The Storm of 1898

Plymouth has suffered many notable blizzards and hurricanes, but the “Portland Gale” of November 1898 still stands out as one of the most memorable and destructive of these natural disasters. It began about 8:00 PM on Saturday night with a fine snow and rising winds. By the time of high tide at 10:30 on Sunday, November 27, the gale was blowing a blinding, suffocating cloud of snow at eighty miles an hour. The blizzard raged at full fury until about 3 PM when it subsided into a more normal winter storm, and the sky was clearing by 9 AM  on Monday. The seas were over nine feet even near shore, as was shown by bundle of shingles from the Atwood Lumber Company that deposited on top of a deck cargo of that height on Capt. Robbins’ J. J. Little. Although only two lives were lost in Plymouth (there were an estimated 250 deaths between Boston and Truro), the devastation that the Portland Gale caused in Plymouth was both without precedent and never equalled since.

Plymouth was a significant port in 1898 with customs revenues second only to Boston, and there were many coastal craft in the vicinity of Plymouth harbor which sought refuge in the “Cowyard” anchorage including six fishermen from Beverly and Gloucester and several local ships. The little steamer “Mary Chilton” which brought patrons to and from the Columbus Pavilion was hauled out near the head of the beach. There was no escaping the brutality of the storm and all but one of these vessels, the Charles W. Parker, a schooner of Gloucester, slipped their moorings and came to grief along the shore of the harbor. Fortunately all the crews escaped after harrowing rides over the mudflats before their craft went aground. The crew of the Phantom, a fishing schooner out of Boston, were able to jump off the bowsprit onto High Cliff after their ship rammed into the banking there. The Parker survived by cutting her masts, which were later discovered outside of the harbor in Warren’s Cove.

The storm made Water Street impassable with cast-up flotsam 5 feet deep, consisting of “everything that could float” – barrels, a sunken boat, bales of hay, broken boards and timbers, smashed dories, sea weed, buckets, spars, sections of roofs and floors both around the docks and on the street. The Plymouth Bottling Works at the foot of North Street was 15 inches deep in saltwater, and the spray hitting the seawall at the foot of Winslow Sreet rose 25 feet in air over Andrew J. Cassiday’s roof. The Water Street bridge (and part of Columbus Pavilion from the beach) were driven up Town Brook as far as Market Street (this was before Main Street Extension existed). However, a house roof blew into the mouth of the brook and served pedestrians in place of a bridge.

Everything that was loose was carried away, and many things which were not, such as the roof of the Congregational Church belfrey, were later found at some distance from their previous locations. The belfrey roof was torn off at about four o’clock in the morning and slammed into 17 High Street, demolishing the porch and considerably startling the family of John T. Holmes, who were alseep inside. The tin roof from the Howland Block was found folded neatly around one of the pillars of Col. W. P. Stoddard’s house on Main Street, while the 25 by 30-foot tin roof from the Universalist Bagnall Chapel ended up blocking LeBaron’s Alley. Weathervanes were bent and twisted on the Court House, the Plymouth Woollen Mill, the Universalist Church, and the Methodist Church. Many of the great elms throughout the town were blown down, and orchards were destroyed all around Plymouth. All of the telegraph lines were down, and on Water Strteet, the tangle of wires, poles, cross-arms and trees and snow was so thick that it was said that “a cat could scarcely crawl through it.” A part of Boston railway track near Hedges’ brickyard was undermined, so that the Plymouth and Middleborough line heading west was the only public route out of town, and the only external communication by U. S. mail.

Plymouth Beach was innunated, with 16 of the 17 cottages washed away, and the Pavilion and the surviving cottage heavily damaged. Capt. Henry Abby aboard the Jamaica out of Sagamore was tied up at Beach Wharf when an entire cottage came rolling right at the ship. He cut loose and cleared just in time, although the cottage grazed his vessel on its way into the harbor. George D. Bartlett’s cotttage floated across the harbor and came to rest behind his house almost intact; but Edward W. Bradford found only a few pieces of broken furniture, a clam hoe and a hatchet along the mainland shore, and nothing but a waterpipe in the sand to show where the cottage had stood on the beach. Other cottages were seen to rise in the air “like balloons” and explode, sending debris in every direction. Mr. C. L. Willoughby of Chicago, who owned most of the beach property, soon gave up and sold out.

The entire beach was washed twenty feet inland opposite Franklin House on Manter’s Point. The Eel River channel was filled 7 feet deep, and the river found a new outlet into Warren’s Cove, as it had over a century earlier. Wreckage was found up Eel River as far as Hayden’s Mill on Sandwich Road. The bluff behind the Hotel Pilgrim receded 20 to 40 feet so that the bowling alley hung out onto air, while the kiln and boiler house of the old silica works were demolished. The Warren Avenue and River Street bridges over Eel River were wrecked, and Wadsworth’s bowling alley was found up stream in C. M. Hauthaway’s meadow. Along White Horse Beach, the embankment was badly eroded and waves washed directly into Bartlett Pond

Plymouth’s only fatalities were on Plymouth Beach, where four young men had gone duck hunting that morning. John Donovan and Fred Pierce had been in a blind near Long Point and were able to escape back to the mainland through the stormy waters, but  Ernest, the son of Andrew L. Raymond (Newfield St) and Russell, son of George W. Haskins (11 Willard Place) had been further down the beach. They had made their way halfway back, but had tried to seek shelter in a schooner which had been grounded the previous July. Their bodies were later discovered in remains of the Emma M. Fox.