A Furious Sky—The Great Hurricane of 1635 by Eric Jay Dolin
A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes (2020) is the history of the American hurricane or, more specifically, the hurricanes that have hit what is today the United States. Given that there have been hundreds, if not more than a thousand, such hurricanes in the past five centuries, A Furious Sky must understandably be selective, focusing mainly on storms that have, arguably, had the most impact on the nation’s long history. One such hurricane, and the first recorded by the colonists who settled in the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies, is the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, which is the subject of the following excerpt.1 mal. According to William Bradford, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it “was such a mighty storm of wind and rain, as none living in these parts, either English or Indians, ever saw.” The hurricane’s story is best told through the tales of two vessels with very different fates. Four days earlier, on the morning of August 11, Anthony Thacher and his cousin, the minister Joseph Avery, were standing on the wharf in Ipswich, Massachusetts,
hurricane florence, courtesy the modis rapid response team at nasa gsfc
T
he Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 struck the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies with a mighty wallop on August 15, leveling hundreds of thousands of trees, turning numerous houses into kindling, driving ships from their anchors, and killing many people, including eight Indians on the edge of Narragansett Bay, who were drowned “flying from their wigwams” when the waters surged ashore 14 feet higher than nor-
Thacher Island
MARBLEHEAD
adaptation of a 1776 map, courtesy david rumsey map collection
BOSTON
16
NEWPORT
where the pinnace Watch and Wait was preparing to depart. Ministers were not easy to find in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the people of Marblehead, a small fishing village north of Boston, had persuaded Avery to be their pastor. They sent the Watch and Wait to pick him up, along with his cousin, who had also decided to move to Marblehead. While the master and his three crewmen readied the vessel for the trip, the passengers boarded. In addition to Avery and Thacher were both of their large families, two servants, and another gentleman. All told, there were twenty-three people. For the first three days, with various lengthy stops along the way, the trip went well, but on August 14 “the Lord suddenly turned” the group’s “cheerfulness into mourning and lamentations.” At about 10:00 in the evening, the wind rose to a gale force, splitting the sails. The sailors refused to replace them on account of the dark, and instead anchored for the night. The hurricane’s path in August 1635 as it crossed over eastern Massachusetts. SEA HISTORY 174, SPRING 2021