The Cape Ann Earthquake, November 18, 1755

A series of earthquakes in the 17th and 18th Centuries gave rise to recurrences of religiosity throughout New England.

Earthquakes in the 17th Century

Tuesday, June 1, 1638: Believed to have been centered along New Hampshire’s Connecticut River Valley with a magnitude of about 6.5, this was the strongest known earthquake to hit New England: “A great & fearful earthquake; it was in this place heard before it was felt. It came with a rumbling noise or low murmur like unto remote thunder; it came from y^e northward, & passed southward. As y^e noise approached nearer, the earth began to shake and came at length with that violence as caused platters, dishes, & such like things as stood upon shelves, to clatter and fall down.” (Bradford’s History)

Sunday, March 1, 1643: “At seven in the morning, being the Lord’s day, there was a great earthquake. It came with a rumbling noise like the former but through the Lord’s mercy it did no harm.” (Coffin, A sketch of the History of Newbury & Newburyport)

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 1653: “There was a small shock of an earthquake.” (Coffin)

Monday, January 26, 1662: “Three violent shocks were felt in New England; There was an earthquake at the “shutting in of the evening, one of the greatest in New England. Chimneys were thrown down. The first shock continued for about half an hour. On the same day, in the evening, another. On February 5th, another, and they did not cease till July. November 6, another in the same place. ” (Newbury Record)

Sunday, February , 1685: “Sabbath afternoon there was an earthquake.” (Essex County records)

1727-1728 Earthquakes

Sunday, October 26, 1727: A damaging earthquake with an epicenter off the coastline of New Hampshire or Maine. “A severe earthquake occurred on a Sabbath night between ten and eleven o’clock. People became so frightened that a powerful revival of religion followed in the Ipswich parishes and throughout New England. An urgent demand for reformation among the churchgoers at Chebacco Parish (Essex) tested the abilities of the Rev. Thomas Pickering until the more usual degree of harmony prevailed.” (Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony).

Reverend Benjamin Colman wrote about the earthquake in Newbury: “There the earth opened and threw up many cart-loads of a fine sand and ashes, mixed with some small remains of sulfur.” Henry Sewall also of Newbury, wrote, “We were sitting by the fire, and about half after ten at night our house shook and trembled as if it would have fallen to pieces. Being frightened, we ran out of doors, when we found the ground did tremble, and we were in great fear of being swallowed up alive, but God preserved us.” (Memoirs read before the Boston Society of Natural History).

Boston minister Rev. Thomas Prince, in his 1727 sermon, Earthquakes the Works of God, preached that “God Shakes the Earth because he is Wroth.” In an appendix to the sermon, published in 1755, Rev. Prince took issue with Benjamin Franklin’s newly-discovered uses for electricity: “The more Points of Iron are erected round the Earth to draw the Electrical Substance out of the Air; the more the Earth must needs be charged with it,” and consequently the more earthquakes.” (Founders online)

Saturday, January 3, 1728: “About nine at night an easy clap. Saturday night and day five claps. From about six at night to four Sunday morning some people said it continued for half an hour without ceasing burst upon burst. Upon Wednesday, January twenty-fourth about half an hour after nine at night, one loud burst followed in half a minute by another much abated. Upon Lord’s Day January twenty-eighth another easy burst about half after six in the morning, another about ten same morning easy. On the same night about one o’clock a loud burst.” (Joshua Coffin: A Sketch of Newbury, Newburyport and West Newbury”)

Monday, January 29, 1728: “It was heard twice. (Coffin)

Tuesday, January 30, 1728: “About two in the afternoon there was a very loud clap equal to any but the first for terror, shaking our houses so that many people were afraid of their falling down, pewter and so forth were shaken off dressers at a considerable distance. Another shock much abated about half an hour afterward.” (Coffin)

Wednesday, February 21, 1728: “About half after twelve at midnight a considerably loud burst. (Coffin, Mathias Plant)

Thursday, February 29, 1728: “About half after one p.m. another.’ Mr. P. also mentions shocks as having occurred on March seventeenth about three a.m.” (Coffin)

March 19, 1728: About forty minutes past one p.m. and at nine the same night. (Coffin)

Wednesday, April 28, 1728: About five p.m. (Coffin)

May 12, 1728: Sunday morning about forty minutes past nine a loud and long clap. (Coffin)

Friday May 17: “About eight P. M. a loud and long clap. May twenty-second several claps in the morning, and about ten the same morning a very loud and long clap. (Coffin)

Friday May 24, 1728: “About eleven at night, June sixth about three in the morning, June eleventh at nine A. M.” (Coffin, Rev. Mathias Plant)

1744

June 3, 1744: The services of worship at the Hamlet (Hamilton) were interrupted by another earthquake. Pastor Wigglesworth continued preaching and calmed his parishioners by reminding them that “There is no better place for us to die in than the house of God”. (estimated magnitude 4.7)

Tuesday, November 18, 1755: The Cape Ann Earthquake

The great “Cape Ann Earthquake” took place off the coast of Gloucester. At between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, it remains the largest earthquake in the history of Massachusetts and caused great alarm.

The Rev. Leslie of Linebrook Church in Ipswich announced it an opportune moment for “God of his infinite mercy to make it an effectual means of arousing sinners to a seasonable realization of their danger.” He recorded the earthquake’s effect on Ipswich: “Between y^e hours of four & five in y^e morning there happened a most surprising shock of y^e earthquake, which was afterward succeeded by several others, though none equal to y^e first in y^e Town of Ipswich. Much damage was done to many houses, yet through y^e goodness of God no hurt was done either to y^e lives or y^e limbs of any persons. On Nov. 19 several shocks were heard, tho but small compared to y^e first.”

The 1755 Cape Ann Earthquake was felt from Halifax to the Chesapeake Bay and from Lake George, NY to almost 200 miles out to sea east of Gloucester and Rockport. Fences were said to have fallen over in a line from Boston to Montreal. The epicenter was about 25 miles east-northeast of Cape Ann in an area of the ocean near Jeffrey’s Ledge where several small earthquakes have been noted over the past few decades.

John Adams recorded in his diary, “November 18, 1755: We had a severe Shock of an Earthquake. It continued near four minutes. I was then at my Father’s in Braintree and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it. The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimneys were shattered by it within one mile of my father’s house.”

This map shows the Earthquake history of New England — This map shows the occurrence and severity of earthquakes in New England from the beginning of English colonization until 1974. Note the cluster on the North Shore. The star just off of Cape Ann is the 1755 quake. A magnitude 5.0 earthquake centered on Nantucket occurred on October 25, 1965.

March 12, 1761:Earthquake estimated magnitude 4.6 (NESEC) “Another Earthquake happened which may perhaps enable us to determine, whereabouts these Earthquakes originate, and what course they take, for as all Canada is now in English hands, we may have Accounts from Montreal, Quebeck, Oswego, and the several Places upon the River St. Lawrence, at what time this Earthquake happened, its Direction and Degree of Violence.” (Diary of John Adams)

Earthquakes in New England

Seismologists have not discovered a definite reason why earthquakes occur in New England. The surface topography has numerous faults that don’t seem to correlate with historic earthquakes. Hazard maps indicate that in most of New England, there is about a 2% chance of a damaging earthquake occurring during any 50-year period.

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