Jewish Merchant Experiences the New Madrid Earthquakes

(NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKES). [CRAMER, ZADOCK.]. The Navigator: Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers...with Accurate Maps of the Ohio and Mississippi. To which is added, An Appendix, containing an Account of Louisiana, and of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, as Discovered by the Voyage Under Captains Lewis and Clarke. Seventh Edition--Improved and Enlarged. Pittsburgh: Printed and Published by Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum, 1811. 12mo. 295, [1] pp. Numerous maps. Contemp. calf backed marbled boards, rubbed. A remarkably fine copy, very clean and crisp internally, which is very unusual for this work. $15,000.00

Howes C 855: "Most widely used guide to western waters in the early period, both before and after the application of steam in 1807." S & S 22636. Streeter II, 994. Buck 59, note: "It was much used by travelers, not only as a guide, but as a source of information for their books, and frequently without credit." The first edition was published in 1801, but no copies are known; all the early editions are very rare. This 1811 edition is the first a collector might reasonably expect to find, and is in unusually nice condition.

This is the copy of the Jewish merchant Joseph Gratz, a member of the famous Gratz mercantile family of Philadelphia, the son of Michael Gratz, partner in the firm of B. & M. Gratz, the brother of Rebecca Gratz. The Gratz brothers owned large tracts of land in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky and ran a line of steamboats from Pittsburgh into Kentucky and Indiana. The signature of Joseph Gratz, dated March 1, 1812, is on the title page of The Navigator, and his notes and calculations are throughout. Notes on the front flyleaf indicate that Gratz left Pittsburg on March 17, 1812, entered the Mississippi on April 15, lost a day at New Madrid, Missouri, and arrived in New Orleans on May 2. Travel time was 30 days; in addition "stoppages at sundry places" took an additional sixteen days. On page 74 Gratz writes, "Entered the Ohio river at its head, March 17th A.M. 1812 in the boat Fanny--Capt. Andrew Jack." On p. 178, he writes, "Entered the Mississippi at Mouth of Ohio 15 April, 1812."

From this point on, until he reaches New Orleans, there are useful and sometimes extensive notes appended to the various maps indicating conditions encountered. Quite extraordinary are the notes on the map around New Madrid (map II), which indicates "Earthquakes" at New Madrid, and on the "17th--tremendous storm. Hail, rain and wind. SW--several earthquakes, Thunder & Lightning. 18th--Stormy. Wind & rain. Variable--Thunder & lightning." Map III notes the many signs of previous earthquakes, but declares that navigation is not difficult. However, Gratz writes on map IV, on April 21st: "this is a most dangerous place, & requires great caution not to be lashed to pieces against the snags & sawyers with which the river abounds at this place." Briefer notes of weather and conditions follow.

The scientifically greatest earthquakes ever to hit North America were those centered near New Madrid, Missouri in 1811-12, beginning on December 16, 1811; many of these were felt as far away as New England. One observer (Timothy Flint) wrote that, "The shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes, those in which the motion was horizontal and those in which it was perpendicular. The latter were attended with the explosions and the terrible mixture of noises...but they were by no means as destructive as the other."

Many of America's greatest naturalists and scientists made their own personal observations of these earthquakes, including Samuel L. Mitchill and John James Audubon (who was in Kentucky at the time). No record of intensities was kept at New Madrid or vicinity, but a short distance away, at Louisville, a systematic record was kept by Jared Brooks. He divided shocks into six categories, recording 1874 shocks between December 16, 1811 and March 15, 1812.

Brooks kept a complete record through May, and earthquakes in the region were still noticed as late as December 14, 1812. Brooks' records were published by McMurtrie in Sketches of Louisville (1819). On April 17, 1812, Brooks observed a "perceptible shock at daylight" in Louisville. As Myron Fuller points out in his definitive monograph, "The New Madrid Earthquake" (USGS Bulletin 494 (1912), it is quite possible that shocks recorded by observers elsewhere might have been, in fact, local in origin.

This copy of The Navigator is perhaps the only on-site record of the earthquake at New Madrid on April 17, 1812.

Little information appears available on the life of Joseph Gratz (1785-1858), despite membership in a famous and influential Jewish family. His well-known sister, Rebecca, was famous in her day for her philanthropy, her work with Isaac Leeser at Congregation Mikveh Israel in establishing the first Jewish-American Sunday School, but today, mostly, as the presumed model for Sir Walter Scott's Jewish heroine in his famous novel, Ivanhoe. She and Joseph were among twelve children of Michael Gratz who, along with his brother Barnard, not only were successful Philadelphia merchants but were active supporters of the American cause in the Revolutionary War. Of Joseph Gratz we find only that he travelled in Europe in 1810-11, and that sometime during the War of 1812 was a member of the First City Troop of Philadelphia, a celebrated cavalry unit. In 1818 Joseph was the treasurer of the committee to build a new structure to serve Congregation Mikveh Israel.

We can add now that he travelled on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in March - April 1812, where he saw and experienced first-hand the destruction of the famous New Madrid earthquakes, the strongest earthquakes in recorded North American history. Quite possibly Joseph was travelling on instructions of his older brother, Michael, on behalf of the family's Illinois-Wabash claims. A book of very unusual and powerful associations.

Accompanied by a copy of Resolution of the General Assembly of the Missouri Territory, for the Relief of the Inhabitants of New Madrid County, Who Have Suffered by Earthquakes...Washington 1814.