For your entertainment, allow me to submit a story I found while searching for pirates in colonial era newspapers. The story was not presented as fiction, but as a real account.
From The Newcastle Courant, a news publication based in the UK, comes this story out of Newcastle, Delaware in the year 1715.
New-York, Oct. 14.
They write from Philadelphia of the 20th instant, of a very remarkable story from Newcastle, viz. That a tree, about six miles from that town, for several days (since the first discovery thereof) has had a continual rain, through which it falls in great quantities to the ground, no rain appearing elsewhere about it; the rain falls when the sun shines, and a very clear sky; it proceeds not from the tree, for several have been at the top, and discover’d the rain from above.
In the same edition we get an update in the next paragraph dated almost two weeks later.
Philadelphia, Oct. 27.
The tree (mention’d in the foregoing article from New York) was cut down by the owner of the ground, after the rain had continu’d to pour upon it about eleven days: It was an old useless black oak tree, and no rain has been seen to fall there since it was cut down.
Oak trees have a long history in Indo-European cultures and traditions of being associated with magic and weather deities. This article however, will be seeking a more rational explanation.
Unfortunately we’re not given the names of anyone involved. Not the owner of the tree or any corroborating witnesses. Nothing is mentioned in later publications and further internet searches were equally fruitless. It appears the whole tale begins and ends in this edition.
With a name, tracking down further information might be possible. So I looked up original records of landowners in the area hoping compile a list of candidates. However, even with the search narrowed by date and distance, the amount of names and pages, all hand written of course, was a challenge better fit for someone else.
How likely is it that an event like this could happen naturally?
You don’t have to be raised in the world's largest TV set to experience single columns of rain, a la The Truman Show. They’re rare, but they do happen. And the same goes for sun showers, which is rain falling from a seemingly clear sky. Both phenomena together however, for eleven days on a single location? I’m no statistician, nor am I a meteorologist, but I’d wager the odds are long as shit. Even with enough moisture in the air to produce eleven days of continuous rain, surely a breeze would shift the source at some point.
So what was going on? The best I can figure, it was one of three things.
An exaggerated account of a real single column sun shower that got more fantastic with each telling. One minute became one hour became one day and so on. All for clout possibly amongst the neighbors. “Not so cool now Jebediah with your new horse and buggy!”
Pure delusion. A product of a severe mental disorder, or, mind altering chemicals that affected the perception of time while also causing hallucinations.
A for profit hoax. How many shillings would the local gentry pay to see the stump that used to be a magical tree? How much would a branch or chip of the old tree go for? It’s not a stretch to imagine someone conspiring to profit off people’s superstitious beliefs.
Personally, I lean towards number three. Little else motivates like money. The fact that the tree was reportedly cut down is highly suspicious. And if the story had been real, why would such a miracle be limited to one report? I imagine someone called BS on the landowner and the story died.
If you’d like to read the article for yourself you can find it at newspapers.com, on page three from the Saturday, January 25th, 1716 edition of The Newcastle Weekly Courant. You’ll have to sign up, but they do offer a free 7 day trial.
Thanks for reading.