I often have tried to find Tennessee records, only to be told "the Yankees burned down the courthouse".....well I found the following and thought of all those courthouse records flying throught the county. NILES REGISTER, June 26, 1830 Violent Storm Hits Shelbyvile and Carthage, Night of May 31, 1830 At Shelbyville 38 stores and shops, and 15 dwellings were destroyed, five men killed, and many bruised and wounded. Mr Newton, editor of Shelbyville Intelligencer, was carried, amidst the ruinds of his house, one hundred yards and found dreadfully mangled and dead. The noise of the tempest was indeed fearful. The lightning gave to midnight the power of seeing as well as at mid-day. The earth was covered with a sheet of water. The crash of falling houses, the cry of distress, the groans of the wounded, were awful. It is a tale of horror. Independent of the loss of live, property to the amount of between fifty and one hundred thousand dollars was destroyed. We only wonder that so few lives were lost. The storm was eually felt at Carthage, also reduced to a heap of ruins, though it lasted only 5 minutes. The courthouse, a substantial brick building, as well as the jail, were reduced to heaps of rubbish. The public records, and fragments of buildings were scattered through the country for miles. Almost every house in the town was destroyed or damaged, but, happiy, no lives lost, though several persons were dreadfully wounded. The goods in the stores were dispersed to "the winds of the heavens", and many lost all their clothing, ecept what they had on their back. end mary