Whirlwind on the Prairie: Part 2

Uncovering the stories behind one of the earliest recorded tornadoes in Chicago area history

Finding More Clues

Based upon the available evidence, the exact location of the May 22, 1855, tornado was unclear. If it did, in fact, occur within Jefferson Township, the tornado’s location could have been anywhere within a 6-mile by 6-mile square. No source was found that suggested a possible location for a “Jefferson Mill,” which may have helped narrow it down. The Chicago Tribune article mentioned just one name in the entire story, “Mr. Page.” Property maps from the 1860s showed no properties owned by persons named “Page.”

It wasn’t just a single article from a single newspaper; multiple sources reported similar location details. In 1884, John P. Finley of the U.S. Signal Service (predecessor to today's National Weather Service) published a report listing details of hundreds of tornadoes which had occurred in the United States up to that point. "Report on the Character of Six Hundred Tornadoes" listed a May 22, 1855, tornado occurring in "Jefferson and Cook [County], Ill." Finley’s report suggested that the tornado was one of the earliest documented tornadoes in the state of Illinois.

May 22, 1855, tornado in "Report on the Character of Six Hundred Tornadoes" (Finley, 1882).

After St. Louis was hit by a major tornado in 1896, the St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote an article documenting the history of tornadoes in the United States. It was mentioned that the "earliest recorded tornado in Illinois" occurred in "Jefferson and Cook Counties" on May 22, 1855. Continuing until the present day, newspaper articles and blog posts have continued to indicate the Jefferson Park or adjacent Norwood Park areas of Chicago were the location of this tornado. Without the discovery of new evidence, the true location and details would likely remain uncertain.

Some questions started to be answered, however, after discovering the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress, a large online database of digitized newspaper articles spanning 1777 to 1963 . Although no Chicago newspapers published at the time of the tornado were available digitally from the Library of Congress, many other newspapers from across the country were available. Some of these newspapers picked up stories from Chicago papers (1), and articles were found that discussed the tornado.

While just the name "Mr. Page" was mentioned in the Chicago Tribune, other articles mentioned "H. Page," "R.L. Wheeler," and "Mrs. Gillett." Additional location clues were also provided. While the Chicago Tribune mentioned "Town of Jefferson" and "Jefferson Mills" which were "16 miles [from Chicago]," other articles mentioned "Town of Maine" and "one mile from the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad." Each of these articles pointed to different people, and different locations within Cook County. “Towne of Maine” likely referred to “Maine Township,” an entirely separate 6-mile by 6-mile subdivision of Cook County to the northwest of Jefferson.

Putting it on the Map

Property maps from the 1860s were again reviewed using the additional names provided. No references to "Page," "Wheeler," or "Gillett" were found in Jefferson Township. This left open the possibility that the impacted family moved away after the storm, but prior to the publishing of the 1860 map, and also the possibility that the family was renting the property from someone else.

The 16-mile distance from Chicago mentioned in the Chicago Tribune was also found to be problematic - Jefferson Township was actually just 9 miles from the city. At the 16-mile distance was Maine Township, a location mentioned in at least one of the newspaper articles. Maine Township is also bisected by the same railroad that passed through Jefferson Township, the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad (which was later known by different names).

The 16-mile distance from Chicago and the 1-mile distance from the Illinois Wisconsin Railroad overlaid upon an 1861 map of Cook County, Illinois (Flower et al. 1861). Near the western "x" - where these two lines meet - lies the property of RL Wheeler.

Reviewing property maps again, but this time in Maine Township at a location approximately 16 miles from Chicago and 1 mile from the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad, showed a property registered to an “RL Wheeler.” Just to the east, multiple properties were registered to members of the “Jefferson” family. On the Jefferson property, the map marked the location of a mill.

On a cold February day in 2022, a trip to the Harold Washington Library in Chicago helped change the narrative about the tornado. Multiple reels of microfilm were reviewed, searching articles published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, the Chicago Weekly Times, and Daily Democratic Press, looking for any mention of the tornado. Multiple additional articles were found.

The most noteworthy discovery - the majority of contemporary articles covering the tornado indicated that it happened in Maine Township, near the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad line, just west of the Des Plaines River - not in Jefferson Township.

From the Archives

After further corroborating information found during this research with genealogical records, a manuscript providing a revised account of the May 22, 1855, tornado was submitted to Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), eventually being published in January 2023. It was learned that the tornado killed two adults and two children, the youngest being just a few months old. The path was toward the southeast, passing through modern-day Des Plaines, Illinois.

Since the submission to BAMS, additional records were uncovered which provided even more detail about the tornado.

While reviewing various inventories of materials archived by the Smithsonian Institution to try to find data on past Chicago River water levels, a list of documents related to the May 1855 tornado were discovered instead. In an annual report detailing the "classified record of miscellaneous meteorological material preserved in the Smithsonian Institution," three separate letters to Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry were listed. Upon communication with the Smithsonian Archives, archivists were able to find and share copies of the documents.

While transcribing recently-received documents and letters at the Des Plaines History Center, a detailed letter was uncovered written by William Thacker, a farm laborer at the time of the May 1855 tornado. Thacker described in detail his encounter with the tornado, the path and damage it caused, and the effects in had the Page/Wheeler family.

Details from these documents are hereafter combined to tell the story of the people affected by May 22, 1855, tornado.

Click here for Part 3 of Whirlwind on the Prairie, where we learn the backgrounds of people affected by the tornado.

Footnotes

In 1855, there were not the news agency services ("wire services") that are standard today. Although the Associated Press was formed in 1846, it was created specifically for newspapers in New York to share telegraph transmission costs. For other news outlets across the country, the standard method of sharing news was for a given newspaper to simply subscribe to a paper in a different part of the country, receive a copy via postal mail, and then republish major stories. Sometimes newspapers even did one-for-one swaps, which was not charged postage by the postal service.

References

American Antiquarian Society: The Early Nineteenth Century Newspaper Boom. https://americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-antebellum-america/the-newspaper-boom

Chicago Daily Tribune, 1855: A Hail Storm. Chicago Daily Tribune. May 23, 1855.

Chicago Weekly Times, 1855a: Awful whirlwind!—Life and property destroyed. Chicago Weekly Times, 31 May.

Chicago Weekly Times, 1855b: Hurricanes in Wisconsin. Chicago Weekly Times, 7 June.

Daily Democratic Press, 1855a: Whirlwind—Three persons killed. Daily Democratic Press, 24 May.

Daily Democratic Press, 1855b: Further particulars of the whirlwind. Daily Democratic Press, 25 May.

Daily Democratic Press, 1855c: Another victim. Daily Democratic Press, 29 May.

Finley, J. P., 1882: Report on the Character of Six Hundred Tornadoes. Professional Papers of the Signal Service, Volume 12.

Flower, W. L., and E. Mendel, 1861: Map of Cook County, Illinois. S. H. Burns and J. Van Vechten, www.loc.gov/resource/g4103c.la000104/?r=0.378,0.188,0.172,0.106,0.

Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents, 1875: Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1874.