WINDS UP TO 81 MPH DOWN TREES, POWER LINESWindstorm of 2017 | 0:48

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Windstorm of 2017

Wind storm whips Rochester

WATCH: Windstorm of the decade

RAW video: High winds down trees, power lines.

Dec. 27, 1889 Democrat and Chronicle.(Photo: Provided photo)

Wednesday's wind gusts had the Christmas light-bedecked wires swinging wildlyon the downtown Rochester Liberty Pole but at least the whole thing didn't come crashing down.

That's what happened Dec. 26, 1889, in another legendary windstorm. The pole, then made of wood, snapped into three massive fragments, bringing the wires down with it. It was 101 feet in height, 3 feet around at the base and sunken 7 feet into the ground.

It had been tottering throughout the day in heavy wind, according to the next day'sDemocrat and Chronicle. The fire department was called, and a doughty firefighter named John McDermott clambered up the pole and tied a wire around it, hoping to secure it to the Sibley building.

No sooner had McDermott stepped back onto the ladder than: "the lofty pole ... swayed back once to the west and then with a slow lingering motion, while the hundreds of onlookers held their breath, fell obliquely across East Main Street, with the top pointing almost directly up East Avenue."

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A carriage with a driver and two young men stood in the street directly in the pole's downward path, but a piece of it snagged on overhead electric wires and fell astray.

Many of the people gathered around took home splinters of the pole as mementos; the firefighters hauled away a large piece to carve into wooden canes.

That original wooden pole was first installed July 3, 1859, with a finely designed weather vane and ball on the top.

The current, 190-foot steel pole was installed in 1965.

Wind records from the 19th century are spotty, so it's difficult to know how hard the wind was blowing that day in 1889. The website thelibertypole.org pegs it at 72 miles per hour.

Read the full newspaper account here.

JMURPHY7@Gannett.com

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Remember when the wind blew down the Liberty Pole? - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle