“We have reason to believe...”

Date

2-15-1812

Newspaper

National Intelligencer

Page and Column

Page 2, Column 4

Newspaper Location

Washington, D. C.

Serial Number

981

Abstract

A refutation of the accuracy of the John C. Edwards accounts. Mentions that a Congressman from North Carolina had received letters that were silent as to the events described by him. Mentions also damage that Edwards noted did not occur.

Transcript

We have good reason to believe that the account of the late earthquake, signed John C. Edwards, copied from a North-Carolina paper into the National Intelligencer of the 28th ult. if not altogether untrue, was greatly exaggerated; as we find, from a Knoxville paper of a later date, that the Painted Rock, which, in that account, was stated to have fallen down and blocked up the road, retains its old station, unmoved. Not satisfied with having imposed upon the public by one wonderful account of this phenomenon, a second story has been published under the same signature, more extraordinary than the first, wherein it is stated "that a VOLCANO had burst forth at the top of Spear's Mountain, in Buncome county, which continued to burn with great violence, and to throw up lava, &c, in large quantities, with the most tremendous noise, &c. &c." This second story, which is told as circumstantially, and with the same plausibility, as the first, is doubtless equally devoid of truth; as the representative in Congress from that district of North Carolina, has received letters from thence, of a later date, which are entirely silent as to any such extraordinary event. It is to be regretted, that this personage, whoever he may be has no better employment.

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