310 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[April i6, 1904. 
PAYMOND S. SPEARS. 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
IX.— Reelfoot Lake— Part One. 
In the early 
part of the last 
century, or per- 
haps toward the 
end of the one 
before, the 
ground in one 
section of the 
Mississippi 
Basin began to 
tremble. As the 
basin embraces 
upward of 2,200,- 
000 square miles, 
those interested 
will do well to 
take a map of the 
United States — 
better yet of the 
Mississippi and 
its tributaries — 
run a line due 
south from the 
fork of the Ohio 
and Mississippi 
for 120 miles. Another line of the same length run due 
west, then north and east again, making a square, will 
indicate sufficiently closely the area of intense and acute 
disturbance. If the map used is the Index Chart of the 
Mississippi from the Mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of 
Ohio, it will be seen that the district is largely "al- 
luvial" — built of river sediment — and still the _ play- 
ground of many streams. To those who like history, 
the names New Madrid, Gayoso, Columbus, and Fort 
Pillow will indicate one branch of interests centered in 
this arbitrary square. New Madrid comes first of all 
to the mind. As a fighting town, New Madrid is 
famed. 
The trembling of the earth continued for a number of 
years before they more than sent the wild birds scream- 
ing into the air, and caused men to more than cease for a 
moment from their ordinary occupations of hunting and 
land clearing; but, according to Judge Hawyard's ac- 
count (in the '20s), about Dec. 14, 1811, a dark fog, with 
the smell of sulphur in it, seemed to exude from the 
earth, the wind ceased, and a dead calm ensued. And 
then, at 2:30 o'clock on the morning of Dec. 16, "an 
awful noise, like distant thunder, only more hoarse and 
vibrating," was heard coming from the west. _ The 
ground began to jump, cabins fell down, trees whipped 
through the air, and the inhabitants of New Madrid, 
screaming and running through the town, _ were en- 
veloped in darkness, caused by "the saturation of the 
atmosphere by sulphurous vapors." At daybreak, after 
many minor vibrations, came another, more violent 
than the rest. "The earth rolled in waves a few feet in 
height," which burst as they came, spurting stone and 
coal and sand "as high as the tops of the trees," and 
in the river "spouts of water three to four inches in 
diameter shot up to a great height." 
All kinds of animals, domestic and wild, rushed into 
the settlements and mingled with the equally terrified 
humanity, the chorus of cries being accompanied by the 
crash of trees whose roots were being twisted and tops 
snapped off — all to the music of earth-boomings. The 
waters of the streams sloshed against the banks from 
which they had jumped, and the "people of New Madrid, 
who had been noted for their profligacy and impiety," 
between spasms of sea-sickness, endeavored to get to 
their knees and clasp whip-sawed hands in earnest sup- 
plication. 
, A Mrs. Lafont fell fainting and died of fright. A 
Mrs. Harris was hit by a log from her cabin, as it fell, 
and died of her injuries. Many people fled inland and 
waded away from the river for miles with the water up 
to their waists, for the country was overflowed by 
water from the earth and from lakes whose beds had 
been raised higher than the banks. The graveyard 
caved into the river. 
A succession of minor shocks succeeded these severe 
ones, till on Jan. 23, 1812, when another violent shock 
came, and was followed by days and days when the 
"earth as in continual agitation, visibly waving as a 
gentle sea." Till Feb. 7 this storm from the depths of 
the earth tossed the earth, and on that day come a 
concussion known as "the hard shock." 
Each account of what occurred on Feb. 7 differs more 
or less, according to the narrator. But the stories seem 
to be all true. Eliza Brown, in a letter written to 
Lorenzo Dow, a preacher, described the New Madrid 
earthquakes, and his letter seems to have been edited 
with a dictionary of synonyms — nice, big words, and 
considerable grammar thrown in. The letter says: 
"At first the Mississippi seemed to recede from its 
banks as the water gathered up like a mountain, leaving 
for a moment the keel boats that were here (New 
■ J4:a4ri4} on thm way to New Or|e^|^s, Q^ tH t)^re 
sand, in which time the poor sailors made their escape 
from them. It then rising from 15 to 20 feet perpen- 
dicularly and expanding, as it were, at the same mo- 
ment, the bank overflowed with a retrograde current as 
rapid as a torrent," stranding keel boats far up the little 
creek, at the mouth of which they were tied. This water 
came back and the drift tore young cottonwoods in 
two as if "by art," so evenly was it done. Fish 
were left high and dry, and rumor said a woman and 
several children were drowned from a "torn up" keel 
boat. 
Nolte, a merchant, in "Fifty Years in Both Hemi- 
opheres," was tied to the New Madrid landing in a 
keel boat. He reached the town on Feb. ,6, with about 
twenty other boats. "It was a clear moonlight night. 
My friend Hollander had retired to rest, and I was 
sitting about 12 o'clock at a little table, sketching a 
little caricature of Madison, then President of the 
United States. I had just given the last touches, when 
there came a frightful crash, like a sudden explosion 
of artillery, and instantly followed by countless flashes 
of lightning. The Mississippi foamed up like the water 
in a boiling cauldron, and the stream flowed rushing 
back, while the forest trees near which we lay came 
crackling and thundering down." Clambering to the 
top of his boat — "our flats were still floating, but far 
from the shore. The agitated river was full of trees and 
branches, which the stream, now flowing in its proper 
current, was rapidly sweeping away, and a light only 
here and there in town — in short, a real chaos." The 
other boats had cut loose and were in the stream 
somewhere. 
Judge Hayward says that in some parts the "river was 
swallowed up for some minutes by the seeming descent 
of the water into some great opening." Boats were 
"engulfed with crews and never heard from." 
"At sunrise the whole terrible scene was revealed, 
and the little town of New Madrid, sunken, destroyed 
and overflowed to three-fourths of its extent, lay more 
than five hundred paces from us. Of the boats which 
surrounded us on the evening of Feb. 6, nothing was 
ever afterward heard," by Nolte, who pulled out next 
morning as soon as he could see. 
Other things had happened. At what is now Hick- 
man, Ky., which some inland fighters of the Civil War 
know, the face of the "bluffs" pitched into the river. 
The first steamer to come down the Mississippi was up 
in the Ohio River surrounded by drift, the pilots hope- 
lessly puzzled, almost, by the islands that had disap- 
peared, banks changed, bars and channels that were 
come or gone. And the newspapers here and there 
in the world had about a hundred words in regard to 
what happened six months or so later. 
It is said that all but two families fled the New 
Madrid country. Things had happened beyond their 
comprehension — and not yet quite comprehensible. In- 
cidents will show some of the phenomena. Ten miles 
below Little Prairie, on the Pemiscot River, old man 
Culbertson lived with his family. On the morning of 
Dec. 16, after the first big shock, a smoke house and 
well, which the night before were in the front yard, 
were seen on the far side of the river — the ground had 
split, spread, and the water taken to the crevasse. 
Chasms were opened all through the region, and some 
people fell in them; and right here the old-time fron- 
tiersman showed his expedients. He noted that the 
cracks ran from the southwest to the northeast, and, 
while leaving their profligate and impious ways per- 
manently, many of them, they all felled trees to the 
southeast and northwest, and when the shakers came, 
ran to the big trees and hung fast to the branches, 
sometimes seeing their cabins swallowed up and chasms 
formed under their bridge; but the trees spanned the 
opens, and so the people helped themselves. 
Crops were destroyed, food supplies spoiled by 
water and neglect, but wrecked keel boats cast their 
cargoes on the waters and "flour, beef, bacon,_ pork, 
butter, cheese, apples — in short, everything that is car- 
ried on the river — was in such abundance as scarcely to 
be matters of sale." For more than a year the people 
lived in light-roofed bark shacks that could fall on them 
and not hurt over much. 
The earthquakes were not by any means confined to 
the New Madrid district. They reached to Quebec, and 
came from Central America, where they upset whole 
cities; nor were they confined to the years 1811-12. 
For ten years or so after the big ones, some little fel- 
lows that tumbled cabins out of shape, occurred, and 
for the next ninety odd years they came at intervals. 
I was writing the first draft of the Reelfoot stories, at 
Tiptonville, on Nov. 4, 1903, when "six of our little 
shakers came along," as they say 'round New Madrid. 
They sent folks out doors, scared one negro out of a 
cottonfield, and showed intense realism to a man who 
was hunting "local color." Five years ago one came 
that shook Blennerhasset Russel out of his bed at Bes- 
sie (where the last one shook ten acres into the river), 
started a man out of the Halliday House in Cairo to the 
street in his night clothes, and almost ruined the sewer 
system of brick at Memphis, Tenn. Indeed, earth- 
quakes are of so frequent occurrence in the New Mad- 
rid refion tfiat it i§ not foo4 policy to put In Qm^nt 
cisterns to catch drinking water, upon which people in 
the alluvial districts are largely obliged to depend. So 
the New Madrid earthquakes are by no means ancient 
history, but modern and in the experience of a note- 
book maker, who learned about them in a physical 
geography at school and then forgot all about it till 
Jie saw the brick in his fireplace wiggle, pull apart and 
then do a concentric circle puzzle act, so to speak. 
At the time of the worst shocks — back in 1811-12 — 
there were few people in the territory affected. Less 
than eight years previously the land west of the Mis- 
sissippi had" been purchased by the American Govern- 
ment, and that east of the big river in the bottoms still 
belonged' to the Chickasaw Indians. Davy Crockett had 
not yet begun his bear hunting in the Obion River 
country. Elk were still found east of the Mississippi, 
and buffaloes had been hunted to the river within a 
dozen years. In fact the whole country was a howling 
wilderness; but the first steamboat had started on its 
voyage down the river and the new era of the valley 
commenced, one may say, with the earthquake. 
Of course, one can believe anything or nothing in 
regard to the happenings in a land such as that. The 
traditions have involved people in many sorts of dis- 
putes, some purely intellectual; other involving such 
vulgar things as rifles, courts and such things that 
settle — if you boil them! 
Most interesting of these, to the scientist, is per- 
haps the query whether the Mississippi River really 
flowed backward when the earthquake of Feb. 6-7 came. 
The listener to traditions will hear it stated that the 
river ran backward for "four hours," "an hour," "a 
long time." "The stream flowed rushing back," says 
Nolte, an eye-witness. 
James C. Harris, who died last spring, reputed to be 
wealthier than any other citizen in Lake county, Tenn., 
and owning the most of Reelfoot Lake, said in an 
article for the Lake County Advocate, that the story 
was not true. He said: 
"The truth is that the river runs due west at New 
Madrid, and the lurch or upheaval of the earth, coming 
from the west and passing eastward, caused an im- 
mense swell or wave in the river, and flat boats, skiffs, 
etc., were picked up by the wave and carried on top 
the bank, in many places one or two hundred yards 
above the place they were when the wave picked 
them up." 
There is another theory, and that is based on the oc- 
currence of such caves as that one Horace Kephart dis- 
covered running down under the bed of the Mississippi, 
the size of the Mammoth cave, Nick-o-Jack cave, etc. 
Far down under the alluvian of the valley is rotten 
limestone rock, disintegrating, and perhaps empty when 
the earthquake came. The great splits in the earth 
may have opened way for the water to these immense 
cavities, and into these flowed the water of the river, 
backward in places, and caused the mid-stream geysers 
by the sudden tremendous pressure. And again, it is 
asserted that when the ground shook so it sank, closing 
down on the porous limestone, and in sinking left Open- 
ings in the banks, into which the river water ran till 
the lowlands were filled, again causing the backward 
current. 
The collector of notes is bound to believe that all 
three things happened, for there are superficial facts 
that indicate it. Anyhow, the waters were mightily 
agitated, every one in the region was scared, and it is 
enough to know that in the west was lightning and 
thunder; the earth, unsettled by subterranean fires, sent 
waves whipping along the backbone of the continent, 
and these waves eddied in the New Madrid country 
— made a choppy sea, with whirling and jumping mo- 
tions of the earth — passing on in waves that became 
ripples, and then tremors, flapping at last against the 
granite of the Adirondacks, their strength wasted. 
Scientists have been here and pondered over the 
surface and subsoil, the meanderings and discharge of 
the valley and river, have disputed, corrected and con- 
sidered as to this or that effect, as to the whys and 
wherefores of certain ridges, and certain cypress logs 
in Cairo sands, sycamores in the depths opposite Mem- 
phis, and yet have not gone into the details of these 
earth storms called New Madrid earthquakes. Doubt- 
less, tucked away in various corners, are fragments of 
information, all of them together being adequate for the 
desires of a notebook maker; but just what happened — 
what came up out of the earth, what went down into^ 
it, which way the whirlpools went and what sent them 
— whether the Rocky Mountains or just those cliffs 
on White River — what things were shifted and what 
weren't. How high did those waves, "increasing in 
elevation as they advanced, and when they had at- 
tained a certain fearful height," burst open — how high 
did they run, and on what beach did they cast their 
froth of alluvian and broken stone? Even the notebook 
maker stands still and shivers and looks around, almost 
unable to put the questions down, much less the an- 
swers 
There is just one reason why no such work has been 
done. It wouldn't pay. There are not enough read- 
ers interested in. such things as earth storrns to buy a 
book that would deicf |t>§ ?^cgurately the history of 
