canic eruption, I ran out of doors and looketl 

 for the dreadful phenomena. 



" 'The ag-itation had now reached its utmost 

 violence. I entered the house to march my 

 family from its expected ruins, but before I 

 could put my designs into execution the shock 

 had ceased, having- lasted about one and three- 

 quarter minutes. 



" 'The sky was obscured by a thick, hazy 

 fog-, without a breath of air; a Fahrenheit ther- 

 mometer might have stood at this time about 

 :J.5 or 40 degrees. At forty-seven minutes past 

 2 another shock was felt, without tlie rumbling 

 noises and much less violent than the first. It 

 lasted over two minutes.' 



"The account continues with a description of 

 still other shocks that kept the harassed St. 

 Louisans on the move till daybreak and after. 



" 'The morning was very drizzly and uncom- 

 monb- warm,' according to the writer; 'tlie roofs 

 and fences appeared covered with a white frost, 

 but on examination it was found to be vapor- 

 ous, not possessing the chilly cold of frost. 

 Indeed the morn was enshrouded in awful 

 gloom.' 



"This was on Saturday, but nothing seems to 

 have been known at that time of the effects of 

 shocks down the valley All St. Louis was try- 

 ing to arrive at some explanation for the mani- 

 festation. In the account of the earthquake it 

 is suggested that it must have been of volcanic 

 origin, as there was said to be a volcano, ex- 

 tinct hut three years, where the river of the 

 Osage Indians joined the Missouri. 



"Geologists would not be at all surprised if 

 there w'as a recurrence of these earthquake 

 shocks up and down the valley. The country 

 south of St. Louis and down near New Bladrid 

 is known as a 'weak-spot.' It is one of three 

 that are known to exist in the earth's crust on 

 American soil. San Francisco and vicinity has 

 one and the Atlantic Coast in the neighborhood 

 of New Jersey has the other. Seismologists 

 claim that sooner or later there will be a shift- 

 ing and a settling- of the earth in these 

 localities. 



"Never a year passes that there is not one 

 or more little quakes in the sunken lands of 

 Missouri and over in Kentucky and southern 

 Illinois. These no more than rattle the dishes 

 in the cupboards or set the chandeliers to 

 swinging, but they are Indications that all is 

 not yet serene in the subterraneon depths in the 

 lower valley. 



"Seismologists never tire of studying the 

 great quake of New Madrid. Its effects are 

 almost as plain today as they were 100 years 

 ago. The sink-holes and lakes, the submerg-ed 

 forests and the great cracks in the earth make 

 plenty of material for the student. The only 

 reason for the sligui loss of life was that there 

 were but few inhabitants in that section at the 

 time. 



"The earthquake was the cause, one cause at 

 least, of the little corner of Missouri sticking 

 down into what might have been Arkansas. 

 After the first great shakings the people fled 

 from the quivering neighborhood. With one ex- 

 ception. "There was one strong-minded citizen 

 who refused to go, and maintained that he 

 wished to be considered and was in fact a 

 citizen of Missouri. This was at the time when 

 the boundary line was being fixed. He had his 

 way, even the compromisers w^to fixed the line 

 realizing that he was not a man with whom it 

 was possible to compromise." 



Again in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Sun- 

 day, July 14th, 1912, Dr. W. J. Mc&ee, who 

 foretold the San Francisco quake and warned 

 Alaska EIGHT years ago of the now ACTIVE 

 KATMAI VOLCANO, savs the GREAT NEW 

 MADRID QUAKE WILL RECUR. He gives 

 near a full page on the matter and if you care 

 to you can look it up. I do not wish to re- 

 print it all here. I only call attention to it on 

 account of the prominence of the author. Prof. 

 McGee having made a report for the Govern- 

 ment on the Charleston, S. C, earthquake of 

 1886. 



Reading all these accounts — descriptions of 

 the great quake of 1811-12, predictions of the 

 recurrence of it by such prominent men as 



Shaler and McGee, records of other great 

 quakes which show activities about every cen- 

 tury, and the real demonstrations that have oc- 

 curred since we have been in the country, 

 make you feel as though you were living 

 on the edge of a gravel bank where they were 

 caving off the bank to get at the gravel and 

 some giant hand was picking away to throw the 

 cave — small particles always fall off at first, 

 which would correspond to the tremors and 

 light shakes we have here every once in a 

 while — but when he has enough dug out, you 

 know, down goes the cave. In 1898, I am told 

 by several people, they had a very severe shock. 

 Monroe Dinkins and Samuel Marl, of Matthews, 

 Mo., gave me an account of their experience 

 with it. How it started the pumps to flowing 

 and the ditches running, although it was in a 

 very dry time. Mr. Marl told me of how he 

 was standing on one of these sand blows in the 

 east swamp, along a cypress slough, and when 

 the large cypress trees began to thresh around 

 he just did not know what to expect. Mr. 

 Dinkins told me of how they tried driving a 

 team of mules about nine miles and how it 

 took them all day to do it, for every time the 

 earth would tremble the mules would stop. 

 Now these are reliable people and I would sug- 

 gest that did you come down to this country on 

 a prospecting tour that you take time to visit 

 with some of these older citizens that are not 

 interested in selling or showing lands. 



Now, dear friends, it is not only -earthquakes 

 and the history of this one that I wish to place 

 before you, but my experience in this country 

 and with its people, and as I kept a daily 

 record, I feel that I am in a very good position 

 to give it to you. All the way through you 

 will see that I am not trying to keep you out of 

 this country, but trying to impress on you the 

 advantage it will be to you if when you do 

 come that you either rent and farm for a year 

 or work for somebody a season. 



After seeing this country for the one day — 

 April 19th, 1909—1 returned home, to Bluffton, 

 Indiana, reported to the family how good the 

 country looked to me and began to figure how 

 to get into something down here. Mr. Gabriel 

 T. Markley of the firm of Hale & iNIarkley, real 

 estate agents of our town, then representatives 

 for the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Company, of 

 Sikeston, Mo., made me a very good verbal 

 offer, that was this: if I would locate down 

 here and assist in getting other people to buy 

 here, that they would give me one-half the 

 commission they received on all sales they 

 made down here. That looked pretty good to 

 me, so I visited with some of the people that 

 I thought could be interested in lands down 

 here and on the 7th of June, 1909. I landed in 

 Sikeston and stayed nere till the afternoon of 

 June 8th, when !• went down to Lilbourn, twenty 

 miles south of Sikeston, where the real new 

 country is. Lilbourn at that time was the 

 Mecca of all newcomers, for it was and is the 

 geographical center of New Madrid county, and 

 was strongly talked of for the county seat, and 

 people coming in from the older northern coun- 

 tries know what it means to get located in the 

 prospective county seat. Well. I stayed here 

 until June 12th and visited with the people — 

 took walks into the country along the railroads 

 — too wet to get into the woods — rode up and 

 down Little River with a Mr. Welshans. pro- 

 prietor of the hotel of the town, and told him 

 of how I was down there looking for something 

 to do — would like to get on a farm, at which 

 he laughed and told me if I wanted to farm 

 that I wanted to get out of there, that it never 

 became dry enough in that locality to grow a 

 cro)i, and I rather believed him, and when I 

 told Mr. Cox, of the Smith Bros. & Co. Land 

 Company, that Mr. Welshans was rather knock- 

 ing on the country as a farming country, he 

 said that I ought not to pay any attention to 

 the hunters and fishermen, as they did not 

 want to see people clear up the lands around 

 there, for it would spoil their sport. Well that 

 looked reasonable to me, but I did not stay 

 here long. On the 12th I went back to Sikes- 

 ton and spent Sunday with two brothers from 

 our country, Messrs. Ben and Fred Moser, on 



