Great December Hurricane of 1839 strikes Boston.

The three-day storm is followed by a two-day storm that strikes on December 22, 1839). The combined hurricane causes the Columbiana to break loose from Swett’s Wharf in Charlestown and crash into the Charlestown and Warren Avenue bridges and the schooner Catherine Nichols to sink southwest of Nahant. All told, some 75 vessels are wrecked and 30 lives are lost. The storms inspire Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write his poem, “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”