“Earthquake”

Date

4-1-1812

Newspaper

Charleston Courier

Page and Column

Page 2, Column 1

Newspaper Location

Charleston, South Carolina

Serial Number

361

Abstract

Article reprinted from the Lexington, Kentucky, Reporter detailing the damage from the New Madrid earthquakes along the Mississippi river. Very detailed account.

Transcript

EARTHQUAKE. Several persons passed through Lexington on the 27th, who were near New Madrid, on the 7th February. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Vertner, states that the Earthquake which occurred during the night of the 7th, occasioned his barge with 600 barrels of flour, besides other articles, to sink, and the whole was lost; another gentleman, whose name is not recollected, stated, that during the convulsion, the motion of the boat was so violent as to stave many of the barrels of flour in it. The quaking continued 3 days, when this gentleman thinking it prudent not to go further, left his property and returned. Both the gentlemen state that some obstruction had presented itself in the river something like a rapid or falls, which greatly endangered the navigation-Also, that the buildings in New Madrid are greatly damaged; much of the land round about was under water, and the few remaining inhabitants were encamped out. That the land in innumerable places is opened in large fissures and the inhabitants entertain the opinion that the ground on which the town stood had sunk about fifteen feet; a few moments after the first violent shock, it rose about ten feet. They heard of many boats being lost, and that the land where the little Prairie stands is sixteen feet under water. In addition to the above we have been favored with the perusal of several letters from near New-Madrid, of the date of Feb. 21, which confirm the whole of the above particulars. Those letters can be depended on; they state the number of boats lost, of which accounts are already received, to amount to 50: together with a number of lives. There is a certainty that a bar composed of stone coal, burnt substance, &c. has been thrown up, directly under the bed of the river. Island, No. 8, from the junction of the Ohio to the Mississippi is entirely sunk; indeed the effects already ascertained are terrible; the inundations are progressing through the low lands, and it would appear that there had not been any volcanic eruption sufficient to draw off the cause of the shocks are now running up the river, and through what is called the American bottom, &c. Lexington (Ken) Reporter.

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