The Daily Dispatch: July 20, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Death from lightning

--Remarkable Occurrence.--The Sumter (S. C.) Watchman, of a recent date, says it has been kindly placed in possession of a letter from Dove's Station, Cheraw and Darlington Railroad, which details some unusual circumstances in connexion with the effects of lightning at that place on Tuesday evening last:

The end of the depot appropriated to use of passengers, road office, &c., and to which there was a chimney, was struck by the lightning. There were four white persons and one negro sitting in the room, where the lightning took effect, and one negro sitting outside, upon the platform, very near the partition which separated the room from the platform. The lightning seemed to have first taken effect upon the chimney and then to have disseminated itself to other adjacent parts of the building. The chimney was knocked down more than half-way to the ground, and bricks, plank, shingles, window glass and broken timber were scattered in every direction and over the room in which the persons alluded to were sitting. The negro who sat outside was killed. While the white persons and negro who sat inside, and whose location was within six feet of the chimney, were only pretty severely stunned. The escape of these was miraculous, while the only solution of the cause of the death of the negro, who was farther off, and with a wall intervening, is in the face that he sat up on a box which contained tools.