They called it simply “The Storm.” It happened 168 years ago and in Hurricane Florence’s wake it sounds eerily familiar.
The Republican, a newspaper of “New-Berne, N.C.” dated July 24, 1850, told it this way:
“On Tuesday Evening, the 16th, the wind began to blow from the N.E., and the tide in Neuse river [commenced] to rise above its ordinary height. The wind increased during the whole night blowing a gale until about two or three o’clock on Wednesday, when it began to abate.
“The tide rose nearly ten feet, overflowing all the wharves on both sides of town, and invading all the buildings in low and exposed places. On the east side of the town, every wharf was injured more or less, outbuildings attached to distilleries washed away, one or two warehouses washed off, and the others wrecked. Near Union Point, on Neuse, the water made a clean breach sweeping off everything on the wharves of Messrs. Simpson, and Sparrow, and washing all the timber and fences away from Mr. Blackwell’s Steam Saw Mill on the point. On the South side, the buildings and wharves were sheltering from the sea, but the water did considerable damage in all directions.
“The beautiful streets of New-Berne presented a strong contrast to their usual appearance, many large trees are uprooted, and hardly one in town escaped the loss of a portion of its limbs. — The leaves, on the N.E. side of many of them, looked as if they had been scorched with fire. Old inhabitants state that it was the most violent storm that has visited the section since 1815, the tide then was about 18 inches higher than last week.”
The no-name 1850 storm destroyed fifteen thousand bushels of salt dockside. Farmers said their corn crops were ruined. In Washington, N.C. trees were uprooted and wharves over-washed. Thirty feet of the new Tar River bridge was washed away. A sea captain arriving at New Bern reported spotting six vessels wrecked on a short coastal stretch, and also came upon a 150-ton schooner, bottom upward 12 miles from land.
Only four years before, a single hurricane had cut two new inlets in the Outer Banks – Hatteras and Oregon – turning Pamlico Sound from brackish to saltwater. In 1856 a tropical tempest would inundate and submerge Wrightsville Beach sending waves (!) half a mile inland. That nightmare would be followed by seven more sea-beasts before “The Great Hurricane of 1899.” Old-timers alive sixty years later swore that ‘99 was worse than any from 1953-1960 when Barbara, Carol, Edna, Hazel, Connie, Diane, Ione, Helene and Donna earned coastal Carolina the sobriquet “Hurricane Alley.”
Florence caused dread, tears and lasting damage in New Bern and elsewhere. Maybe there’s solace in knowing our forebears suffered such tribulations, yet persevered.
Craven County native Eddie Ellis is a journalist, writer and historian. He’s the author of New Bern History 101 and other works about the area’s rich heritage.
More at edwardellis.com