People have been talkin’ earthquake durin’ the last week, and the idea seems to have got round that earthquakes in this part of the world only take place about every twenty years. This is a mistake, for there have been three distinct shocks felt right here in New York durin’ the last fourteen years, and the earthquake of fourteen years ago was quite a serious affair, a big buildin’ bein’ overthrown and people killed.
One of the most curious things about this earthquake of fourteen years ago is that, although the most serious New York has yet known, nothin’ was thought of it at the time, and it took three days for the people to find out that there had been an earthquake.
The shock itself took place on a Saturday evenin’, but it was not till Wednesday that the papers and the people had made up their minds it was caused by an earthquake. Either the reporters of New York were not as “enterprisin’” then as they are now, or the people of New York were not as used to bein’ shaken up.
One Saturday in the latter part of June, fourteen Summers ago, the weather was intensely hot. It had started hot in the mornin’, got hotter at noon, and was hottest of all in the evenin’. About seven o’clock in the evening it was eighty-nine degrees by the thermometer. Everybody felt tremendously hot and wondered what on earth New York was comin’ to, when the evenin’s were warmer even than the days.
Suddenly the thermometer gave a jump upwards, went up four degrees in about ten minutes, pointin’ at between ninety-three and ninety-four degrees. And then, just as everybody was perspirin’ly and wonderin’ly looking at everybody else and fannin’ ‘emselves with what they could get hold of that was movable, a noise was heard like a cannonade rumblin’ in the distance, and buildin’s shook. A number of people were also seized with nausea, just as If they were goin’ to be seasick on dry land, and then the thermometer showed a sudden fallin’ off of seven degrees.
Everybody started up, and rushed about, and told how they felt, and wondered what was up or down. Some said the gas works in twenty-first street had bursted; others that the engines of Hecker’s big flour mill had gone up; others again held stoutly to the idea that the magazine at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, had exploded; a few said that the Dry Docks engine had caused the mischief; others laid the explanation at the doors of Hell Gate improvements, but nobody had an idea at the time that it was an earthquake.
The shock was felt first along the east side of New York; a little later it was felt in Brooklyn.
At that time there was a big brick buildin’ called the Hamilton Market standin’ at the corner of Hamilton avenue and Van Brunt street, Brooklyn.
It had been originally built for a meat market, but had not been very successful as such. Then when there was a cholera scare in Brooklyn, the health authorities had seized the deserted place and formed it into a hospital where several cholera patients died. Then, after the scare was over, some butchers tried to revive it as a meat market again. Then it was tried as a cracker bakery, but people didn’t care to trade in a place that had once been a pest house. So it got to be deserted once more, and stayed so, its only use bein’ to give the loafers of the neighborhood a place to smoke and swear and tell dirty stories in at night, and for little children to play in by day.
Two children named Mullen, the only children of a hard-workin’ resident of the Sixth Ward of Brooklyn, were playin’ on the old market steps while some politicians of Brooklyn and Assistant Engineer of the Fire Department Nevins were chattin’ in a saloon opposite the market. Suddenly Nevins and the men in the saloon heard the noise of a rumblin’ under ground, proceedin’ from the market. Nevins asked what that noise was, when suddenly, before his question could be answered, down, with a crash, fell the walls and roof of the old market, buryin’ the two Mullen children in a heap of ruins.
Instantly the wildest alarm prevailed through the Sixth and Twelfth Wards of Brooklyn, and parents rushed to the scene to find out whether their children had been engulfed in the ruins, while Nevins and a host of other men rushed to the ruins to rescue from ‘em, if possible, the children.
They were rescued, but too late. One of the children was so seriously injured, legs broken and internal organs battered, that she died in a few hours. No other persons but the two girls were found in the ruins. This one child killed and the one woman who died of fright last Sunday durin’ the shock, are so far the only victims of earthquake in or around New York.
[Editor’s notes: The source for most of this column was a newspaper item, “New York Shaken by an Earthquake,” New York Daily Herald, Tuesday, June 28, 1870. However, the on-the-scene reporting of the Brooklyn building collapse has not yet been traced. The Hamilton Market building collapsed Sunday morning at 7:15AM, many hours after the main earthquake of the previous evening. Needless to say, that would be an odd hour for Assistant Engineer Nevins to be chatting with a group of men in a saloon (unless they were there through the night!).
The column alludes to another earthquake that occurred just a week before this column was published: the Aug. 10, 1884 Earthquake, with an epicenter near Coney Island/Far Rockaway. It was estimated to be about 5.2 on the (yet to be developed) Richter scale–to date the largest earthquake the New York area has seen.
The suggestion that the 1870 quake was preceded by a sharp rise in temperature aligns with the notion of “earthquake weather,” i.e. a change in weather caused by an impending quake. Some studies suggest that there is a correlation, but that conclusion is in dispute.]
