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 halfway 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 eerie 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. The thunderbolt was felt all over town. A Dublin Post writer was standing in the office between T.A. Howard and William Linder, the paper’s printer. While the writer felt nothing, Howard instantly complained that his right leg was broken, while Linder felt his composing stick being wrenched from his hand. He complained of a pain in his wrist for half an hour. In another part of the newspaper office, G.W. Stephenson complained of a pain in his right wrist. Joel Perry, who was sitting on his porch when he saw Hester’s animals killed by the mysterious glow, did not hear the clap of thunder but did suffer a severe headache and ringing in his ears for a while. Other citizens reported similar ailments. Though the striking of china berry trees, Dublin’s primary shade trees, was not unusual the calamity did cause quite a stir among local residents. Dublin Post, September 21, 1881.
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