Awful calamity.
Awful Calamity. – That devoted town, Wilmington, has been again visited with a most calamitous fire, which has destroyed a large amount of property and reduced some from situations of comfort, to poverty and distress. The worthy editor of the Cape Fear Recorder is amongst the principal sufferers, and we cannot here withhold the expression of our most cordial sympathy for his loss. A friend informs us that all the sufferers are most deserving citizens, and with one or two exceptions, unable to sustain the burden of their misfortune. … [August 2 was excessively hot, and thunderstorms developed that night. At about 11:00 o’clock, lightning struck first “the northern end of Mr. Langdon’s large wooden building on Market and Second street” and again near the partition separating the building from the office of the Recorder. Flames spread “until the whole block of wooden houses, from Second street to Mrs. Wright’s alley, was consumed.” The fire was contained by firemen blowing up and a small two-story house on the east side of the alley.]
The sufferers in this dreadful fire which did not last much longer than two hours, were, Samuel Langdon, Esq., Mr. Chambers, Mr. John Brown, E.P. Hall, Esq., Mrs. Scatt, Wm. C. Lord, Esq., Ancrum Berry, Esq., Mrs. Wright, Gabriel Holmes, Esq., Mr. Tibbitts, Archibald M. Hooper, and Henry Sampson, a coloured man.
… Ral. Reg.
Free Press, Tarboro, 20 August 1830.
Fourth Generation Inclusive 