage of almost every kind greatly injured, and the trees of the orchards twisted from their roots, and scattered to a great distance.

Many buildings are more or less damaged, but of one only can give an account. This, it is said, was raised from its foundation, whirled to some distance, and dashed to pieces. In the house were two women, who, by their fall, received so much hurt, as to make their recovery doubtful. Though several persons are reported to have received injury by the wind, no lives, as we hear of, have been lost.

Among other singularities naturally to be expected from the effects of such an event as the one above mentioned, is the following: A cart with a yoke of oxen, loaded with hay, with a boy on the top, (the whole together weighing about two tons) were raised from the ground, by the strength of the wind, and carried to the distance of six rods.

A great fall of rain attended the hurricane, which by inundating vast tracts of low-land, added greatly to the damages sustained by the unhappy sufferers, whose situation calls loudly for the sympathy of their fellow citizens.