Ocean County , NJ History

from the New Jersey Mirror 17 Aug 1881: A HEAVY SHOWER of wind and rain visited this vicinity shortly after five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. The day had been extremely hot, said to have been the hottest of the season, the mercury rising to 100 in the shade. The storm came up suddenly, the wind blowing a young hurricane, trimming dead limbs and some live ones from the trees and strewing the streets with them. The rain followed as suddenly and for some time the rain-fall was heavy, the lightning sharp and the thunder startling, indicating that the lightning had struck something near by. The shower was over in less than a half hour. Soon after the storm it was learned that the lightning had done fatal work on the road between Mount Holly and Lumberton. It appears that just as the shower was approaching, Isaac Fenimore, living near Lumberton, drove to the Mount Holly depot for Mrs. Blanche Short, engaged as a domestic in the family, who was waiting to be conveyed to his residence.

A hurricane blew through the NJ-Philadelphia region in 1818, and surprisingly got only this small write-up in the local paper: from the New Jersey Mirror 9 Dec 1818 A violent gale from the southwest commenced about 10 o'clock last Saturday evening and continued with little intermission until Sunday morning at sunrise. The damage to the port of Philadelphia was extensive. Nothing this severe has been experienced for twenty years. So a storm not seen in 20 years causes extensive damage---and this is the news? Likely it wasn't actually a hurricane---the official list of hurricanes for that year does not mention one in December.