I had to move to Waterbury in my old age, and there commence again to try to get a living.

I moved in the fall of 1856, and as bad luck would have it, rented a house not two rods from a large church with a very large steeple attached to it, which had been built but a short time before.

In one of the most terrific hurricanes and snow storms that I ever knew in my life, at four o'clock in the morning of January 19th, 1857, this large steeple fell on the top of our house which was a three story brick building.

It broke through the roof and smashed in all the upper tier of rooms, the bricks and mortar falling to the lower floor.
We were in the second story, and some of the bricks came into our room, breaking the glass and furniture, and the heaviest part of the whole lay directly on our house.

It was the opinion of all who saw the ruins that we did not stand one chance in ten thousand of not being killed in a moment.