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Burr Family Genealogy Forum
  
I found an article in the magazine "New England Ancestors (Winter 2004), called "Slain by the Thunder & Lightning". It list several people in early New England who died by lightning.
Capt. John Burr (Stratfield Parish, town of Fairfield (now Bridgeport)Conn. June 13, 1728 - July 28,1771, son of Col John and Catherine(Wakeman)Burr, he had married April 1, 1750, Eunice Booth.
"At Stratfield, a parish in the town of Fairfield, Conn, a shower came up between eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon, while religious services were being conducted in the church. The flashes of lightning wre incessant, and thunder was continually crashing through, the air. Suddenly the church seemed to be filled with dazzling flames of white fire and a crash followed, compared with which all other's were slight. The spire of the steeple had been struck, and dead and wounded men wre lying on the floor, groans of sufferers indicating the intense pain that lightning sometimes effects. The spire had been erected the preceding autumn, and was in an unfinished condition. Several of the rafters were shivered to atoms, and the great ball at their head was split into three pieces. The lightning, descending on all the rafters, entered the octagonal base of the spire, and threew the boards and trimmings on the north and south sides entirely off. It then ran down the front posts of the body of the church by the side entrance, and when within four feet of the bottom of them, it turned into thee church. Directly opposite the place where it entered were the pews of two men, who were instantly killed. One of them Capt. John Burr, was standing in his pew, leaning on his elbow upon the rail, his body being 18 inches from the post. The lightning probably passed through his body into the rail of the pew, as a large piece ws knocked out where his elbow rested. Passing by a person who stood a little out of his range, the electric fluid then entered the body of Mr. Burr's brother, Ozias Burr, and ran down his side tearing off his shoe, and rendering his legs useless. It then passed through the pew door to the aisle, where it tore the floor for some distance, and then went into the ground. The other person that was killed was David Sherman , who was in a situation similiar to that of Capt. Burr in his pew on the other side of the door. The course of the lightning could not be traced farther than his body, though several persons were stunned in that neighboring pews and indeed in many parts of the church. The religious services, as may be supposed , were discontinued and many willing hands died what was necessarty to bring the stunned people back to their senses, and care for the bodies of the dead. The double funeral was held the folowing day, when the pastor Rev. Mr. Hobart, preached an excellent and appropriate sermon to a large congregation. (Charles Burr Todd, A History of the Burr Family (1902) for this account of the event.
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