LIQUID LIGHTNING - It was a hot muggy late summer afternoon on September 15, 1881 in Dublin when a terrific thunderstorm struck around two o’clock. James Hester saw the oncoming tumult and pulled his team of oxen under a large china berry tree about half way between Maas’s store and J.E. Perry’s house. Hester took the beasts of burden loose from the cart and was preparing to lead them around to tie them to a wheel when a stream of mysterious luminous fluid seemed to cascade down through the tree. To those who were present, it appeared that the eery liquid coated a light sheet over the oxen and their driver. The animals instantly fell dead to the ground, the one closest to the tree never moved. Hester, stunned and dazed as if dead, was carried to Maas’s store and revived. He soon became able to relate his experiences to the concerned and curious crowd which had gathered around him.
Comments