- THE GREAT STORM OF 1886:
A DAY OF AGONY AND DEATH AT SABINE PASS, TEXAS
By W. T. Block
Reprinted from Beaumont ENTERPRISE, January 9, 1977.
Sources: Galveston DAILY NEWS, October 14-21, 1886.
"After the 1886 storm had subsided, all that remained intact was Gus Higby's store and the residences of Dr. J. J. L. Gilliland and W. F. McClanahan, the town's publisher and printer. On the Front Ridge, Moise Broussard's three story mansion, built in 1877, survived, but the cattleman lost a herd of 1,100 steers."
(note: Moise's daughter Clara married John Joseph Gilliland's son William.)
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Galveston Daily News Oct 19, 1886
"Captain Johnson of Bolivar peninsula, who last Saturday, together with Mr. R.H. Slaughter and others organized a relief committee at the above place for the Sabine sufferers sailed over to Galveston yesterday morning.....
We visited all the surrounding country and part of the pass, and found that the damage and destruction were greater in the country than in the city proper. The first house we came to was Mr. Brad Johnson's place. There was hardly anything left of it to tell the tale. The fences had disappeared completely and all the trees and crops were totally annialated. Brad Johnson was raised at the Pass and is about forty-five years old, and stated that the Sabine blow was the severest hurricane he had ever witnessed. Moise Broussard's house was situated just next to Brad Johnson's and had also suffered more or less. A tank which had been scraped out for stock watering purposes was discovered here with the only fresh water left at Sabine Pass. Out of a total of eleven hundred cattle, owned by Mr. Broussard, which were pasturing at the time of the storm five or six miles this side of the Pass, not one animal escaped he waters. The search for dead bodies is still progressing. A young lady was fished from the jetty works on Saturday who was supposed to be Miss Annie McCall, although the body was not positively identified as such. The body of Homer King still remains undiscovered. "
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