The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-01-17

in the Mississippi river basin than Reel
foot lake, where Captain Quinten Ran.
kin, the Trenton, Tenn, attorney, was
lynched and Colonel R. q. Taylor per-
mitted to escape by midnight band
of raiders few weeks ago. Around
Reelfoot lake cluster uncounted legends
and tales of many varieties, most of
them in keeping with The weird and
CHASTITY beauty of the lake and it's dead
forest.
Reelfoot lake is part of the sunk
lands of the Mississippi bottoms. The
sunk lands comprise several thousand
square miles between Cairo and Mem.
phis, and the name comes from the be-
lief that when the New Madrid earth.
guakes convulsed the bottoms in 1911.
II the land "sank," permitting the
waters to gather in great shallow basins,
forming lakes, of which Reelfoot lake
is the largest in Tennessee, and st.
Francis lake, in the swamps of Arkan-
sas and Missouri, is the largest on the
west side of the Mississippi, says R. S.
Spears, in the New York Evening Post.
"Reelfoot country was the name
given by the river and swamp hunters
of Davy Crockett s time to the region
most effected by the earthquakes. Tt
expresses graphically the condition of
affairs where "a man couldn u stand up
nor lie down. on account of the ter
rife commissions of the earth which fol.
lowed one another at frequent intervals
beginning in 1911 and lasting at their
worst for two or three years, and con,
tinuing with decreasing severity down
to the present time, when there are five
or six shocks year which do no worse
damage than shake a few acres of land
into the Mississippi, throw down some
chimneys and frighten the eolored popu-
lation of Lake county. The people of
the bottoms are rather inclined to be
proud of their little "shakers,' and
they take great delight in the open
mouthed surprise of strangers who hap
pen to be in the land when an earth
quake rolls across the bottoms out Of
the west, as | know from experience.
These earthquakes would be thought
very severe elsewhere. In 1898, for
instance, there was one which 'fshook
plowmen off their feet, cracked the
Holiday house at Cairo, and badly dam
aged the Memphis sewer system. The
people of the bottoms depend on cisterns
for their drinking water, but in the
earthquake zone it is impossible to build
them of cement, owing to the wracking
they receive from the seismic disturb
ances.
The earthquakes of 1S11-12 made the
land roll like waves. There are letters
and descriptions which tell how the land
~'rocked - The story of the first steam
+,.,10 4ha iylroi
has many times been to1d-how the
Roosevelts on board found themselves
rocked and tossed about on the agitated
waters. Elizabeth Brown wrote to the
Rev. Lorenzo Dow that the first shock
came on December II, 1911. There was
an awful noise like distant thunder, but
more hoarse, followed by the complete
saturation of the atmosphere with sui
phurous vapor, causing total darkness.
There were screams of the affrighted
Inhabitants, running to and fro, the
cries of fowls and beasts, the cracking
of trees falling, and the current of the
Mississippi turned and flowed up stream
for four hours. A Mrs. La Font died of
fright. On January %, 1872, violent
shock came, and from this time till Feb
ruary "the earth was in continual
agitation, visibly waving as a gentle
sea- On February 4 came violent
shock, and on the 5th four more. On
the 9TH, at 4 clock a. m, came the
CONFUSION known as the "hard shock. "
CAT first the Mississippi seemed to
recede from its banks as the water gath
cred up like mountain, leaving for a
moment the keelboats that were here
New Madrid) on their way to New Or
leans, on the bare sand, in which time
the poor sailors made their escape from
them. 1t then raised from fifteen to
twenty feet perpendieularly and ex-
banding, as it were, the bank overflow
ed with a retrograde movement as
rapid as torrent. The boats were torn
from their mornings and driven up a
little creek quarter of mile. The
river fell as rapidly as it rose, and
tore off young cottonwoods so that peo-
pie thought it work of art, so regu-
larry was it done. Fish were left on
che banks and the river was covered
with the wrecks of boats. A woman
and six children were reported dead
Hundreds of acres were covered with
sand, which boiled up out of splits and
holes in the ground, and the site of
New Madrid "settled at least fifteen
feet" Many ponds back of the town
were dried up. the beds being raised
higher than their shores. "Lately, !"
the woman wrote. ''it has been dis
covered that lake was formed on the
opposite side of the Mississippi in the
Indian country. upwards of 100 miles
in length, and from one to six miles in
breadth, and of depth of from ten to
fifty feet 1t has communication at
both ends with the Mississippi, and it
is coniectured that it will not be many
years before the principal part of the
Mississippi will pass that way" This
was the first mention in writing of
Reelfoot lake.
The Reelfoot lake region extends
from Hickman, KY, to a few miles be,
low Charlottesville, Mo-, distance OF
about thirty-fve miles in straight
line, and nearly seventy-ive miles by
the Mississippi river channel, and GOV.
ers about $50 square miles. The lake
itself is about fifteen miles long from,
say, French slough to the road to Tip
tonville, Tenn. It's width varies from a
few hundred feet to something over