“Nothing but blue skies, Do I see.”

“Nothing but blue skies, Do I see.” This line from Irving Berlin’s 1926 song was on my mind this past Monday morning in Port Tobacco as I cleared storm debris from around the lab. I’m sure it was also a relief for many of the residents of Charles County to see blue skies. The storm that hit Southern Maryland on Saturday night caused differential damage across the county. The beautiful black walnut tree on the south side of the court house lost a rather large limb. We lost a tree at our lab in Burch house, and a large limb fell in the yard. Part of a tree came down on my friend Anita’s house and there’s a smaller tree sitting on top of the shed where I store my field equipment.

Black Walnut tree by the Port Tobacco Courthouse
The limb came down during a storm on 29 July 2023.

View of LaPlata after the tornado
Baltimore Sun, 30 April 2002

While this storm was not a tornado, they do occur in the county. Most residents of the county remember the tornado that touched down west of La Plata on 28 April 2002 and cut a swathe across Charles and Calvert Counties. It turned into a water spout on the Chesapeake Bay and finally wound down on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Parts of LaPlata were just flattened by this storm. Miraculously only two people were killed in the town of LaPlata (several other people living outside of LaPlata were also killed), while over 100 were injured.[i]

Then there was the tornado of 9 November 1926 that destroyed the LaPlata two-room school house. Fifty children and two teachers were in the wood frame school that day. Thirteen of the children were killed. Over near Mount Rest Cemetery, the home of Rufus Watts was demolished, killing him and Lula Patterson. There were also numerous injuries. The Evening Star of November 10^th listed 20 children and three adults who were injured and treated in Washington, D.C. hospitals, as there was no hospital in LaPlata.[ii] An additional seven people were listed as injured and were probably treated in town by Dr. Owens. When I first arrived in Charles County in 2014, there were still some elderly residents who remembered that day or who had heard firsthand accounts from relatives and friends who survived the direct hit on the school house.

Evening Star, 10 November 1926
Washington, D.C.

 No one in the county remembers the tornado that touched down in King George Courthouse, Virginia on 27 April 1799. It continued northeast through Virginia, crossing the Potomac River into Charles County, where it did “…considerable damage in the neighbourhood of Port Tobacco.” The storm was reported in newspapers across the northeastern United States. One article noted that “...several people, as well as horses and cattle, have been killed, and many houses have been blown down, and trees torn up by the roots.”[iii] The Maryland Gazette carried a report concerning storm damage in Calvert County during the same tornado. It destroyed a tavern near the county courthouse. As court had been held earlier in the day, about 20 people were in the tavern when all four walls blew out and the roof collapsed. Four people in the tavern were killed, the tavern keeper’s wife broke her arm, and a number of the patrons were injured. There were six known deaths and numerous injuries in Calvert County, as well as considerable damage to property. The latter included the destruction of tobacco houses, chimneys, and fences.[iv]

 

Gazette of the United States, and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser.
Vol. XV no. 2076, 26 May 1799, page 3.

Christ Church in LaPlata
 is the 1884
Replacement Church.
It was moved to La Plata
from Port Tobacco in the
early 20th century.

This storm may be the one that was responsible for destroying the Episcopal Church in Port Tobacco. In 1807, the Vestry of Port Tobacco Parish petitioned the Maryland General Assembly to pass an act authorizing them to hold a lottery to raise money to build a new church, as “…the church belonging to the said parish was blown down by a violent gust of wind, and is totally incapable of repair, and that they are anxious to build a new one, but that they have not funds sufficient…”[v]  It took years to raise the necessary funds. The new church, a brick structure, was not completed until 1818 and was used until it was replaced in 1884.

The economic impact of the tornado must have been considerable, particularly with the destruction of tobacco in tobacco houses. In addition to the storm, global politics in the form of the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 through 1815 and the War of 1812 here in the states, were also causing economic problems in Charles County. If a storm didn’t destroy your crop, there was no guarantee that there was an open market for it in Europe.

Detail of  "Tobacco Plantation"
Richard H. Laurie, London
1821

Economic conditions during the early-nineteenth century were probably the driving force behind the substantial population drop in Charles County from 20,613 in 1790 to 16,500 in 1820. The 1850 census indicates that approximately 128,000 Maryland natives migrated to southern and western states in an attempt to find better opportunities. Poor soils were a major factor contributing to outward migration. While improved farming techniques and equipment, as well as crop diversification and the application of fertilizer enabled farmers to replenish soil fertility, it took decades to reverse the damage wrought by almost two centuries of intensive tobacco cultivation in Southern Maryland. Population in the county didn’t stabilize until 1820, staying in the low 16,000 range for most of the years leading up to the Civil War.[vi]

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap
George Caleb Bingham
1850-51
Many Charles Countians migrated to Kentucky, the Carolinas, and Georgia

Outward migration, intense storm damage, poor farming, and heavy debt all contributed to depressed economic conditions during the early nineteenth century. The fact that Port Tobacco’s Episcopal Church couldn’t raise the money to rebuild until 1818, despite holding lotteries in 1808 and 1811 [vii] to do so is an indication of how economic conditions had a profound effect on the region. Add in devastation from a tornado and the monetary situation becomes even tighter. There was no money for extras, not even the church.

For more information on the 1926 and 2002 tornados I recommend these short videos:

Your Charles County -La Plata 1926 Tornado 

Your Charles County - The Evening that Changed La Plata

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[i] “Storm was part of vast, violent system.” The Sun. Baltimore, Maryland, page A6, 30 April 2002.

[ii] “15 Dead, 20 Injures as La Plata Counts Toll of Hurricane.” Evening Star. Washington, D.C. No. 30,143, page 1. While the article title incorrectly names the storm as a hurricane, the body of the article correctly calls the storm a tornado. See also pages 3 and 4.

[iii] Tornado in Port Tobacco and King George, Virginia. Gazette of the United States, and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser. Vol. XV no. 2076, 26 May 1799, page 3. News of the tornado reached Philadelphia nearly a month after the storm via a schooner that had set out from Alexandria, Virginia. The same story was reprinted verbatim in the Federal Galaxy of Brattleboro, Vermont. Vol III, no. 127, 3 June 1799, page 3.

[iv] Wind Storm in Calvert County. Maryland Gazette. Annapolis, Maryland. Vol. LIV no. 2729, 2 May 1799, page 2. The Gazette of the United States, and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser. Vol. XV no. 2060, 8 May 1799, page 2, also carried the story.

[v] Session Laws, 1807. Archives of Maryland Vol. 596, page 50. Electronic document. Accessed 2 August 2023. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000596/pdf/am596--50.pdf.

[vi] Craven, Avery Odell. Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of ‘Virginia and Maryland, 1606-1860. Peter Smith, Gloucester, Massachusetts. 1965 Reprint of the 1926 edition. Population figures are from the United States Decennial Census for the years 1790 through 1860.

[vii] Session Laws, 1811. Archives of Maryland Vol. 614, page 39. Electronic document. Accessed 2 August 2023. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000614/pdf/am614--39.pdf.