On March 18, 1925, there occurred an event which the Sumner County News called in its March 19, 1925 edition the, “…most appalling disaster in the history of Sumner County….” Most all who witnessed this event are gone now, but, for them, it was a date whose horrors remained permanently etched in their memories. On that date so many years ago the fury of nature left a path of death and destruction across the northern part of Sumner County. Nature’s vengeance appeared in the form of what many have come to call simply the “Liberty Tornado.”

Unfortunately for the residents of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee River Valleys, Mother Nature had whipped up just the right ingredients for development of a powerful one-two weather punch that was destined to reach its zenith over the area. A deep low pressure system had developed over Arkansas on the morning of March 18th with a warm front extending east from it and a cold front trailing behind it to the southwest. As the storm moved to the northeast, the warm front brought abnormally warm temperatures along with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. A few hours later, when the trailing cold front collided with the warm, moist air, violent storms were born and a few of them gave birth to tornadoes. One such storm would roar across parts of Sumner County by day’s end. Sadly, the events in Sumner County were to be overshadowed by an even greater storm that was spawned by the same weather system that day. Spreading terror across the states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana was the “Tri State Tornado,” leaving over 600 people dead along its path.

The video that follows is an accurate recounting of the terror of the Tri-State Tornado and its ravaging of that area on March 18, 1925. The Tri-State twister is thought to have been an F-5 monster, whereas the Liberty Tornado is rated as an F-4, nearing an F-5 in strength and destruction.

Wednesday, March 18, 1925 had at first been a peaceful day. The temperature was warmer than usual. Morning rains soon gave way to bright sunshine and the sun would shine until late afternoon when the day began to grow increasingly cloudy. Westmoreland resident Virgil Huntsman remembered working with his father, Robert “Bob” Huntsman in the Rock House Hollow area. The two had spent most of the day fencing when in the late afternoon they noticed a dark cloud forming in the western sky. Soon thereafter, it began to rain and the two hurried back up the ridge toward Westmoreland and their home. Before they arrived, the rain began to fall in torrents and the winds were blowing very hard.

At nearly the same time, but near the Sulphura area in the western part of the county, James Clayton Allison was working at the Kirkham family sawmill when Mr. Kirkham shut down operations for the day due to the worsening weather conditions. He invited all to his house to shelter, but 18 year old Allison declined, saying that his mother would worry if he were not home and he needed to be with her.

According to the Sumner County News, the storm clouds first appeared in western Sumner County at about 4:00 pm. At 5:30, the tornado made its first strike by touching down at the Keytown community near Buck Lodge. Almost immediately, the storm began its claim of victims. In Keytown the homes of Martin and Luke Key were the first to be hit. After the storm had passed, the rubble of Martin Key’s house was destroyed by a fire that started when overturned lanterns ignited. A short distance away, Matilda Key, the 75 year old mother of Luke Key, lay on her sick bed. Matilda’s husband, John Franklin Key, had served in the Civil War and had been a member of the Escort Company riding with General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Upon his death in 1904, Key’s body was interred at Arlington in the nation’s capital, one of a comparative few Confederates to be buried there. When the storm struck, the Widow Key had no opportunity to escape and was killed along with her daughter-in-law, Maude. Luke Key and his children all survived, however four of the children were injured so severely that they were sent to Vanderbilt Hospital.

The tornado soon demonstrated a certain trickiness to its behavior for which such storms are infamous. The family of Jim Brizendine lay huddled in their little home, hearing nothing but the the storm as it quickly approached. Within seconds, it was apparent the tiny house would be no match for the storm as it appeared that any second it would be lifted from its foundation and smashed across the countryside. Instead, the storm hurled onto the house a four-foot round tree whose weight secured the structure and the family inside from an almost certain destruction.

The tornado continued its north-westerly path to the communties of Graball and Sulphura. On a hill between these communties sat the home of the Allison family and nearby, the homes of Henry Hughes and his son and daughter-in-law, Cleveland and Ella Hughes.

Ella Hughes was home alone that fateful evening. From the southwest, she could hear the roar of the storm as it quickly approached. Not wanting to remain alone at her house, she struck out across the fields in the driving rain to reach the Allison home a half-mile distant. Through the terrible lightning and thunder, she stumbled toward her destination.

The family of Jim and Mary Nola Allison were eagerly awaiting the evening’s meal. Tragically, it would be left uneaten, because the storm quickly unleashed its terrible fury upon them. Within a few horrifying seconds the father, mother and all six children still living at home, ranging in age from 8 to 20, lay dead, their bodies scattered in the debris of what just moments before had been their home. Their death certificates tell a terrifying story of mayhem: three with death due to fractured skulls, one with a leg ripped from his body, two with their “body torn in two” and “horribly mutilated”. Of Mary Lola Brown Allison, the family matriarch, Gallatin’s Dr. William Lackey wrote death was caused by “trauma at home by cyclone – body torn into fragments.” Among the Allison family victims lay the remains of the 18 year old sawmill worker, James Clayton Allison, who travelled through the torrential rain to be with his mother. Of James Clayton, Dr. Lackey recorded that his “body was torn in two and horribly mutilated”.

Ella Hughes, who had so frantically sought safety at the home of her neighbors, the Allisons, also lay dead nearby, her skull fractured and her body “disemboweled”. In a tragic twist of fate, her own home remained standing, virtually untouched by the tornado. The nearby home of her father-in-law, 75 year-old Henry Hughes, was completely swept away and he, too, was killed.

The family of the elder Hughes, James Henry, had been visited before by tragedy. His first wife, Matilda Emily Cron, died in 1888, most likely related to the birth of their first-born child, Cleveland Hughes (the husband of tornado victim Ella Hughes). Henry Hughes would later marry his sister-in-law, Nancy Cron, and their marriage would produce three more children, none of whom would live to witness the horrors of the tornado. Their eldest daughter, Pearl, died of peritonitis in 1922 at the age of 21. Their son, Robert Henry Hughes, would succumb to influenza that same year, with both having been preceded in death by a younger sibling, Ellie Hughes, in 1917 due to typhoid fever. Their mother had passed away in 1896, leaving James Henry Hughes a widower and possibly home alone on the day the tornado struck.

Next, the storm struck Angleatown, just south of Oak Grove. It was here that the tornado attained what the Sumner County News termed, “…the roar of a jungle monster …gaining terrific speed as it caught its stride.” Here, among others, the homes of Charles Durham, Joe Durham and Charles Holmes were destroyed. Charles Durham and his wife were killed along with their two-year old daughter, Lorena. It was reported that Lorena’s body was found under a log 24 hours after the storm. Another daughter, Leola, survived. Later, Leola related to family members that her father wrapped her in a feather blanket for protection. After the storm had passed, search parties found her insnared in the limbs of a tree and still wrapped in the protective featherbed. Nearby, the wife of Joseph Johnson Durham and his two children, Opal, age 16, and James Joseph, barely a year old, were killed. Joe Durham was away from home when the storm hit, surviving to bury his family. Another daughter, Lenorah Gertrude Durham, was injured and required hospitalization, but survived.

Just down the road at the Charles Holmes house, the storm struck, killing his wife immediately. Charles Holmes would die the following Saturday as a result of his injuries. Two of their daughters suffered frightfully, having had tree limbs and pieces of timber pierce their legs. As a result, one of the daughters would bear a noticeable dip in the calf of her leg for the rest of her life. With the exception of a sister named Thelma, five of the Holmes children survived. They had taken shelter under the kitchen table. After the storm, the children went to live with relatives in Indiana.

From Angleatown, the storm continued toward the northeast through the Mt. Vernon community, then up the hollow that is today called Ernest Cates Road. Here the destruction was so great that the road was rendered impassable due to downed trees and scattered debris. Just beyond the hollow sat the Liberty Presbyterian Church, square in the path of the approaching tornado. At the very moment of impact with the church, Will O’Mera and his son, Charles, stood atop the hill on which Westmoreland’s present-day Sumner Drive runs. The younger O’Mera, who had served in World War I, had brought back from the war a powerful pair of military binoculars. Through these binoculars, the two were watching the progress of the storm some five miles to the west. Will O’Mera afterward said that he clearly saw the silhouette of the tornado as it struck the Liberty Church. The building, he said, was lifted intact high into the air only to suddenly explode, falling back to the ground, “like a bunch of matchsticks.”

The storm soon reached the area around the present-day Clark’s Market just off Highway 52, three miles west of Westmoreland. Here, the family of Paul Harris left their house and quickly ran to a small outbuilding behind their home. Opening a trap door in the floor of the building, the family dropped down into a milk well for protection. Just before the storm hit, the small son of Harris heard the cries of a pet lamb outside. The boy called for the lamb and it, too, was soon down in the make-shift cellar. After the storm had passed, the family emerged safe but discovered their house was completely gone. Across the road, a large field of wheat also bore the scars of the storm’s passage: a path of 60 or more yards in width had been laid bare to such an extent that only dirt remained. The family’s chickens could be seen running through the yard having been plucked of most of their feathers by the storm.

Down the road a short distance, the wife of Bledsoe Harris, Nellie Nimmo Harris, who was also the mother of Paul Harris, lay seriously injured. She was soon taken to the home of Jeff Meadors where she suffered in great pain. She finally died on April 22, 1925 of her storm-related injuries.

Hayden Graves, who was a small boy living with his family on Rabe Coates Road west of Westmoreland at the time of the storm, remembered the day well. Near his father’s house stood a large log barn that was in the path of the storm. The winds were so violent the logs were hurled through the air, striking the house. Though the house withstood the onslaught, Graves was able to vividly recall the incredible sound that was made when the barn’s massive logs struck the side of their house.

Just down the road, a home belonging to the Mandrell family was completely destroyed. The family had left the house before the storm hit and escaped uninjured.

At the corner of Rabe Coates Road and Bishop Troutt Road lived Albert Harrison and his family. After the storm had passed, Harrison emerged from his house to find that the structure had been pushed several yards closer to the road and to his amazement, his Model T Ford had been lifted by the winds and hurled into the top of a large sugar tree standing nearby, where it remained hanging from the branches.

The storm crossed Old 31-E between Turner’s Station and Westmoreland near the Troutt Cemetery. Here, the Henry Troutt house was blown across the road and destroyed. Among other items, bedding was blown onto the highway, completely blocking traffic. Passing over the hills to the northeast, the tornado rapidly approached the house of Tom Beasley, located on the present day, Tom Beasley Road.

Beasley was two miles away in Westmoreland working at a sawmill. Though the storm did not directly hit Westmoreland, many residents were frightened at the nearness of it. There was a large cellar located in the hillside behind the present day feed mill site. From his vantage point at the sawmill, Beasley observed several families running into the cellar and remarked that they looked like a bunch of groundhogs running into their hole. Beasley had no way of knowing that within minutes of making this statement, his own family would become the storm’ s latest victims.

Thomas Carline Beasley, one of Tom Beasley’s six children, was in the kitchen popping popcorn when his little brother, Raydean, rushed into the room telling him to stop cooking and come to the living room. Carline could hear his mother calling for him, but the popcorn wasn’t quite finished. With the cyclone rapidly approaching, Ada Beasley, the wife of Tom Beasley, shouted, “Get in here, now!” to her straggling son, whereupon Carline abandoned the popcorn. Viewing the approaching storm with increasing alarm, Ada Beasley had attempted to gather her large family in the downstairs living room of their home. Pulling a mattress from the bed in the room, the family crouched beneath it, save for Carline and Raydean who were making their way to the makeshift shelter. Ada told the children to lock arms with each other and to pray in an effort to protect them. At the height of the storm, the smallest child struggled to get under the mattress, and he began to be pulled away by the winds. Seeing this, the mother reached up and grabbed the child’s arm, pulling him back to the ground and under the mattress. Carline remembered taking hold of a door knob as the house exploded. His next remembrance was waking up and finding himself lying in the field across the road about 150 yards from the house, covered in mud, and wondering just how he got there. His hand still clasped the doorknob, minus the door.

After the storm had passed, Carline regained his wits to the sound of a barking dog. The dog was the family pet and had also been delivered across the road, not far from Carline. As Carline came to his senses and became sure of his footing, he saw in the distance that the house was no longer standing. Nearing the road in front of the house, the dog began to bark frantically in the direction of a pile of limbs and house debris lying in the middle of the road. The dog continued its barking as it circled the pile of debris. Carline tore into the heap and soon found the mattress that had covered his mother and siblings during the storm. Lifting the mattress, Carline discovered his mother and siblings with arms still locked, and, miraculously, save for a few cuts and bruises, the family had weathered the storm.

The next day, observers found a two by four oak or poplar stud that had once been a part of the Beasley house. The force of the wind had been so great that a butter knife was found to be protruding from the board, the knife having stabbed the wood almost completely through. Some three years later, while plowing a field, Tom Beasley was approached by a stranger bearing an envelope. Inside it was the deed to Beasley’s property. The stranger claimed to have found the deed somewhere in the Rocky Mound community of Macon County, apparently deposited there by the storm.

Still full of life, the tornado roared across the valley of Garrett’s Creek, blowing through the old Mandy Keen graveyard where it scattered large cedar trees and toppled numerous headstones. Passing over the hill beyond, the storm was soon at Pleasant Grove about a half-mile north of its churches and cemetery.

A few hundred yards south of the churches, Jarvis Burnley was attempting to milk the family’s cows. His job was all but routine that evening because the winds were blowing so violently through the barn that he became fearful the cow might actually blow over on him. He soon finished and hurriedly made his way back to the family home unharmed. However, one of his sisters would not be so fortunate.

Mary Burnley Gilliam and her husband, Norman, lived about a mile and a half north of the churches. The family was at the dinner table having supper as the storm approached. When the winds began to blow too fiercely, Mary rose from the table to close the back door but was unable to do so due to the strength of the winds. As Norman came to help her, leaving their two sons, A.J. and Leon, sitting at the table, the storm struck. Much of the ceiling came crashing down, nearly breaking Mary’s back and burying the two boys in a pile of rubble. At first, it was thought the boys were dead but neighbors who had come to render aid to the family dug through the rubble and found that the boys had been sheltered, mostly unharmed, by a large pile of quilts that had been stored in the attic.

At this point, the storm began to rapidly lose steam so that by the time it reached the Trammel Creek area in Macon County, evidence of its passing was found only in the debris which fell from the sky. Articles of clothing, housing material, personal effects, and so forth hung from the highest branches of the trees in this area. By the time the storm had reached the state line, it began to regain strength where it eventually struck Holland, Kentucky killing another four people. The storm may also have been responsible for the deaths of eight more people in the Beaumont community of Barren County before finally coming to an end.

Almost immediately, relief efforts began to take place. Representatives from Sumner County’s chapter of the Red Cross along with most of the area’s doctors and nurses went to the region. An emergency hospital was set up in Gallatin at a vacant home owned by Cy Love on Railroad Avenue. The national Red Cross, already severely strained by the effects of tornadoes further north including the Tri State Tornado, sent three representatives from Washington, D.C. to oversee these efforts. These officials were joined by hundreds of local citizens who donated both time and money to help their neighbors. School children who reported to their classes in Westmoreland the day after the storm were greeted with the message, “Gone to help cyclone sufferers.” This was written on the chalkboard by Professor Odell Davis. The ladies of Bethpage sewed and delivered numerous articles of clothing over the next few days to those in need.

Among the relief efforts instituted by the Red Cross was the rebuilding of some of the destroyed structures. One such house to be built by the Red Cross is the home formerly owned by Wayne Akins on Highway 52 near the Liberty Church.

All disasters draw onlookers and this one was no exception. The Sumner County News reported that over the next several days following the storm, over 30,000 people had passed through the area causing extensive traffic jams in the Mt. Vernon and Angleatown areas. A young woman at the time, Turner’s Station resident Eva Davis, full of adventure, wanted to see the storm’s effects in the central part of the county. For the price of 10 cents, she hitched a ride on board a truck loaded with people passing by her house and traveled to the scene of greatest devastation. However, upon her arrival there, her spirit of adventure was quickly tempered with the realities of the very real human suffering she witnessed. She returned home later that day with a deep sympathy for her neighbors who had lost so much.

The sense of devastation was made all the more real two days after the storm on Friday, March 20th. Mourners gathered at the Mt. Vernon Methodist Church were ministers J. T. Brown, J. T. Parsons, S.D. Presnell and Rev. Neal conducted services. Seven coffins lay at the front of the church that day bearing the bodies of seven victims of the Liberty Tornado including the little one year old boy of Joe and Ida Durham. All seven victims were buried in the adjoining Mt. Vernon Cemetery.

Friends, relatives, and more than a few gawkers gathered a few miles to the west to pay their respects to the Allison family. Today, they lay in sad repose at the small, but well-maintained Pleasant Hill Cemetery just off Dobbins Pike. Eight tiny, non-descript stones mark their burial sites along with one large headstone bearing the names and ages of each member of the family.

Newspapers throughout the country reported the devastation, often lumping the story and body count with articles about the Tri-State Tornado.

In the end, 34 families were left homeless and at least 150 homes totally destroyed or damaged in the 18 mile long storm path. Property damage was estimated to have been greater than $100,000, an astounding figure for the time and the equivalent of over $1.8 million today. A total of 27 Sumner Countians lost their lives to the tornado and an additional 95 people suffered injuries.

Though much of the physical evidence of the tornado has long since disappeared, there are still visible signs of the fear it struck in the hearts of those who survived it and viewed its aftermath. All one has to do is simply walk in the yards of most any home built in this area in the 1920’s or 30’s. With few exceptions, most of these older homes sport an underground storm cellar that could be quickly reached if ever the terrible horror were to drop from Sumner County’s skies again.