December 16, 1811… First Shock of the New Madrid Earthquake Felt.
The first shock of the New Madrid earthquake, generally conceded to have been of greater intensity and severity then the Charleston or San Francisco quakes, occurred December 16, 1811. Subsequent shocks went on for more then a year.
A number of scientists and educated men who were in or near the region during the period of disturbance have given vivid pictures of their experiences. The first shock was felt about 2 a.m., December 16, 1811, when the inhabitants of the district were awakened suddenly by the creaking and cracking of the timbers in their homes and the by the crash of falling chimneys. A second shock followed early in the morning. A geologist who has studied records of the quake writes of it: “The ground rose and fell as earth waves, like the long, low swell of the sea, passed across the surface, tilting the trees until their branches interlocked and opening the soil in deep cracks as the surface was bent . . . On the Mississippi great waves were created” and it is recorded that the river ran upstream a moment.
During December 16 and 17 shocks continued at short intervals but diminished in severity. They occurred at longer intervals until January 23 when another great shock was felt. This was followed by about 2 weeks of quiet, but February 7 there were a number of bad shocks “and for several days the earth was in a nearly constant tremor.”
For fully a year small shocks occurred at intervals of a few days. Believed to have originated in the New Madrid area about 15 miles west of the river, they spread over an area including the New Madrid region and extending approximately from Cairo and Memphis to Crowley Ridge and Chickasaw Bluffs, totaling from 30,000 to 50,000 square miles. Tremors were felt as far away as “upper Canada,” along the Red River, at New Orleans, Detroit, Washington, and Boston, covering an area of some 1,000,000 square miles. Jared Brooks of Louisville kept a systematic record of the shocks and recorded a total of 1,874 shocks between December 16, 1811, and March 15, 1812. Of this total Brooks classed 8 as violent and 10 as very severe. Only one person was reported killed by falling walls, although several lives were lost on the river. Many persons were left homeless, and thousands of acres of land were rendered untillable by these shocks, the strongest of which “had 15 times as much energy as the San Francisco tremor of 1906.”
A New Madrid land relief certificate For primary source material see…