still a worn plaque on the Rhode Island Hospital Trust building (built in 1917), along with a newer plaque showing the higher 1938 hurricane water level. At Matunuck, Rhode Island, sediment studies have identified the overwash fan of sediments in Succotash Marsh, where the 1815 hurricane storm surge overtopped the barrier beach. The financial loss was estimated at one and a half million dollars, one-quarter the total valuation of the city. Fortunately, only two people died, both in India Point. After the storm, much of the Narragansett Bay area was rebuilt with higher riverbanks, raised wharves, and more durable building practices, to help protect against future storms. Massachusetts In Dorchester, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, local historian William Dana Orcutt wrote in the late 19th century of the hurricane's impact: "In 1815 there was a great gale which destroyed the arch of the bridge over the Neponset River. This arch was erected over the bridge at the dividing line of the towns [Dorchester and Milton] in 1798." Dorchester's First Parish Meeting House was too badly damaged to repair. New Hampshire The eye passed into New Hampshire near Jaffrey and Hillsborough. Meteorology In the aftermath of the Great Gale, the concept of a hurricane as a "moving vortex" was presented by John Farrar, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. In an 1819 paper he concluded that the storm "appears to have been a moving vortex and not the rushing forward of a great body of the atmosphere". See also List of tropical cyclones List of Atlantic hurricanes List of New England hurricanes List of New Jersey hurricanes References Further reading External links PBS: American Experience: Timeline of US storm disasters State of New Hampshire Hazard Mitigation Plans: Great September Gale of 1815 NOAA: The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Category 4 Atlantic hurricanes 1810s Atlantic hurricane seasons Hurricanes in Massachusetts Great September Gale Great September Gale Hurricanes in Rhode Island Hurricanes in Connecticut Hurricanes in New Hampshire Hurricanes in New York (state) Long Island Hurricanes in New England September 1815 events 1815 meteorology