Caprivi Postmaster Killed by Lightning

Caprivi is an unincorporated community in North Middleton Township about three miles from Carlisle on Waggoner’s Gap Road. The community was previously known as Grissinger’s after John J. Grissinger who was appointed post master on August 2, 1880.¹ When Cyrus Thumma was appointed post master in 1894,² he moved the location of the post office about a mile from Grissinger’s, opened a store, and changed the name of the post office to Caprivi.

On Wednesday, June 26, 1895, a powerful thunder storm swept through the northern portion of the county. Postmaster Thumma, and three Wert brothers were building a store room at the time. Newspaper accounts of the event differed. The Sentinel reported that Thumma was just closing a shutter when a bolt of lightning “struck the roof at the comb, passed down the post then leaped across to the window frame,” and struck Thumma. “The bolt had struck him at the shoulder, passed down along his side, tearing the shoe from one foot.”³

Carlisle Evening Herald reported:

When it began to rain Mr. Thumma walked to the southern window and commenced nailing up a blind built of shingle. Just as he was striking on a nail, a bolt of lightning descended from the sky and struck the cone of the roof. The strike followed the studding and glancing, struck Mr. Thumma on the right side of the head. It followed this part of his body the entire length, tearing off the right shoe. Mr. Thumma was instantly killed, and his companions in the building stunned for a time being.⁴

When the men came to and found Thumma dead, they carried him to a neighbors house. The body was carried to A. B. Ewing’s undertaking business in Carlisle, prepared for burial, and taken to his father’s home in South Middleton Township for the funeral.⁵

Postmaster Thumma was the son of farmer Cyrus, Sr. of South Middleton Township, and his wife Mary A. Nickey. Cyrus, Jr. was just three months old when, in the forenoon of July 1, 1863, the Rebel forces under General Fitzhugh Lee stole three mares, corn, oats, hay and other items from his parents farm on their march towards Carlisle. In December 1868, Cyrus’s father applied to the

U. S. Government to be reimbursed $698.75 for the items the Rebels stole.⁶

Cyrus, Jr., grew up on the farm, and in 1892 moved to North Middleton Township. Unmarried and 32 years old when he was killed, Cyrus, Jr. was survived by his father, mother, brothers Hezekiah and Alfred, and sisters Susan, Mrs. Lizzie Brehm, Mrs. Alice Clay, Minnie, Ada, Florence, and Emma. He is buried with others of his family in Mt. Zion Cemetery, Churchtown.