When the topic of tornadoes crops up in Williams County, most people hearken back to the EF-3 event of March 27, 1991. At about 9:00 pm on that evening, a tornado with an accompanying microburst slammed into Nettle Lake, bringing injury and havoc. It was indeed a powerful storm, but it paled in comparison to what a century earlier was referred to as “The Kunkle Cyclone of 1894.”
May 17, 1894 was a sultry day in Northwest Ohio, with a few popup rain showers adding to the humidity. With the sun beating down in between the popup showers, the heated ground gave up the recently acquired moisture to evaporation, adding fuel to an already unstable atmosphere. At around 4:00 pm, the atmosphere exploded.
Citizens of Montpelier took note of a large storm, slowly passing to the north of the village. Of note was a common thread in the description… seemingly unending thunder. As it continued to march to the east northeast, the citizens of Kunkle heard an unusual sound approaching their village. Many of them came out into the streets to see what was causing the rumbling, and were shocked upon their realization. The sound was that of the constant rolling of thunder emanating from a storm that had appeared to the west.
With the blue skies above being encroached upon by the slowly advancing blackness from the west, feelings of consternation in the village began to rise along with the crescendo of the thunder. Still, they stood in the streets and watched, completely unaware of what was about to befall them. Fifteen minutes later, the storm was upon them, sending the people running for the shelter of their homes.
A hail shaft bearing stones described as the size of hens’ eggs plowed into the village. Driven by high winds, the hailstones damaged roofs and siding, and shattered windows throughout the village. The damage done by the wind-driven hail was trivial however, compared to what the storm did to the area to the south of the village.
The storm had dropped a tornado well to the west-southwest of the village, and as it zigzagged across the farmlands, it gained in strength. When it moved into Madison Township, it made short work of the house on the Hazen farm, then after shifting its track slightly to the northeast, the tornado bore down on the homes and farms just to the south of Kunkle, about three miles ahead.
The farm of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Barrett occupied the property at what is today the northwest side of the intersection of County Roads 17 and N30. Their grandchildren, 14-year-old Martha and 10-year-old Myrta Daso, lived on the southeast corner of the same intersection and were visiting their grandparents on this day. Two hired hands were working the fields of the Barrett farm… George Oxenger and James Whitla.
Oxenger and Whitla both saw the approach of the tornado, and both made for the barn. Oxenger arrived first, got his horses into the barn, and was on his way to the house when the storm hit, obliterating the barn. He was picked up by the winds and hurled. His badly broken body was found about a third of a mile away from where the barn stood.
Whitla was keeping pace with Oxenger, but his horse team panicked and broke free, delaying his arrival at the barn. Thanks to those panicked horses, James Whitla survived the event by falling face down in a depression and grabbing a fencepost. He saw the barn being destroyed, its remnants, along with its contents and the cow shed, flying over his head. His last vague memory was that of the house taking a direct hit and being reduced to flying shards. Even the foundation was ripped out as the vortex passed.
Daniel Barrett was found unconscious and grievously wounded about 200 yards from where his house once stood. He died shortly afterward, having never regained consciousness. Martha and Myrta Daso were found alive near where the house once stood. Martha suffered a severe head injury, but Myrta, who had multiple broken bones and internal injuries, passed away about five hours later.
The legend of the fate of Mrs. Daniel Barrett was repeated for many years, gaining details but losing factual elements as the years passed. She too was picked up and hurled by the storm, her badly mutilated body coming to rest about a quarter mile from where her home once stood.
In the space of ten seconds, the vortex had killed two and mortally wounded two more. Using structural analysis of the homes destroyed and damage path photography, the tornado was rated as an F-4 with winds of 207 to 260 miles per hour on the old Fujita Scale. This was the only time on record that a tornado of greater than F-3 in strength struck inside Williams County. The killer tornado continued to rope out and dissipate, but the storm from which it emanated was far from finished.
The slow-moving storm continued eastward, passing from Williams into Fulton County with its strength unabated. Witnesses of the day provided two eerily familiar descriptions of the storm, the first being of seemingly constant thunder as it approached. The second descriptor adds further fuel that this was the same beast that had killed four people just an hour earlier… a hail shaft dispensing egg-sized stones with accompanying high winds. As it approached Ottokee, the regenerating mesocyclone produced another funnel cloud just west of the village.
Unlike the south side of Kunkle, Ottokee was spared as the funnel cloud remained aloft as it passed over the village. It began a descent northeast of the village, where it took the top half off the barn at the Haumesser farm. Once it touched down, it began a six-mile march, tearing up property and timber and passing just south of the Winameg Town Hall. It is from there that a report of baseball-sized hail was received as the storm passed.
The tornado crossed from Pike into Fulton Township and began to dissipate. After tearing the roof off the barn on the Anson Gunn farm, the mesocyclone collapsed just southwest of the Village of Ai. By comparison to Williams County, Fulton County was spared. No fatalities were reported, and only one minor injury, that to a seven-year-old boy.
While the Nettle Lake event was indeed a significant tornado/microburst tandem, it could not measure up to the storm of 1894 and what the media of the day referred to as a “Kansas-style” tornado. We can count ourselves as blessed that we have not seen the like in over 120 years.
-Newspaper Staff Research
