Compiled by Carol Sue Gibbs
From the Matagorda County History & Genealogy page
The first recorded hurricane that struck the county made landfall in September, 1854, even though there was evidence in the county of previous storms. J. Morgan Smith described the effects of the storm:
The 1854 storm struck hardest at the mouth of Caney. Lots of cattle, horses and sheep were drowned. A number of houses in Matagorda were unroofed, and among them the old historic Episcopal Church the Mother Church of Texas. Some sail boats were wrecked but no lives were recorded lost.
Mrs. Harris Bowie was in Matagorda at the time of the hurricane. She relates the events that she witnessed as a young girl.
The storm came up gradually. All at once there was a great crash as if everything was going to destruction. There was a great rush to the door. Mother looked back and saw that the lamp was still glowing on the piano. The house was off the blocks. Across the street was the Bowie family…We went to the Bowie home. Everyone was in the parlor of the Bowie home.
The wind was blowing terribly. A dreadful crash came, then a flash of lightning. There was a mad rush to get out of doors. I clung to Mama. Everyone scattered. I slid along on the ground as I could not walk. Harris Bowie, later my husband, was hugging the gate post when a splinter went up his leg and he was crippled.
During the scramble for safety, with the wind blowing and howling, Mama saw a light…We got to Mr. Chambers’ furniture store, where the light was. Mama gave a feeble knock at the door and someone came. Many people were already there. Mama was all bruised and was rubbed with lotion. Suddenly a cry went up that the house was going.
Mama finally left the Chambers house, and went to the Colorado House owned by the Hodges…Part of the hotel was blown away, the front part, and Mama had to drag over these ruins. She was the first one to make her way from one place to another during the storm.
We finally got to one place near where the Selkirk’s lived. After a while the people scattered to the only houses that were still standing.
Nurse had sister Bertha in her arms all the time during the storm. The Bowie cook was crushed under the debris during the storm. Mary or Mamie Bowie was wedged between two timbers. Mr. Cheesman proved himself a hero the next day helping everyone.
The county court minutes of Monday, February 19, 1855, reflected yet another effect of the storm to the welfare of Matagorda and the county.
During the gale in September last the Bayou St. Mary at the Town of Matagorda became obstructed so as to prevent vessels passing in and out with goods and produce…
A letter written to I.W. Runnels by Maclin L. Stith on Feb. 27, 1855, described the economic setbacks caused by the 1854 hurricane.
Our crops last year promised to be good, but the storm in September, besides doing a great deal of damage to buildings, almost totally destroyed the crops within forty or fifty miles of the gulf.
Matagorda was all blown down except three houses, and though it is being rapidly rebuilt it is thought the town will never arrive at its former state.
The blow lasted two to three days and although the weather was cold and rainy only two or three lives were lost. Besides the storm, we had a very wet fall which did great damage to both cotton and corn crops and also injured the sugar cane.
John B. Phillips, while living in Matagorda, when he was about 15 years old, related his experience with the hurricane in a 1916 interview.
In 1854, the worst storm which has ever visited Matagorda came upon the town and destroyed most of the buildings.
The hurricane came first from the northeast leveling about two-thirds of the houses, and damaging many others.
But four homes in the town escaped damage; they were the present home of Judge A. C. Burkhart, the dwelling southeast of where Mr. Philips now lives, one near the present depot, and the summer home of Col. R. H. Williams, a Caney planter, and first alcalde for this county, and the present A. C. Bruce dwelling.
Only four or five people were killed; the only one whose name he recalls being Mrs.____ Duffy, grandmother of Amos. The wind veered around to the west and blew the water of the bay over the town to the depth of a few inches, a boat 30 feet long being carried to the center of town and against the fallen home of Wm. Layton.
The Methodist congregation had a house of worship by November 11, 1851.
The building was destroyed by the 1854 hurricane, which leveled almost every building in town.
Quoting from A History of Early Methodism in Texas: …it is supposed that the roof of the building was blown out to sea as it was never found.
Stephen R. Wright became rector of Christ Episcopal Church shortly after the hurricane destroyed the first church in 1854. He begged for money in the East to rebuild the church.
The damage from the hurricane could be found in the settled areas of Matagorda County.
The Robbins family suffered a loss as well. After Chester Robbins came to Texas, the two brothers imported lumber and built a comfortable frame home on Fredrick W.’s Colorado River land west of Matagorda.
In 1854 Chester went to Rocky Hill, Connecticut, the ancestral home of the Robbins family in America, and married his distant cousin, Chloe Maria Theresa Robbins.
They returned to Texas to find that the devastating hurricane had destroyed the home that Chester and Fredrick W. had built.
Fredrick W. had salvaged lumber after the storm and built a two-room house which served as their temporary home while the beautiful three-story octagon-shaped house that was to become known as “Tadmor” was completed.
The families who lived on Matagorda Peninsula suffered greatly due to their vulnerability being located between Matagorda Bay and the Gulf.
In the 1867 Registration of Voters for Matagorda Peninsula, the registration showed the following living on the Peninsula. Joshua Fisher, Fletcher Layton, Frederick Vogg, John Allen, August Duffy, Gustav West, August Cole, Edward K. Wade, Peter Duffy, Henry Cookenboo, Christian Zipprian, Benjamin Evans, Conrad Franz, Conrad Dietrich, and Sebastian Dietrich.
The settlers worked hard as all pioneers have had to do and finally began to prosper.
All their toils, sufferings, and hardships were in vain, however, for the storm in 1854 brought disaster to most all of them.
Those who escaped with their lives were lucky. The fortunate few took refuge in the salt cedars, and remained all night in company with snakes, raccoons, and other wild animals.
Most of the houses had been built with the kitchen away from the main part of the house.
One story of the storm concerns the family of John Berg, who lived in such a house. The family was in the kitchen at the storm’s outbreak.
Not feeling safe, they decided to move to the supposedly stronger part of the building. While making their decision, they saw the main part of the building being torn away.
A channel had been made across the Peninsula by the high water, a lamp on the table marked the passage of the house down this channel into the Gulf.
Another story is told in connection with this storm and a house of similar construction.
A woman started from the main part of the house for the kitchen.
The wind blew the baby which she carried in her arms into the surging waters; the body was never found. 6
The family of John Frederick Vogg, Sr. had just moved to the Peninsula six months before the 1854 hurricane.
He owned 440 acres on the peninsula which he purchased in March 1854.
Those on the peninsula who escaped with their lives were fortunate, but the storm brought disaster to all who lived on it.
The settlement was rebuilt and for the next twenty years, the settlement continued.