The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-05-28

"N A1At4tN u"L4ufuLIutU remains
buried IN one grave and it seems
strange that OF those identified and
buried privately there would only be
five hundred more.
The city OF Port Royal. which is at
the harbor entrance. opposite Kings.
ton vas destroyed in 1892. 1t was
known as the "wickedest city on
earth" Here is was that the pirates
Morgan and others gathered to spend
in riotous living the pieces Of eight
and Spanish gold they pillaged from
the ships of the Spanish Main. Here
they gathered and celebrated and it
naturally was some tough town. One
morning the earth shook and the city
of Port Royal sank in the harbor. II
is said that n can ooh down in the
water and see the streets and dwell
ings as We sail into the harbor, but
while ! have done a good deal of look
ing never could force my imagination
TO the point OF visualizing anything
that looked like q town. However, il
is down there somewhere and the
jelly fish float overhead and the jack
fish and sharks make theid home in the
dwellings once used by the pirates.
1t was my province to visit Kings
ton several years ago. just fourteen
days after the great disaster which
destroyed the city and as / again stood
in the streets surrounded by the mod
ern structures which have grown up
over the ruins / recalled with vivid
which surrounded me at that time.
Scarcely a business block was left
standing and the dead were in many
cases still buried in the ruins. Here
and there fires were burning, the last
funeral rites over the remains of some
unnamed victim and while these
heroic measures were adopted for the
sake Of safety. the stencil reminded
US that other remains were yet to be
unearthed from the piles Of brick and
refuse scattered everywhere about us.
Desolation - restitution destruc-
ton. Crippled men and women beg
ging for pennies, ONE offering trinkets
and bits Of jewelry stripped from the
bodies Of loved ones, anything with
which to provide for the living, for the
dead were past help and the living
must be cared for. and there were ten
thousand homeless ones, at that time.
l looked down desolated Harbor street,
where FIVE hundred lives were lost and
to picture ii as ii was before the
disaster, when as a busy thoroughfare
1t teemed with life, peopled by mer-
chants and shoppers and the wheels of
trade. but l could not. What l saw
was a mass of idle ruins. Brick fronts
toppled into the street and jagged
Keeling against each other like
drunken men Half way down was a
deserted street car stalled in a down
pour of brick, exactly as l have seen
cars at home. On the
and lowering overhead were the
yruesome. unlovely black buzzards,
Of disaster and the only
living creatures who proited by the
disaster.
This was the Kingston I remember
and at that time I failed to realize
hat l was actually one Of those pres
at the birth of a city. Out Of the
has arisen a new city, better
BY far than the old-and better than
{ ever would have been. They have
'uilt wisely in Kingston. The same
l'saster could happen again but the
ieath rate would be comparatively
light. The lapse Of 21s years since
Port Royal was destroyed had lulled
he people to . false sense Of security. !
But not 30 now. Every precaution Is
employed and the modern structures
ire erected with an eye to safety. Il
Kingston is the capital Of Jamaica
md the new government buildings 1
orm an attractive group In the GEN. I
or Of the city. : decided improve
nent over the old arTanssment whore
hey were scattered I'll n the city. I
Ne Nsslish government has done that Z