The Great Storm of 1822

As I write this, the remnants of two tropical storms; a tropical depression expected to become a major hurricane; and an "area of interest" to meteorologists churn in the Atlantic Ocean. We know this because we have access to scientific data such as computer models and radar that our ancestors couldn't even imagine. All too often, they were surprised by violent hurricanes and storms. Those who could read the weather "signs" sometimes knew that something was brewing, but in most cases, storms caught them unawares.

Almost 200 after the storm of 1822, Hurricane Matthew left this large tree down

 across Academy Street in 2017.

One such storm occurred on the evening of Friday, September 27, 1822. We have a good report on how this storm affected Williamsburg County because Dr. Samuel Davis McGill chose to begin his book, Narrative of Reminiscences in Williamsburg County with an account of that evening. Although he states that it occurred the night of September 28, contemporary newspaper reports and weather history sites agree that it made landfall just  north of Charleston as a small category 3 storm with the worst of its damage occurring in the Santee River delta about 10 p.m. on Friday, September 27.

According to Dr. McGill, the storm was of such intensity that in the following years events were recalled as either before the storm or after it. Dr. McGill himself was three years, seven months, and 16 days old when the storm hit. However, he had retained a vivid memory of the storm – that all the children were "huddled together on and around their parents' knees in one corner of the big room, sheltered and covered with blankets, quilts, etc., to keep out the drenching rain and boisterous wind." 

His father, he wrote, used to tell about the two weeks after the storm in which all able-bodied persons were working to gather the corn which was on the ground in the fields, then cutting the trees off the fences and putting the fenceposts back in the ground. The next two weeks were spent in clearing the roads from Col. Cooper's place to Indiantown church. In a distance of less than two miles, there were 400 trees across the road, Dr. McGill wrote.

Dr. McGill, who wrote about himself using third person, noted that "His mother used to say, it looked to her next morning as if she had been blown away and dropped in another country."

Another tree victim of Hurricane Matthew.

He remembered that stories were told and retold about that night over the coming years. "One was the case of Old Mr. Saul Parsons, on his return from Kingstree to his home on Muddy Creek, who, when last seen that evening on the road, was in a warm condition as were his habits. His escape from death was miraculous. On horseback that night, he met the hurricane at the McCrea old place, where Mr. L.P. McCullough now resides and took refuge under a large oak tree, and there sheltered himself and his horse as best he could in the first gale, and as soon as the calm in the storm came, he ventured out, but had not proceeded far over prostrate houses, trees, and fences before the returning hurricane came, and hurrying back to his good tree he found it already flat on the ground." How he spent the remaining part of the hurricane is not recorded, but Dr. McGill concludes the story that the next morning, "Mr. Alexander McCrea found Mr. Parsons safe and sound, crouched up under a bench in his piazza, and his horse standing at the door steps..."

Another large tree uprooted by 2017's Hurricane Matthew.

Both the Charleston Mercury and the Charleston Daily Courier printed accounts from those who had survived the storm, including extracts from the logbook of the United States revenue schooner Gallatin. The schooner's captain was a man named Matthews who anchored the ship on the leeward side of Bull's Island. The log noted that at 10 p.m. fresh breezes had sprung up and by 11 p.m. all hands were called on deck to remove the yardarms and top masts; however, a whirl of wind snapped the fore top mast, leaving it hung up in the rigging, which took about an hour to remove. By then, the log reports, the wind had "increased to a perfect hurricane" so that no one could get from one end of the vessel to the other without crawling. At 1 a.m., even though the boat was held by three anchors, it began to drag and struck an oyster bank, splitting open the head of the rudder. The wind then calmed for 10 minutes before again roaring "with full as much if not more violence than before." The boat nearly capsized several times but would then right itself. The report concludes that at 4 a.m. the "gale moderated, but left us ashore very high up alongside the marsh." At daylight, they were able to see that several other boats were also stranded in the marsh.

According to these newspaper reports, "Bull's Island was cut entirely through by the sea at the southwest end, three houses blown down, some stock drowned."

Both Charleston newspapers ran this notice on October 1. NOTICE TO MARINERS: The Lantern of the Lighthouse at this port is so much damaged by the storm of the 27th inst. that it cannot be lit for two days. By order of the Collector of the Port of Charleston.  John Calhoun, Keeper, September 30.

By October 4, more horrendous reports were coming in, particularly from the Santee delta in the area around Hampton Plantation. The death toll by October 4 for the North Santee area stood at 117.

Many Charlestonians, however, believed that the hurricane of 1811, which had spawned a tornado that tore through the heart of the city, had been more destructive, although that destruction was in a narrow path, while the damage from the great storm of 1822 encompassed the whole city and far beyond.