Letter of Eliza Bryan gives detailed account of New Madrid
earthquake which happened 136 years ago.
A letter written by one Eliza Bryan to a friend
on March 22, 1816, gives a more or less detailed account of the experience
of herself and her family during the famous New Madrid earthquake which
had occurred a few years previous in February of 1811, 139 years ago, This
article taken from a recent issue of the New Madrid record, probably has
been published in this paper before, but if so, it was long enough ago
that a great many people doubtless will be interested in re-reading the
letter.
The letter follows:
On the 16th of December 1811 about 2 o'clock a.m.
we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake accompanied by a very
awful noise resembling loud·but distant thunder, but more hoarse
and vibrating which was followed in a few minutes by the complete-saturation
of the atmosphere with sulphurous vapor causing total darkness. The screams
of the frighted inhabitants running to and fro not knowing where to go
or what to do, the cries of the fowls and the beasts of every kind and
the cracking of trees falling and the roaring or the Mississippi, the current
of which was n the first for a few minutes, owing, as is supposed to an
eruption in its bed, formed a scene truly terrible, From that time to about
sunrise a number of lighter shocks occurred, at which time one still more
violent than the first took place with the same accompaniment and the terror
which had been excited in everyone, and in deed in all animal nature was
now, if possible doubted. The inhabitants fled in every direction to the
country, supposing (if it can be admitted that their minds were exercised
at all) that there was less danger at a distance from than near the river.
In one person, a female, (Mrs. LuFont, the alarm was so great that
she fainted and could not be revived). There were several shocks a day
but lighter than those already mentioned, until the 23rd of January 1812
when one occurred as violent as the severest of the former ones, accompanied
by the same phenomona as the former. From this time until the 4th of February,
the earth was in continual agitation visibly waving as a gentle sea. On
that day there was another shock nearly as hard as the preceding one; next
day four such and on the 7th about 4o'clock a.m., a concussion took place
so much more violent than those which had preceeded it that it was denominated
the hard shock. The awful darkness of the atmosphere, which as formerly
was saturated with sulphorous vapor, and the violence of the tempestuous
thundering noise that accompanied it, together with all the phenomena mentioned
as attending the former ones, formed a scene; the description of which
would require the most fanciful imagination. At first the Mississippi seemed
to recede from its banks and its water gathered up like a mountain, leaving
for a moment, many boats which were here on their way to New Orleans on
the bare sand, in which time the poor sailors made their escape from them.
It then rising fifteen or twenty feet perpendicularly, and expanding, as
it were, at the moment the bank overflowed with a retrograde current rapid
as a torrent. The boats, which before had been left on the sand, were now
torn from their moorings and suddenly driven up a little creek-at the mouth
of which they laid to the distance, in some instances, a fourth of a mile.
The river, falling immediately as rapidly as it had risen, receded within
its banks again with such violence that it took with it whole groves of
young cottonwood trees which lodged its borders. They were broken off with
such regularity in some instances that persons who had not witnessed the
fact would with difficulty be persuaded that it had not been the work of
art. A great many fish were left on the bank, being unable to keep pace
with the water. The river was literally covered with the wrecks or boats
and it is said that one was wrecked in which there was a lady and six children,
all of whom were lost.
In all the hard shocks mentioned, the earth was
horribly torn to pieces, the surface of hundreds of acres was from time
to time covered over to various depths by the sand which issued from the
fissures which were made in great numbers all over the county, some of
which closed up immediately after they had vomited forth their sand and
water which it must be remarked were the substance generally thrown up.
In some places, however, there was substance resembling stone, coal or
impure stone, coal thrown up with the sand. It is impossible to say what
the depth or these fissures of irregular breaks were. We have reason to
believe that some were very deep. The site of this town was evidently settled
down at least fifteen Feet and not more than half a mile below the town
there does not appear to be any alteration in the bank of the river but
back from the river a small distance are lakes which covered a great part
or the country are nearly dried up. The beds or some of these are elevated
above their former bank several feet, producing an elevation often fifteen
or twenty feet from their original state, and lately it has been discovered
that a lake (Reelfoot Lake) was found on the opposite side of the Mississippi
in the Indian country, upward or 100 miles in length and from one to six
miles in width and depth of from ten to fifty feet. It had communication
with the river at both ends and it is conjectured it will not be many years
before the principal part if not the whole of the Mississippi will pass
that way.
We were constrained by fear of our houses falling,
to live twelve or eighteen months after the first shocks in little light
camps made or boards, but we gradually became callous and returned to our
homes again. Most of those who fled from the country in the time or the
hard shocks, have re-turned home.
We have felt·since their commencement
in 1811 and still continue to feel slight shocks occasionally. It is seldom
that were are more than a week feeling one and sometime three or four a
day. There were two this winter, past much harder than we have felt for
two years before but since then they appear to be lighter than they have
ever been and we begin to hope that ere long they will entirely cease.
I have now, Sir, finished my promised description
of the earth just as it occurred to my memory, many of the most truly awful
scenes having occurred three or four years ago. They, of course, are not
related with that precision which would entitle it to the character or
a full confidence that it is given to a friend.