AWESOME SHAKES IN TREMULOUS ’55

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6947, 28 June 1929, Page 9

AWESOME SHAKES IN TREMULOUS ’55

Settler’s Diary

FASCINATING RECORD OF EARLY VISITATION

Some four years ago, the Government Soimologist (Dr. C. E. Adams) was supplied by Mr. E. AA r . Buckeridgo of “Te Papatapu” Moerangl, Ivawhia, with some pages of the personal diary of Mr. F. \V. Trolove, a farmer who resided at Ivekerangu, Marlborough, during the great earthquakes of 1855, when Wellington and Marlborough, as well as other parts of the middle district of the Dominion, received one of the most severe shakes in the history of New Zealand. As a result of that disturbance, a portion of the northern coastline- of the .South Island subsided some distance and very considerable damage was done. At that period, however, the country was sparsely settled and the effects of the ’quake fell with less severity on the young colony chan was the case in last week’s visitation.

At the same time, Mr. Trolove’s diary, written with the effects of the upheaval still vivid in his mind, is a piece of graphic prose which conveys a convincing picture of the effect of the earthquake upon the early colonists who had thought always of terra iirma as the most solid thing about them. Mr. Trolove commences his entries about the earthquakes as follows: “Tuesday, January 23, 1855.—Wind came from the west, the sky looking very surious at sunset. Jurdon’s cows came up from Woodbanlc. About halfpast nine or 10 p.m., a severe shock of earthquake took place, so sudden and severe that in running out of the house we had great difficulty in keeping our balance. We staggered like drunken men.

“The shocks continued lighter and the earth was constantly in motion, either in little convulsive starts or oscillating like a pendulum, until, I should say, the middle of the night, when the most awful shock the imagination could conceive forced us once more out of the house in the greatest confusion and alarm. It is impossible to describe one’s feelings in such a moment, the earth trembling beneath your feet, everything in the house tossed to and fro, books and bookshelves falling, rafters and roof creaking, chimneys falling, walls rent and split all in a few seconds. For the rest o fthe night I thought it safer

to sleep in the woolshed, so we took our mattresses and blankets there and slept as well as we could until morning. being continually rocked with the earth’s motion.

•No Cessation. “Wednesday, January 24. —All day to-day the earth has not ceased shaking tor ten minutes. The shocks were lighter towards the afternoon and we heard more of the rumbling before each shock than wo did yesterday. “Thursday, January ’2s.—We have had a fearful night indeed, and have had three heavier shocks than any before. During the whole of the night until daybreak we have been in, I may almost say, perpetual motion. The shocks were always preceded by a hollow rumbling—something like the last clap of thunder when heard in the distance, but I think more unearthly. I positively thought that New Zealand could not stand the racket until the morning. The direction of the shocks seemed, as' near as I could judge, to be about S.E. and N.AV., or probably a little more to the south. As I Jay in the woolshed I could see the poor old house, which I put up with my own hands, tottering with every shock, and now and then part of a chimney or wall would drop to the ground. I felt that what I had done in New Zealand was doomed to be undone in one night. So, indeed, was it too true. “The Ground Rose Like the Sea.”

“Friday 20, Sunday 28 and Monday, January 29. —On Thursday night at II o’clock we had the heaviest shock of any. About an hour after there was another very severe shock. Jurdon and Cate came in just after the shock. They saw the ground rise before them like a sea. and the horses they were riding staggered as though a bullet had ben driven through their brains. Sleeping on Madcap’s Flat. On Friday morning at the earliest dawn, I peeped out of the hut to see if the house was still standing there, or whether the hill had slipped away any more during the night. AVhat a change it presented! In the grey mourn a few days, nay, a few bourse past, you might have seen one of the neatest station cottages in New Zealand, with a healthy garden before it, full of vegetables. Its destruction is now complete. Its ruin is not to be repaired, and like thousands more, I fear will remain a melancholy memorial of the cartliquako of January, 1855. I rode down to Jurdon’s (my shepherd) along the beach, thinking that the house he was living in would not be harmed by the shocks. It was the first house I built on the run, and was made out of, t.oi-toi, with posts three feet in tho ground, and a clay chimney. I came up 1o tho spot, but ‘Woodbank’ was no more! Jurdon, whom I had taught to write, completed my surprise a,nd consternation by these written worcls,

in pencil put on the top of a pole which was supported in a rent made by one of the earthquakes: ‘I have gone to the Big River Point. I do not like the ground at the AA’ood Bank. I shall come back to-morrow, Trolove.’ Hills Bare of Vegetation.

“There were two or three sharp shocks to-day (Friday), which came from the northward. The overhanging hills along the beach are now as bare of vegetation as can be imagined owing to the slips. The sea has been inland many feet above the high-water mark. Indeed, in some places, tho sea occupies which used to bo green rushes and grass. Friday night, slept in the B:g River hut. The chimney is down. The shakes have not been so constant to-night, but sharper than during the day. “Saturday morning.—AVc have no meat, very little tea, sugar, flour. AVc arc living on cels, young sea-gulls, woodhens, potatoes, and fish. .This morning took across the river twa cows and a filly belonging to the natives .at AVuipapa. To-day 1 should think we have had shocks about cvei'y two hours, but not severe if you comparo them with those we have had. Slept in the hut. Night is close and cloudy. AA’e had a sharp shock about the middle of the night. “Sunday morning.—Thick and misty, With a little rain. Little shocks every hour or so. Sunday night we felt a sharp shock or two. How one feels the want of religious consolation in such times!

“Monday morning.—A r ery misty. Beginning to get the hut into Jiving order. Came from Big River to Kekerangu. How very, very desolate everything appears as you pass along! How many sanguine people in England, if they had felt these earthquakes, would say: “This is the country for England’s surplus population! ’ Shocks as usual. “Monday night.—Slept in hut. AA’ent celing; no luck! Fine, but cloudy. Reading ‘Bleak House.,’ Shocks as usual.

“Tuesday, January 30.—AVind from N.AAC Rode up to the Flags. The hills are very much shaken and split. My boat at tho Flags was taken up and rolled some twenty yards away inland by a roll which came from seaward and left high and dry on the green sward. Edwin (Mr. Trolove’s brother) brought news from Flaxbourne that 10 houses were either flat on the ground or so shattered that they are past repair. The houses built under large hills have suffered the least. Those on the flat are level with it. AVhilst writing this there has been a very sharp, decided shock at 7 o’clock p.m.” The diary goes on to record that on the next day, February 1, Mr. Trolove went up to Flaxbourne, where the owner and manager of the station “seemed quite cut up” over the effect of the earthquakes. The day following

he described in detail how he loaded his wool on to tho scooner Shepherdess (Captain Jackson), and skipped it away to Levin and Co. Later still, in referring to news from AVellington, tho diary says: “Baron Alsdorf is killed. Ho kept tlie hotel in AVellington. Several have got their arms and legs broken. Clifford’s house is shaken, with the exception of two rooms. All the chimneys and a great number of wooden houses are shaken to the ground. The sea has been up 20 feet higher than ever before.”