Tornado on the Murray Farm: a Virtual Cemetery

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A Virtual Cemetery created by Carol Hoch

Tornado on the Murray Farm

Description: Grapeland, Houston County, Tex., Feb. 9. (AP) -- Ten negroes were killed and forty were injured last night when an east Texas tornado wrecked a tenant community on the Murray farm 15 miles west of Grapeland. Thirty-one tenant houses were razed. . . . Reports indicated that a number of the negroes injured on the Murray farm might die. Widespread damage occurred in the counties of Leon, Trinity and Houston and extended north to Marshall . . . In the Reynard community of Houston county, the Beasley cotton gin was ruined, along with the Beasley and Smith store. The loss ran into thousands of dollars. The Orange Leader (Orange, Tex.), Vol. 22, No. 29, Ed. 1 Sunday, February 10, 1935 || Palestine, Texas, Feb. 10. -- The Red Cross Sunday took over the gigantic task of administering relief to 300 homeless Negroes on the Murray farm, sixteen miles west of Grapeland, where a tornado dipped in Friday night and demolished a tenant settlement, killing eleven Negroes and injuring dozens. Three truckloads of tends and blankets from the National Guard unit at Camp Mabry, near Austin, moved in early Sunday and additional provisions of food and clothing were sent from Grapeland and near-by communities. The Palestine unit of the Red Cross started a drive for more provisions. Almost freezing weather and a slow drizzle added to the misery of the Negroes who escaped injury. They milled about their demolished shacks and prepared the dead victims for burial. White farmers helped them erect the National Guard tents and make other preparations for temporary relief. The cyclone was declared the most intense every known in this section of East Texas. The twister cut a swath several miles wide through the heart of the farm, leveling thirty-one tenant houses and damaging a dozen or more homes a few miles east of the plantation. A store and school building at Keynard were demolished. Giant oak trees were uprooted and many others were twisted off near the ground. Relief officials supplied the Negroes with stoves. Dallas Morning News, February 11, 1935...Josephine Walker signed many of the death certificates. She must have been a special woman in the Community. This article lists 10 folks dying. I hope I have found them all, so we can leave flowers.