The particulars of the sad affair is as follows; Mr. Clap was in the barn milking, filled his pail and had gone outside the building to a shed under which the milk wagon stood with the cans on it, and emptied the the pail. He had just stepped back into the door that was in the corner of the barn when the bolt struck him. Mr. Weston picked him up and took him to the horse barn a short distance off, while his wife was engaged in releasing the cows and getting them out of the barn that was already burning briskly.
It was about half past six when the bolt struck with such fatal effects. About 1000 bushels of oats and a quantity of hay was consumed by fire. As the barn burned so quickly it is of course impossible to tell just where the lightning struck it, but the probabilities are it struck it entered the roof directly over the door where Mr. Clapp stood when killed, as that was where the fire started.
The bolt struck him on the right side of his head burning his hair, eyelashes, eyebrows and mustache, and leaving slight marks on his temple, neck and chin, the latter of which bled slightly until the next day. I then glanced to his shoulder and passed down the breast to thigh, leaving a ragged edged mark about three inches wide. From the thigh it jumped across his body to his left leg below the knee, tearing the skin up crosswise of the leg in streaks about an inch wide and the same distance apart, to the anklebone, where it left the body and tore off his shoe. His shirt and pants along the course taken by the bolt were torn away.
Floyd was my 2nd cousin 3X removed.
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