I am still working on this site and I will
probably add material to most pages as I
find more information. The brackets indicate
pages on which I have not yet done any work.
On this page I will present accounts by some of those who actually experienced the 1907 Earthquake in Kingston, and elsewhere,
as I find them. These accounts will come from various sources, and if you have such an account and would like others to see
it, just send it to me and I will put it on the page
Email:
Belmore,Jan'y 16th 07
My darling Mother, I am very
anxious to learn how you all fared in this terrible time of earthquake and have not been able to get a telegram through to
you, so I am writing today and hope it won't be too long before I get news of you all.
It has been awful in Kingston,
nearly the whole city destroyed and many killed. Out this way all the houses are badly damaged but I am glad to say no deaths.
Belmore is pretty bad, only the drawing room that still holds together - the walls in your bedroom & the small room have
given way, and the dining room & pantry also, all the outrooms & office are falling down. Pumpkin Ground & Farm
are totally wrecked & Cedar Grove about the same as Belmore.
I have been staying at Spanish Town since that evening.
Dodds' house is the only one that holds together and has suffered very little - three families have been camping there. The
hospitals, or all that is left of them, are full of wounded people.
I am thankful that J and Alice left Kingston before
this occurred. Nelly is getting on well & I hope will soon be about again, but poor old Wm Gibb who was attending her
has been killed.
The earthquakes still continue at intervals of from
two to six hours but the shocks are diminishing I think, & I hope we are over the worst.
Write soon dear Mother, I am very anxious about you
all. With fond love to all, Your loving son, Eddie
Transcribed by Wendy Ann Lee Granddaughter
of Edward Scarlett Galbraith December 2006
-------------------------
Edward Scarlett Galbraith
was Superintendent of Farms for the United Fruit Company. He died in May 1945, aged 77, some two years after the death of
his son, Ivor, who was serving in the R.A.F. in World War II.
Daily Gleaner 1971, January 14 page 3
Noel
White recounts Claude McKay's earthquake experience:
Claude McKay, then a teenage boy had been sent from his home
in Clarendon, to Kingston to attend Mr. Peet's Trade School [later to become the Kingston Technical High School]. He had received
a wonderful send-off from the folk of the villages around his home in Sunnyville near Frankfield. They had wined and dined
him and bestowed on him gifts of neckties, suspenders and handkerchiefs. Then with a new set of clothes provided by his family
he had set out in his father's dray for Chapelton where he took the train to Kingston. He was reading in bed in his room on
Tower Street when the earthquake began.
It seemed to him that some great giant had suddenly crushed in the walls of the house and he ran into the yard. There
he witnessed bricks of a nearby building falling down, people running and screaming along the road, all in panic. One man
climbed the coconut tree in Claude's yard and when he reached the top shouted, "I am going up to heaven, Lord! I am going
up to heaven!" Three shocks followed the first one. Soon fire broke out and the city was ablaze.
Later when Claude went to the centre of the city to look for his cousin he saw bricks and the rubble of buildings
piled high, many trapped persons groaning, dead bodies all around and the stench of burning flesh. He discovered his cousin
and sickened by his experience returned home.
Mr. Peet's Trade School was demolished in the cataclysm and Claude's cousin advised him to return home. They then
visited Victoria Market where they found a dray that belonged to a man who was a close friend of Claude's father. Having procured
this transportation they returned to Claude's Tower Street address, collected his possessions and returned to the market.
As the dray in which he rode made its way along the roads leading away from Kingston he observed lines of people - refugees
from the earthquake with bundles on their backs. Others were coming toward the city looking for their relatives and asking
the draymen for individuals they knew.
When Claude's transport reached May Pen it was night but he was spotted by his father. Old Mr. McKay had left home to
search for his son and had used the same method of other seekers, calling out to each dray that passed. Stern Victorian father
though he was he was so relieved to see his son alive that he hugged him and kissed him. And the villagers of Claude's district
who thought he had been killed were delighted that he wasn't. They celebrated their joy at his safe return with a picnic.
There are many interesting eye-witness acounts of the earthquake
in the Daily Gleaner, especially in the accounts of the court cases dealing with insurance issues, which began in
late 1907. Several of them will be transcribed for this page. In the account by a barmaid working on Harbour Street I was
most intrigued by the fact that - she went back for her hat; no respectable woman in those days, and long after, would be
seen outside of her home without a hat on - even in the midst of an earthquake!
Daily Gleaner, November 2, 1907, page 1
A BARMAID'S TESTIMONY.
Winifred Jonesexamined by Mr. Tobin said:
On the 14th of January last I was employed as a barmaid at the Arcade, No. 94 Harbour Street,
which ran right through, from Harbour Street to Port Royal Street. As one entered the store from Harbour Street there was
on the right hand side a wholesale counter and it contained rum, whisky, and other liquor. There were many bottles of liquor
on the shelves I cannot say how many shelves were there, but there were more than two. On this same side of the store there
was an office, and there were also puncheons containing spirits. At the north corner of the premises the Arcade Bar was situated,
but it did not run from Harbour St. to Port Royal St. It only went a little way down the store; less than halfway. I was an
assistant in the bar. Glasses were left on a marble stand behind where I stood. There were puncheons and many bottles upstairs.
When I felt the shock of earthquake I was near the counter. At that time there was no sign of smoke or fire in that place
at all.
Mr. Tobin: What did you do when you felt the shock?
Witness: I stayed where I was until it was over and then ran out to the Harbour Street entrance.
I felt rum falling from the ceiling as I ran out of the bar. I ran out immediately after the shock – about two seconds
after the shock was over. When I was outside, I saw Mr. LeRay, who was employed at the Arcade. I also saw Charlie, a storeman,
- who worked on the same premises. Charlie was lying in front of the Arcade right at the door. There was a woman lying close
to him. I noticed that the iron bar of the Arcade had fallen. The front part of the store had gave way. It had fallen into
the street. I could see the front of the Army and Navy store. Some of the upper wall
had fallen in. standing
up outside. I stayed outside theArcade for five or ten minutes andI went back into the Arcade for my hat, and on coming out back, I was asked by Mr. Eggins to go into the bar again
to get a bottle of three star brandy for a man who was dying near by. When I went
back into the bar there was no sign of smoke or fire at the Arcade. When I came out of the bar with the brandy I saw black
smoke coming from the Army and Navy store. It was coming from the middle of the store. I saw slight flames also coming from
the Army and Navy store. There were no flames whatever in the Arcade. I then left and went home.
[The Judge asked her some questions.]
His Honour : Why did you say
it was rum that was coming from the ceiling? Because I smelt it.
When you went back to the Arcade,did you notice the glasses on the marble
stand ? A few had fallen on the ground.
Did you notice anything about the bottles in the wholesale department ?
I could not see there, I got the bottle of Brandy from the locker in the bar, which was full of bottles.
Lord Frederic Hamilton arrived in Jamaica from Colon shortly after the earthquake and stayed at King's House; he gives an
interesting account of conditions at the Governor's residence shortly after the 'quake.
'As my nephew and I drove out of the dock enclosure at Kingston, we were appalled at the scene of desolation that met our
eyes. Kingston was one heap of ruins; there was not a house intact. Neither of us had imagined the possibility of a town being
so completely destroyed, for this was in 1907, not 1915, and twenty brief seconds had sufficed to wreck a prosperous city
of 40,000 inhabitants. The streets had been partially cleared, but the telephone and the electric-light wires were all down,
as were the overhead wires for the trolly-cars. We traversed three miles of shapeless heaps of bricks and stones. Some trim
well-kept villas in the suburbs which I remembered well, were either shaken down, or gaped on the road through broad fissures
in their frontages, great piles of debris announcing that the building was only, so to speak, standing on sufferance, and
would have to be entirely reconstructed. . . .'
An interesting account of the aftermath of the earthquake was recorded by Father Frank Barnum, S.J., who came over to Kingston
from Montego Bay the morning after the 'quake. While he portrays very specifically the impact on the Roman Catholic community,
the common experience of all citizens of Kingston, and visitors, also comes through quite clearly.
My thanks to Father Gerry McLaughlin for his assistance in using this material.
Extract:
The Parade, which is a large park in the centre of the city, was thronged with refugees all wrought up to the highest pitch
and a large number of wounded
were laid around everywhere among the shrubbery. The condition of these poor sufferers was lamentable, but there was no help
as the city hospital was already congested. Then it was that some foolish person started another panic by crying out that
a tidal wave was coming. Ever since the great shock happened, there have been persistent rumours that the town would be overwhelmed
by the sea, and there was a widespread fear of this among all classes. As this rumour gained headway, all the streets leading
out of town were thronged by the frantic inhabitants who praying aloud and shrieking in terror rushed pell mell towards the
upper portion of the city where they passed the rest of the night singing hymns and howling that judgement day was at hand.
Dr. Vaughan Cornish and his wife were returning from a visit to the Panama Canal and stopped in Kingston on their way back
to the U.K. Dr Cornish was very interested in the study 'waves' in all 'spheres'. He returned to Jamaica later in 1907 and
he will feature again on this site on a later page.
The Geographical Journal.
Extract from -
No. 3. MARCH, 1908. Vol. XXXI.
THE JAMAICA EARTHQUAKE (1907).*
By VAUGHAN CORNISH, D.Sc., F.R.G.S., F.G.S., F.C.S., M.J.S.
On Thursday, January 10, my wife and I arrived at Kingston on our way back from a visit to the Panama canal, and took
up our quarters in the centre of Kingston, at 112, East Street. This hotel,'The Grenville,' which was built in the days of
slavery, was very substantially constructed of brick, with solid walls 14 inches in thickness for their whole height of two
floors, viz, a ground floor and a first floor. The roof, a sloping one, was of wooden shingles, and in the whole structure
there was no chimney-stack, fires not being used for warmth in Kingston, and the kitchen being always separate from the dwelling-house.
In front, that is to say on the west, of the house a row of massive brick arches formed a verandah to the ground floor, and
supported a covered wooden balcony on the first, floor. Our own room was a corner one on the first, that is to say the top,
floor, having an outside wall to the south, and another 14-inch thick wall on the west, with two long French windows opening
into the balcony.
In this room my wife and I were sitting at half-past three in the afternoon of Monday, January 14, when I heard the noise
of an electric car coming from down town, that is to say, from the south. The noise increased, of course, till it was opposite
the house, and then just as the rushing should have begun to diminish, there was a sudden and alarming increase of rushing
and rumbling sound, accompanied by a savage tearing and rending noise. For a moment I felt no shock and did not realize the
cause of the uproar, but my wife, who was sitting nearer the wall, felt a tremor, and, realizing that it was an earthquake,
took one quick step to my side and clasped her arms over my head to shield me from the danger of falling masonry, to which
she herself thus remained exposed. The next instant the whole house was rocking violently; a fissure opened horizontally near
the top of the west wall facing me, and a shower of brickwork fell near the threshold of the door. Had my wife hastened to
the door on feeling the shock, she would probably have been struck down at the moment of emergence, as happened in so many
cases that day. A cloud of dust and mortar darkened the air, and the solid 14-inch brick wall vibrated to and fro, discharging
a cannonade of brickwork into the room. A lump of masonry struck me a numbing blow on the shin. A heavy mahogany wardrobe
behind me, but facing my wife the way she stood, executed a clumsy dance, and then pitched over; and the heavy cornice sailed
over our heads and struck my wife on the hip in its descent.. We were being bombarded both front and rear, but, even had there
been any direction in which safety could be found, we were unable to fly, for the timber floor was like quicksand beneath
the feet, rising and falling, and opening and shutting, so that we could see into the unceiled room below.
Up to this point, one knew that these occurrences might at any instant terminate fatally, but the really awful time came
when the house seemed suddenly to lose its cohesion, and we both realized that in another second the floor would give way
and the walls fall bodily upon us. Then instant death seemed certain to both of us; but, strange as it may seem, the bitterness
of death passed from us both almost instantly after the hope of life had been extinguished. I remember to have felt that such
an end, instantaneously and together, was not unmerciful. At this supreme moment, with absolute suddenness, the quaking floor
stiffened under our feet, our environment was instantaneously rigid and still, and the noise of the earthquake died away.
We rushed from the dark and dust-laden room into the verandah, and down the steps into the sunny garden, where the earth was
now quite firm beneath our feet.
We spent the next few days on the lawn by the house, and on the Thursday we left Kingston for Port Antonio, on the north
of the island, the train being crowded with sick and wounded. A week later we sailed for England via Philadelphia and New
York.
During our short. and eventful stay in Jamaica we had been much impressed by the generous spirit displayed by the colonists
in the face of great financial losses. They scrupulously refrained from exploiting the public misfortune for private profit..
We were also much struck with the kindliness which they displayed to one another under very trying circumstances, as well
as with the consideration which they showed towards the strangers within their gates.
