“The Earthquake”
Date
2-20-1812
Newspaper
Boston Independent Chronicle
Page and Column
Page 2, Column 2.
Newspaper Location
Boston, Massachusetts
Serial Number
172
Abstract
Report of the effects of earthquakes in New Madrid area from December 1811-February 1812. It talks of earth cracking. land rising and falling, eddies forming near Little Prairie, and a retrograde motion of the river.
Transcript
THE EARTHQUAKE. At New-Madrid, upper Louisiana, the shocks have been uncommonly violent-throwing down chimneys and houses, and compelling one-third of the inhabitants to remove from the place to the adjacent hills, and the remainder to encamp in tents in open fields. The earth was of convulsed, as to render it difficult for one to keep his perpendicular position-the motion being estimated at about 18 inches to and fro. Sixty-Seven shocks have been witnessed in all, which have split and cracked the earth in a hundred places in the neighborhood. During the violent shocks, the people by their yells and shrieks, discovered their extreme alarm, and upon one of those occasions a lady was known to faint and never recovered! The face of the country below, about Little Prairie, has almost entirely changed; large lakes have been converted into dry land, and fields into lakes, the banks of the river fallen in, mills destroyed, and the earth cracked in every direction.-The St. Francis was at one time very low, at another overflowing the surrounding country. At Little Prairie, the Mississippi is said to have formed an eddy, and presented a retrograde motion, and in 15 or 30 minutes afterwards it resumed its course, and rose about five feet. Seven Indians are said to have been swallowed up in one of these apertures in the earth, one of which only made his escape, who states that this calamity was foretold by the Shawanoe Prophet for the destruction of the whites!
Recommended Citation
"“The Earthquake”" (1812). New Madrid Compendium Far-Field Database. 167.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/cas-ceri-new-madrid-compendium/167
