1755 Cape Ann earthquake

Magnitude 6 earthquake (November 18, 1755) off the coast of Massachusetts October 2026 October 2026 1755 Cape Ann earthquake yes November 18, 1755 04:30 ushis7 Massachusetts 5.9 w yEbel, J.E. 2006 The Cape Ann, Massachusetts earthquake of 1755: a 250th anniversary perspective Seismological Research Letters 77 74 1 10.1785/gssrl.77.1.74 2006SeiRL..77...74E https://zenodo.org/record/979535 8 42.7 -70.3 inline,title British America, Province of Massachusetts Bay Possibly The 1755 Cape Ann earthquake took place off the coast of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay (present-day Massachusetts) on November 18. At between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, it remains the largest earthquake in the history of Massachusetts. No one was killed, but it damaged hundreds of buildings in Boston and was felt as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as South Carolina.Ballard C. Campbell, ed. American Disasters: 201 Calamities That Shook the Nation (2008) pp 28–30 Sailors on a ship more than 200 mi km offshore felt the quake, and mistook it at first for their ship running aground. Many residents of Boston and the surrounding areas attributed the quake to God, and it occasioned a brief increase in religious fervor in the city. Modern studies estimate that if a similar quake shook Boston today, it would result in as much as $5 billion in damage and hundreds of deaths. Some discussion has revolved around the idea that this may have been a remotely triggered event from the 1755 Lisbon earthquake or its aftershocks. Earthquake The earthquake took place on November 18, 1755, at approximately 4:30 AM local time. Future President of the United States John Adams, then staying at his father's house in Braintree, Massachusetts, was awakened by the quake, which impressed him so much that he began a diary that night. He wrote that the quake "continued near four minutes" and that "[t]he house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us."https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-01-02-0001-0001 November 1755 – from the Diary of John Adams Adams John 18 November 1755 Founders Online – The Adams Papers U.S. National Archives 13 January 2021 We had a severe Shock of an Earthquake. It continued near four minutes. I was then at my Fathers 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. Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house. Its epicenter is believed to have been offshore, approximately 24 mi km east of Cape Ann.Newman, William A. Holton, Wilfred E. Boston's Back Bay: The Story of America's Greatest Nineteenth-century Landfill Project University Press of New England 2006 177–180 https://archive.org/details/bostonsbackbayst00newm registration 978-1-55553-651-0 The quake was felt as far north as Halifax, Nova Scotia, south to the Chesapeake Bay and South Carolina, and from Lake George and Lake Champlain in the northwest to a ship 200 mi km off the east coast. Sailors on the ship reported that the quake was so strong, they had feared that they had run aground.Cape Ann, Massachusetts Historical Earthquakes United States Geological Survey https://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1755_11_18.php 2009-10-17 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20090508011236/http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1755_11_18.php 2009-05-08 The region experienced several aftershocks, the first of which was a little more than an hour after the quake. Most of these aftershocks could not be felt in Boston, affecting only the northeastern coast of the colony. thumb|An 18th-century woodcut taken from a religious tract showing the effects of the Cape Ann earthquake|alt=A number of buildings are shown pointing in different directions, as if being shaken, as people run through the streets looking panicked Modern research has estimated that the quake was between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, and the United States Geological Survey lists it as the largest earthquake in the history of Massachusetts.Ebel John. E The Cape Ann Earthquake of November 1755 The Massachusetts Historical Society http://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/the-cape-ann-earthquake-of-november-1755-2005-11-01 2018-04-19 Scientists are unclear on the causes of this and other quakes in the northeastern United States. There are a number of old faults in the region, but none of them are known to still be active. It is possible that the Cape Ann earthquake may have been remotely triggered by a larger earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, a few weeks prior, although there is not enough evidence to prove that they are linked.Hough Susan Elizabeth Susan Hough Bilham Roger G. After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet Oxford University Press US 2006 23–24 https://books.google.com/books?id=PDLQ13VqrgcC 978-0-19-517913-2 Damage Boston and Cape Ann were the most heavily damaged. In Boston, damage was concentrated in areas of infill near the harbor; infill is less sturdy in earthquakes than solid land. From 1,300 to 1,600 chimneys in the city were damaged in some way, the gable ends of some houses collapsed, and a number of roofs were damaged by falling chimneys. Stone chimneys and buildings were damaged in Falmouth (present-day Portland, Maine), Springfield, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut, as well. Some church steeples in Boston were damaged, ending up tilted from vertical. Stone fencing in rural areas was damaged. Observers also reported that several springs dried up, new ones were created, and cracks appeared in the ground near Scituate, Lancaster, and Pembroke. In this last town, observers noted water and fine sand coming from the crack. Non-structural damage was minor; residents reported damage to china and glassware, and a distiller lost some of his product after a cistern was damaged. Potential tsunami The Cape Ann earthquake may also have created the first recorded tsunami in United States history. Observers in the Leeward Islands nearly 1000 mi km south of Cape Ann, reported a receding of water followed by a large wave that lifted several boats ashore and left fish floundering on the beach.Gunn Angus M. Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies Greenwood Publishing Group 2007 81–82 https://books.google.com/books?id=4YzF-DT__aIC 978-0-313-34002-4 Legacy thumb|upright=1.8|Boston's Back Bay (foreground) could suffer serious damage in a quake like 1755 Cape Ann earthquake. |alt=A cityscape including a number of skyscrapers, with a river running through the middle Many Massachusetts residents of the time perceived the quake as punishment from God for immoral behavior. In the days after the earthquake, special prayer services were held and civic authorities declared fast days. A number of sermons and other writings were published as a consequence, including Jeremiah Newland's Verses Occasioned by the Earthquakes in the Month of November 1755 and Thomas Prince's Earthquakes the Works of God and Tokens of his Just Displeasure. Well before 1755, the new rational materialist ideas promulgated by Enlightenment scientists had begun to heavily influence the better-educated citizens of colonial America; therefore not all explanations of the event were theological. John Winthrop, a Harvard professor, proposed an alternate explanation having to do with heat and chemical vapors inside the surface of the earth. John Adams, in comments in the margins of Winthrop's Lecture on Earthquakes wrote: I am not able to satisfy myself, whether the very general if not universal apprehension that Thunder, Earthquakes, Pestilence, Famine &c. are designed merely as Punishments of sins and Warnings to forsake, is natural to Mankind, or whether it was artfully propagated, or whether it was derived from Revelation. An Imagination that those Things are of no Use in Nature but to punish and alarm and arouse sinners, could not be derived from real Revelation, because it is far from being true, tho few Persons can be persuaded to think so.https://www.founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-01-02-0003-0003-0002 Marginalia in Winthrop's Lecture on Earthquakes, December 1758[?] – from the Diary of John Adams Adams John 1758 Founders Online – The Adams Papers U.S. National Archives 13 January 2021June 2026 InternetArchiveBot Many of the buildings in modern Boston and its surroundings are built on infill, especially in the Back Bay area, which may be prone to greater shaking and to compaction of the sand and gravel used as fill. Many older buildings in the Boston area are masonry, and may collapse completely during a major earthquake. A 1990 study by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency estimated potential financial losses at between $4 billion and $5 billion, and potential loss of life in the hundreds. As a consequence, the state has updated building codes and zoning laws to require that new construction and additions in vulnerable areas be built to resist earthquakes. See also List of earthquakes in the United States List of historical earthquakes References Further reading Monecke Katrin McCarthy Francine G. Hubeny J. Bradford Ebel John E. Brabander Daniel J. Kielb Shelley Howey Emma Janigian Greta Pentesco Justin The 1755 Cape Ann Earthquake Recorded in Lake Sediments of Eastern New England: An Interdisciplinary Paleoseismic Approach Seismological Research Letters 89 3 2018 0895-0695 10.1785/0220170220 1212–1222 26405831 Atlantic Disaster Robles Whitney Barlow The New England Quarterly 2017 90 1 7–35 10.1162/TNEQ_a_00583 57558823 1755 Category:18th century in Boston Category:18th-century tsunamis Category:1750s earthquakes Category:1755 disasters Category:1755 in the Province of Massachusetts Bay Category:Earthquakes in the United States Category:Tsunamis in the United States earthquake