These excerpts are taken from “Tricounty History of Alexander, Pulaski, and Union Counties,” Part I: History of Cairo, by H. C. Bradsby, 1883. This reference book may be found in the Cairo Public Library Reference Room in Cairo, Illinois.

Excerpts from pages 16-18:

December 18, 1811. -- The anniversary of this day the people of Cairo and its vicinity should never forget. It was the coming of the first steamboat to where Cairo now is -- the New Orleans, Capt. Roosevelt, Commanding. It was the severest day of the great throes of the New Madrid earthquake; at the same time, a fiery comet was rushing athwart the horizon.

His (Capt. Roosevelt’s) boat passed out of the Ohio River and into the Mississippi River in the very midst of that most remarkable convulsion of nature ever known -- the great New Madrid earthquake. As the boat came down the Ohio River, it had moored opposite Yellow Banks to coal, this having been provided some time previously, and, while loading this on, the voyagers were approached by the squatters of the neighborhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the preceding day, and perceived the shores shake, insisting they had repeatedly felt the earth tremble. The weather was very hot, the air misty, still and dull, and though the sun was visible, like an immense glowing ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the water. Evening drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them became evident, for ever and anon they heard a rushing sound, violent splash, and finally saw large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and lapsing into the watery abyss. An eye-witness says: “It was a startling scene -- one could have heard a pin drop on deck. The crew spoke but little; they noticed, too, that the comet, for some time visible in the heavens, had suddenly disappeared, and every one on board was thunderstruck.”

The next day the portentous signs of this terrible natural convulsion increased. The trees that remained on shore were seen waving and nodding without a wind. The voyagers had no choice but to pursue their course down the stream, as all day this violence seemed only to increase. They had usually brought to, under the shore, but at all points they saw the high banks disappearing, overwhelming everything near or under them, particularly many of the smaller craft that were in use in those days, carrying down to death many and many who had thus gone to shore in the hope of escaping. A large island in mid-channel, which had been selected by the pilot as the better alternative, was sought for in vain, having totally disappeared, and thousands of acres, constituting the surrounding country, were found to have been swallowed up, with their gigantic growths of forest and cane.

Thus, in doubt and terror, they proceeded hour after hour until dark, when they found a small island, and rounded to, mooring at the foot of it. Here they lay, keeping watch on deck during the long night, listening to the sound of waters which roared and whirled wildly around them, hearing, also, from time to time, the rushing earth slide from the shore, and the commotion of the falling mass as it became engulfed in the river. Thus, this boat, during the intensity of the earthquake, was moored almost in sight of Cairo; practically, it was at Cairo during the worst of the three worst nights.

Yet the day that succeeded this awful night brought no solace in its dawn. Shock followed shock, a dense black cloud of vapor overshadowed the land, through which no sunbeam found its way to cheer the desponding heart of man. It seems incredible to us that the bed of the river could be so agitated as to lash the waters into yeasty foam, until the foam would gather in great bodies, said to be larger than flour barrels, and float away.

Again, it is still more incredible to be told that the waters of the two rivers were turned back upon themselves in swift streams, but these, and much more, are well-established facts. It is impossible now to depict all the wonderful phenomena of this world’s wonder. There were wave motions, and perpendicular motions of the earth’s surface, and there were, judging from effects, as well as testimony of those who witnessed it, sudden risings and bursting of the earth’s crust, from whence would shoot into the air many feet jets of water, sand and black shale.

Just below New Madrid, a flat-boat belonging to Richard Stump was swamped, and six men were drowned. Large trees disappeared under the ground, or were cast with frightful violence into the river. At times the waters of the river were seen to rise like a wall in the middle of the stream, and then suddenly rolling back, would beat against either bank with terrific force. Boats of considerable size were “high and dry” upon the shores of the river. Frequently a loud roaring and hissing were heard, like the escape of steam from a boiler. The air was impregnated with the sulphurous effluvium, and a taste of sulphur was observed in the water of the river and the neighboring springs. Each shock was accompanied by what seemed to be the reports of heavy artillery. A man who was on the river in a boat at the time of one of the shocks declared that he saw the mighty Mississippi cut in twain, while the waters poured down a vast chasm into the bowels of the earth. A moment more and the chasm was filled, but the boat which contained this witness was crushed in the tumultuous effort of the flood to regain its former level. The town of New Madrid, that had stood upon a bluff of fifteen or twenty feet above the highest water, sank so low, that the next rise of the water covered it to the depth of five feet.

So far as can now be ascertained, but one person has put upon record his observations who saw it upon land. This was Mr. Bringier, an engineer, who related what he saw to Sir Charles Lyell, in 1846. This account represents that he was on horseback near New Madrid, when some of the severest shocks occurred, and that, as the waves advanced, he saw the trees bend down, and often, the instant afterward, when in the act of recovering their position, meet the boughs of other trees similarly inclined, so as to become interlocked, being prevented from righting themselves again. The transit of the waves through the woods was marked by the crashing noise of countless branches, first heard on one side and then the other; at the same time, loam, and bituminous shale, were cast up with such impetuosity that both horse and rider might have perished had the swelling and upheaving ground happened to burst immediately beneath them. Some of the shocks were perpendicular, while others, much more desolating, were horizontal, or moved along like great waves; and where the principal fountains of mud and water were thrown up, circular cavities, called “sinkholes,” were formed. One of the lakes thus formed is over sixty miles long and from three to twenty miles wide, and in places fifty to one hundred feet deep. In sailing over the surface of this lake, one is struck with astonishment at beholding the gigantic trees of the forest standing partially exposed amid the waste of waters, like gaunt, mysterious monsters; but this mystery is still increased on casting the eye into the depths, to witness cane-brakes covering its bottom, over which a mammoth species of tortoise is sometimes seen dragging its slow length along, while millions of fish sport through the aquatic thickets -- the whole constituting one of the remarkable features of American scenery.

In that part of the country that borders upon what is called the “sunk country” -- that is, depressions upon which lakes did not form -- all the trees prior to the date of the great earthquake are dead. Their leafless, barkless, and finally branchless bodies stood for many years as noticeable objects and monuments of the earth’s agitation, that was to that terrific extent as to break them and wholly loosen from the supporting soil.

As before stated, the severest shocks were the first three days, but they lasted for three months. In many sections, the people discovered the opening seams ran generally in a parallel course, and they took advantage of this by felling trees at right angles, and in severe shocks even the children learned to cling upon these, and thus many were saved.