6 WILLIAM T. BRIGIIAM 



Mr. Henry Sewall, of Newbury, wrote to his kinsman, Judge Samuel Sewall, of Boston, 

 the foUoAving letter : ^ 



Newbtjet, November 21, 1727. 

 " Honored sir : 



Thro' God's goodness to us we are all well, and have been preserved at the time of the late great 

 and terrible earthquake. We were sitting by the fire and about half after ten at night our house shook and 

 trembled as if it would have fallen to pieces. Being aflfi-ighted we ran out of doors, when we found the 

 ground did tremble, and we were in great fear of being swallowed up alive ; but God preserved us, and did 

 not suffer it to break out, till it got forty or fifty rods from the house, where it brake the ground in the com- 

 mon near a place called Spring island, and there is from sixteen to twenty loads of fine sand thrown out 

 where the ground broke, and several days after the water boiled out like a spring, but is now dry, and the 

 ground closed up again. I have sent some of the sand that you may see it. Our house kept shaking about 

 three minutes." 



It is said that several springs of water, and wells that were never known to be dry or 

 frozen, were sunk far down into the earth ; and while some were dried up, others had 

 their temperature so altered as to freeze in moderate weather. Some had their water 

 improved, but others were made permanently bad. Some firm land became quagmire, 

 and marshes were dried up. Several phenomena were observed a few days previous to 

 this earthquake, of a nature often observed preceding earthquakes in other countries, 

 especially in Campania. One observer, the Rev. Mr. Allin, of Brookliue, says : " Three 

 days before the earthquake there was perceived an ill-stinking smell in the water of sev- 

 eral wells. Not thinking of the proper cause, some searched their wells, but found noth- 

 ing that might thus infect them. The scent was so strong and offensive that for about 

 eight or ten days they entirely omitted using it. In the deepest of these wells, which 

 was about thirty-six feet, the water was turned to a brimstone color, but had nothing of 

 the smell, and was thick like puddle water." 



Mr. Dudley, in the account already referred to, says : ^ "A neighbor of mine that had 

 a well thirty-six feet deep, about three days before the earthquake, was surprised to find 

 his water, that used to be very sweet and limpid, stink to that degree that they could 

 make no use of it, nor scarce bear the house w^hen it was brought in ; and imagining that 

 some carrion was got into the well, he searched the bottom, but found it clear and good, 

 though the color of the water was turned wheyish, or pale. In about seven days after 

 the earthquake the water began to mend ; and in three daj^s more it returned to its 

 former sweetness and color." Several wells dried up just before the earthquake, and were 

 afterwards full again. 



The extent of this shock seems to have been from the Kennebeck to the Delaware, 

 although in both of these places the shock was slight. It was felt by vessels at sea oflf 

 the coast, and also at the extreme western settlements, but its true extent northwest and 

 southeast we have no means of knowino-. In " Smith's Journal " it is mentioned as a 

 noteworthy consequence of this uncommon alarm, that a revival of religion took place ; 

 "forty out of one hundred and twenty-four" were the fruits of it in Rev. Mr. Emerson's 

 parish in Portsmouth, Avhich was in the most disturbed district. 



Several shocks were felt in northern New England for some months after this, but they 

 were slight and of short duration. It will be remembered that on the eighteenth of 



^Coffin's History of Newbury, p. 198. ^Philosophical Transactions, no. 437, vol. xxxix, p. 72. 



