--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1842 to 1843. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 4 number: 10 published: 1843-04-01 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“Alarming Earthquake,” *Times and Seasons* 4, no. 10 (April 1, 1843): 147." printed_title: ALARMING EARTHQUAKE. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-04-01_4_10 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v4n10.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-04-01_4_10 start_page: 147 end_page: 147 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1843 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-04-01_4_10 publication_year: 1843 --- # Alarming Earthquake At about half past 8 o'clock on the evening of the 5th inst., says the Memphis, (Tenn.) Eagle, our city was visited by one of those awful throes of nature, so convulsive and terrible, as to spread almost universal alarm over the city. The firmest buildings trembled and cracked, and the earth reeled and rocked under a most terriffic [terrific] excitement. To say that we were not deeply impressed with the awfulness of the moment, under the terrible sensibility of the presence of one of those agonizing and terrific throes of nature that have in a few seconds hurled immense cities, and their hundred thousands smitten and affrightened inhabitants, deep into the bowels of the earth, would be only to acknowledge ourself insensible to the mightiest and most awful of the Almighty's visitations. We were in our office at the moment, in the second story of a new block of brick buildings. The commencement of the jarring we conceived to proceed from the violent undertaking of some person to shake open a door beneath us. But in a moment afterwards, the agitation seized the brick walls surrounding us, shaking and reeling them, to such an extent, as to knock down particles of brick and plaster, jarring the roof and whole building so as to impress us with the fear of the buildings' falling. Sensible of the appalling cause of the agitation, we hastily fled into the street for safety. The fate of ancient Memphis rose up in memory, and we felt that the name-sake of the ill-fated city might be doomed to similar destruction. In the street there was still a violent rocking of the earth, and a rattling and rumbling noise.-People fled into the streets, and cries and lamentations of many horror stricken men and women were heard to fill the air. The shock lasted about two minutes, and reaching its most agitating period, at the end of the first half minute, when it gradually died away in a dismal rumbling sound, apparently moving to south-east, and proceeded from the north-west. The day had been one of beautiful sunshine, though cool. Towards sunset the atmosphere became warm, and the thermometer must have fallen at least five degrees during the five hours preceding the shock. It was cloudy at the time, a veil of thin clouds moving low and swiftly, occasionally admitting the light of the stars feebly to shine out. There was scarcely any air stirring, but which, during an hour succeeding the throe, was apparently agitated into a still breeze from the south, which died away about one o'clock. The tops of several chimneys were shaken down, the bricks falling inside, and with the reeling of the houses and quaking of the earth, frightfully alarming the inhabitants. A great many brick walls are seriously cracked and sunk, windows broken, and a cotton shed, naturally crazy, fell down shortly after the shock. At our auction houses, which were filled with people, so alarming the precipitated was the rush into the street that many people were crushed and trampled upon by the affrighted crowd. There was a great deal of alarm and piercing lamentation among the females, and the agitation was general and the cause terrible and awful. The power of the Almighty was fearfully and sensibly demonstrated, in the shaking of the gigantic earth, as if but a mere leaf of the tremulous aspen. It heaved and quaked and groaned, as if smitten with agony. Our city rocked and reeled as if on the verge of falling to pieces, and the horror-stricken people trembling rushed from their tottering tenements for safety, into the streets, with the awful impression paralyzing their senses that the earth was convulsed with one of those dreadful throes that cause her to open and swallow up cities. From the Danville (Ky.) Mercury.