Flood Near Coney Island - 1839

Sounds like a story of providence to me, if true.

Perilous Situation.--During the late violent gale and tide, Mrs. Caldwell, a poor woman, who with 4 or 5 children lived in a miserable shanty, at a small island, near the end of Coney Island, found her little home suddenly surrounded with water. The gale soon took away the roof of her house, and the tide swept away the house itself.

She despatched her two boys for a boat, and they with a man came near the spot to take off the woman and two smaller children, but the strength of the wind drove them from the shore, and they could not approach the island. In this fearful dilemma, the woman tied a wagon to a tree, and herself, children and dog, got into the wagon. Every tree around her except the one to which the wagon was tied, was washed up by the force of the water, but the little company on the wagon were thus saved.

--Rutland Herald, Vermont, Tuesday, February 26, 1839