USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 55
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL PHENOMENA,
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE - EXTENT OF THE AGITATION-SIN- GULAR EFFECTS- INFLUENCE UPON THE MINDS OF THE PEO- PLE - ANECDOTES-TERROR AND SUFFERING - ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY -THE GREAT TORNADO - ITS FEARFUL POWER - DEVASTATION - WONDERFUL EFFECTS - SINGULAR BODILY PHENOMENA - THE JERKS - ITS RISE AND PROGRESS - GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION - SOLOMON SPAULDING'S BOOK - JOE SMITH - HIS CHARACTER AND CUNNING -SPREAD OF THE DELUSION - THE MORMONS DRIVEN FROM OHIO.
THE GREAT earthquake to which we have alluded in the last chapter, was an event so extraordinary that it calls for a more minute record. It not only shook the whole majestic Valley of the Mississippi to the center, but the Alleghany Mountains trem- bled beneath its gigantic throes, and its convulsions agitated the waves of the Atlantic. The subterranean forces which could have produced such results, must have been of inconceivable magni- tude.
The region on the west bank of the Mississippi, and in the southern part of the State of Missouri, seems to have been the center of the most violent shocks. The first shock occurred on the night of the 15th of December, 1811. They were repeated at intervals for two or three months. These shocks, in their terrible upheavings of the earth, equal any phenomena of the kind of which history gives any record. The country was very thinly settled, and there were but few educated men in the whole region who could philosophically note the phenomena which were witnessed. Fortunately, most of the houses were very frail, being built of logs. Such structures would sway to and fro with the surgings of the earth, but they were not easily thrown down. Vast tracts of land were precipitated into the turbid, foaming current of the Missis- sippi. The graveyard at New Madrid was, at one swoop, torn
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away, and with all its mouldering dead was swept down the stream. Most of the houses in New Madrid were destroyed. Large regions of forest, miles in extent, suddenly sank, disappear- ing entirely, while the waters rushed in, forming upon the spot almost fathomless lakes. Other lakes were drained, leaving only vast basins of mud, where apparently for centuries in the solitudes of the forest the waves had rolled.
The whole wilderness territory, extending from the mouth of the Ohio three hundred miles to the St. Francis, was so convulsed as to create lakes and islands, ravines and marshes, whose numbers never can be fully known. There were some effects produced which it was very difficult to account for. Large trees were split through the heart of the tough wood. They were thrown together and their branches were almost inextricably intertwined. They were inclined in every direction, and were lodged in every angle towards the earth and the horizon. The undulations of the earth resembled the surges of a tempest-lashed ocean, the billows ever increasing in magnitude. At the greatest elevation these earth- billows would burst open, and water, sand and coal would be ejected as high as the loftiest trees. Some of the chasms thus created were very deep.
Wide districts were covered by a shower of small white sand, like the ground after a snow-storm. This spread of desolation would render the region quite uninhabitable. Other immense tracts were flooded with water from a few inches to a few feet deep. As the water subsided, the coating of barren sand was left behind.
"Indeed, it must have been a scene of horror in these deep forests and in the gloom of the darkest night, and by wading in the water to the middle to fly from these concussions which were occurring every few hours with a noise equally terrible to beasts and birds as to men. The birds themselves lost all power and disposition to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men-their fellow sufferers in this general convulsion. A few persons sank in these chasms, and were providentially extricated. A number per- ished who sank with their boats in the Mississippi. A bursting of the earth just below the village of New Madrid arrested the mighty Mississippi in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves by which in a little time a great number of boats were swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the bayou, carried out and left upon the dry earth when the accumulating waters of the river had
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again cleared the current. The remainder of this account I give mainly as it is recorded in "The Great West ":
There were a number of severe shocks, but the two series of concussions were particularly terrible; far more so than the rest. The shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes-those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended with explosions, and the terrible mixture of noises that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes in a louder degree, but were by no means so desolat- ing and destructive as the other. The houses crumbled, the trees waved together, the ground sunk; while ever and anon vivid flashes of lightning, gleaming through the troubled clouds of night, rendered the darkness doubly horrible. After the severest shocks a dense black cloud of vapor overshadowed the land, through which no struggling sunbeam found its way to cheer the heart of man. The sulphurated gases that were discharged during the shocks tainted the air with their noxious effluvia, and so impregnated the water of the river for one hundred and fifty miles as to render it unfit for use.
In the intervals of the earthquake there was one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless one, in which the western sky was a continued glare of repeated peals of subterranean thunder, seeming to proceed, as the flashes did, from below the horizon. The night which was so conspicuous for subterranean thunder, was the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at Caracas, in South America, occurred, and it is supposed that these flashes and those events were part of the same scene.
One result from these terrible phenomena was very obvious. The people in this region had been noted for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of these scenes of terror all, Catholics and Protestants, the prayerful and the profane, became of one religion and partook of one feeling. Two hundred people, speaking Eng- lish, French and Spanish, crowded together, their visages pale, the mothers embracing their children. As soon as the omen which preceded the earthquake became visible, as soon as the air became a little obscured, as though a sudden mist rose from the east, all in their different languages and forms, but all deeply in earnest, be- took themselves to the voice of prayer. The cattle, much terrified, crowded about the people, seeking to demand protection or com- munity of danger.
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The general impulse, when the shocks commenced, was to run. And yet when they were at the severest point of their motion, the people were thrown upon the ground at almost every step. A French gentlemen told me that, in escaping from his house, the largest in the village, he found that he had left an infant behind; and he attempted to mount up the raised piazza to recover the child, and was thrown down a dozen times in succession. The venerable lady in whose dwelling we lodged was extricated from the ruins of her house, having lost everything that appertained to her establishment which could be broken or destroyed. The people at the Little Prairie who suffered most had their settle- ment, which consisted of a hundred families, and which was located in a rich and fertile bottom, broken up. When I passed it, and stopped to contemplate the traces of the catastrophe; which remained after several years, the crevices where the earth had burst were sufficiently manifest, and the whole region was covered with sand to the depth of two or three feet. The surface was red with oxydized pyrites of iron, and the sand blows, as they were called, were abundantly mixed with this kind of earth and with pieces of pit coal. But two families remained of the whole settlement. The object seems to have been, in the first paroxysm of alarm, to escape to the hills. The depth of water that soon covered the surface precluded escape.
The people without exception were unlettered backwoodsmen of the class least addicted to reasoning. And yet it is remarkable how ingeniously and conclusively they reasoned from apprehen- sion sharpened by fear. They observed that the chasms in the earth were in the direction from southwest to northeast, and they were of an extent to swallow up not only men, but houses, down deep into the pit. And these chasms occurred frequently, within intervals of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the felled trees. Meantime their cattle and harvests, both there and at New Madrid, principally perished.
The people no longer dared to dwell in houses. They passed that Winter and the succeeding one in bark booths and camps - like those of the Indians, of so light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to danger in case of their being thrown down. Such numbers of laden boats were wrecked above the Mississippi, and the lading driven into the eddy at the mouth of the bayou at
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the village which makes the harbor, that the people were amply provided with provisions of every kind. Flour, beef, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, apples, in short everything that is carried down the river, was in such abundance as scarcely to be matters of sale. Many of the boats that came safely into the bayou were disposed of by the affrighted owners for a trifle, for the shocks continued daily, and the owners deeming the whole country below sunk, were glad to return to the upper country as fast as possible. In effect a great many islands were sunk, new ones raised, and the bed of the river very much changed in every respect.
After the earthquake had moderated in violence, the country exhibited a melancholy aspect of chasms, of sand covering the earth, of trees thrown down, or lying at an angle of forty-five de- grees, a split in the middle. The Little Prairie settlement was broken up. The Great Prairie settlement, one of the most flourishing before on the west bank of the Mississippi, was much diminished. New Madrid dwindled into insignificance and de- cay, the people trembling in their miserable hovels at the dis- tant and melancholy rumbling of the approaching shocks.
The general government passed an act allowing the inhabitants of the country to locate the same quantity of lands that they possessed here in any part of the territory where the lands were not yet covered by any claim. These claims passed into the hands of speculators, and were never of any substantial benefit to the possessors. When I resided there this district, formerly so level, rich and beautiful, had the most melancholy of all aspects of decay. The tokens of former cultivation and habitancy were now mementos of desolation and desertion. Large and beauti- ful orchards were left uninclosed, houses were deserted, and deep chasms in the earth were obvious at frequent intervals. Such was the face of the country, although the people had for years become so accustomed to frequent and small shocks, which did no essential injury, that the lands were gradually rising again in value, and New Madrid was slowly rebuilding with frail buildings adapted to the apprehensions of the people.
Another very remarkable phenomenon, which occurred a few years after the great earthquake, is worthy of special record.
On the 18th of May, 1825, there occurred one of the most vio- lent tornadoes of which history gives any account. It has usually been called the " Burlington Storm," because its greatest severity
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was experienced in that township. It commenced between one and two o'clock in the afternoon in Delaware County, upon the upper waters of the Scioto, and in the very heart of the state. It seemed for a time with incredible fury to sweep the surface of the earth of Ohio. It then apparently rose into the air, rushing along above the tops of the highest trees. Soon it descended with increased violence and tore its destructive way in an easterly direction, through Licking, Knox, and Coshocton Counties. Its general course was a little north of east.
The force and violence of the wind which accompanied this tempest have probably never been equaled in a northern latitude. Gigantic forests were instantly uprooted, and enormous trees were whirled like feathers through the air. Some were carried several miles. There was no strength of trunk or root which for a single instant could withstand the assault. Cows, oxen and horses were lifted bodily from the ground and carried to the distance of one or two hundred rods. There was a creek flooded with recent rains over which the tornado passed. The gale so emptied it of its flood that in a few minutes there was only a small, trickling stream to be seen in its bed.
There had been so much rain that the roads were very muddy and the fields were like sponges saturated with water. The tor- nado seemed to dispel every particle of moisture, and both roads and fields were left dry and almost dusty. The track of the tor- nado through Licking County was about two-thirds of a mile in breadth, gradually increasing as the blast advanced. The air was so filled with trees, buildings, and every kind of debris, whirled as high as the clouds, that the spectacles resembled immense birds pressing along in hurried flight.
The very ground trembled beneath the gigantic tread of this terrific storm. Many persons who were at the distance of more than a mile from the track of the tornado testified that they dis- tinctly felt the earth to vibrate beneath their feet. Those who ex- perienced the fury of the tempest state that the roar of the wind, the darkened sky, the trembling of the earth, the crash of falling timbers, and the air filled with trees, fragments of houses and cat- tle, presented a spectacle awful in the extreme.
The cloud from which this terrific power seemed to emerge was black as midnight. It was thought by some careful observers that it rushed along at the rate of about a mile a minute. It some-
RUTHERFORD B.HAYES Governor 1868-72.
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times seemed to sink low to the ground, and again to rise some distance above the surface. Tremendous as was the velocity of the storm, sweeping in one continuous course, it is remarkable that no one could tell from the fallen timber in which direction the wind had blown, for the trees were spread in every way.
There were many well authenticated incidents which seem al- most incredible. An iron chain, about four feet long, and of the size of a common plow chain, was lifted from the ground and hurled through the air, with almost the velocity of a shot from a gun, for the distance of half a mile, and was there lodged in the topmost branches of a maple tree. A large ox was carried eighty rods and was then so burried beneath a mass of fallen trees that it required several hours chopping to extricate the animal, which, strange to say, was not materially injured. From the same field with the ox a cow was carried forty rods, and was lodged in the thick branches of a tree. The tree was blown down and the cow was killed. An ox cart was carried through the air forty rods, and was then dashed to the ground with such violence as to break the tough axle and to entirely demolish one of the wheels.
Colonel Wright had a house strongly built of heavy logs. His son was standing in the doorway when the gale struck him, and hurled him across the room with such violence as to kill him in- stantly. The house was torn in pieces. A coat which was hang- ing up in the same house, was found six months afterwards in Coshocton County, more than forty miles from the demolished building. It was taken back to Colonel Wright's and was clearly identified. Many light articles, such as shingles, books and pieces of furniture, were carried twenty and thirty miles. A little girl, Sarah Robb, twelve years of age, was taken from her father's house, lifted several feet from the earth, and carried more than an eighth of a mile, when she was gently deposited upon the ground unharmed, as the gale left her Fortunately the tornado passed over a wilderness region very sparsely settled, and but three lives were lost.
Having thus alluded to remarkable physical phenomena, we ought not pass in silence a mental phenomenon, totally inexplica- ble upon any known principles of intellectual philosophy, and yet thoroughly attested by competent witnesses.
The Rev. Joseph Badger was the first missionary on the Wes- tern Reserve. He graduated at Yale College about the year 1785,
!
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and was the highly esteemed pastor of the Congregational Church in Blanford, Massachusetts, for fourteen years. He was a man of enterprising spirit as well as fervent piety, and became deeply interested in the religious welfare of the Indians in Northern Ohio. Aided by a missionary society he visited the country, and was so well satisfied that a field of usefulness was opened before him there, that he returned for his family and took up his residence among the Wyandots of the Upper Sandusky, extending his ser- vices to the tribes on the Maumee.
His labors among the Indians and the scattered inhabitants of the Reserve were very arduous, but interesting and valuable. He was appointed by Governor Meigs chaplain in the northern army as war broke out with England. He was in Fort Meigs during the memorable siege of 1813, and was afterwards attached to General Harrison's command. Mr. Badger had a high reputation for sound judgment, energy of character and superior intellectual endowments. He died in 1846, at the age of eighty-nine.
Quite a powerful revival of religion commenced under his preaching in the Towns of Austinburg, Morgan and Harpersfield, where, at that time, 1803, he was alternately preaching. The revival was attended by a strange bodily agitation called the jerks. We find in The Historical Collections of Ohio a very graphic account of this strange occurrence.
It was familiarly called the jerks, and the first recorded instance of its occurrence was at a sacrament in East Tennessee, when several hundred of both sexes were seized with this strange and involuntary contortion. . The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms or convulsions in every muscle, nerve and ten- don. His head was thrown backward and forward and from side to side with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity. No man could voluntarily accomplish the movement. Great fears were often awakened lest the neck should be dislocated.
The whole body was often similarly affected, and the individual was driven, notwithstanding all his efforts to prevent it, in the church over pews and benches, and in the open air over stones and the trunks of fallen trees, so that his escape from bruised and mangled limbs seemed almost miraculous. It was of no avail to attempt to hold or restrain one thus affected. The paroxysm
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continued until it gradually exhausted itself. Moreover, all were impressed with the conviction that there was something super- natural in these convulsions, and that it was opposing the spirit of God to attempt by violence to resist them.
These spasmodic contortions commenced with a simple jerking of the forearm, from the elbow to the hand, violent, and as ungov- erned by the will as what is called the shaking palsy would be. The jerks were very sudden, following each other at short inter- vals. Gradually and resistlessly they extended through the arms to the muscles of the neck, the legs, and all other parts of the body. The convulsions of the neck were the most frightful to behold. The bosom heaved ; the features were greatly distorted, and so violent were the spasms that it seemed impossible but that the neck must be broken. When the hair was long, as was fre- quently the case with these backwoodsmen, it was often thrown backward and forward with such velocity that it would actually snap like a whip-lash. We are not informed whether the victim suffered pain under these inflictions or not.
An eye witness gives the following graphic description of this inexplicable phenomenon : "Nothing in nature could better re- present this strange and unaccountable operation than for one to goad another alternately on every side with a piece of red hot iron. The exercise commonly began in the head, which would fly backward and forward and from side to side with a quick jolt, which the person would naturally labor to suppress, but in vain ; and the more any one labored to stay himself and be sober, the more he staggered and the more his twitches increased. He must necessarily go as he was inclined, whether with a violent dash on the ground and bounce from place to place like a foot-ball, or hop around with head, limbs, and trunk twitching and jotting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly assunder. And how such could escape without injury was no small wonder among spec- tators.
" By this strange operation the human frame was commonly so transformed and disfigured as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would be twitched right and left, to a half round, with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before ; and in the quick, progressive jerk, it would seem as if the person was transmuted into some other species of creature. Head-dresses
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were of little account among the female jerkers. Even handker- chiefs, bound tight round the head, would be flirted off almost with the first twitch, and the hair put into the utmost confusion. This was a very great inconvenience, to redress which the gener- ality were shorn, though contrary to their confession of faith. Such as were seized with jerks were wrested at once, not only from their own government, but that of every one else, so that it was dangerous to attempt confining them or touching them in any manner, to whatever danger they were exposed. Yet few were hurt, except it were such as rebelled against the operation through wilful and deliberate enmity, and refused to comply with the injunctions which it came to enforce.
All who witnessed this unaccountable movement agree in the declaration that the convulsions were not only involuntary but resistless. Stout, burly, wicked men, would come to the meetings in scorn and to revile. Suddenly the paroxysms would seize them, and they would be whirled about and tossed in every direc- tion, though cursing at every jerk. Travelers passing by, and who from curiosity looked in upon the religious meetings, would be thus seized. These facts are apparently as well authenticated as any facts can be from human testimony. There is no philosophy which can explain them. The faithful historian can only give them record and leave them there.
In this same County of Ashtabula, laved by the waters of Lake Erie, where the jerks were so prominently exhibited, Mormonism, one of the most amazing and incomprehensible fanaticisms of earth, seems to have had its birth.
Mr. Solomon Spaulding. About the year 1809 he moved to Conneaut, where the first settlement of the Connecticut Reserve had been commenced about twelve years before. He seems to have been a very worthy man, and was for a time a preacher of the Gospel. He probably was not successful in this calling, and turned his attention to mercantile affairs, in which he also failed. The theory was then advocated by many speculative men that the Indians were descendants of the Jews, of the lost tribe of Israel. Several books and pamphlets had been published in advocacy of that view.
Conneaut was rich in monuments, mounds and fortifications, relics of a past race. Mr. Spaulding, a man of eccentric tastes and habits, and of considerable antiquarian lore, became quite
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interested in the subject of the origin of the aborigines of our country. As the past was entirely buried in obscurity, he under- took to write an imaginary narrative of the wanderings of the lost tribes. The book was intended as a historical romance written in the style of the Bible, and founded upon the supposition that the American Indians were descendants of the Jews. Mr. Spaul- ding's brother John visited him while he was writing the book, which he entitled " Manuscript Found." John writes :
" It gave a detailed account of the ey of the Jews from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions, and separated into two distinct nations. Cruel and bloody wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. They buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this country. Their arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view, in order to account for all the curious antiquities found in various parts of North and South America."
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