Earthquakes in New England, 1600-1800: Extraordinary Natural Events and Timekeeping Practices in Early America

New England is more seismically active than most would expect. Several notable earthquakes shook the northeast in the past, such as in 1638, 1663, 1727, 1755, or 1783, to name but a few. In early America, earthquakes were rare enough, however, to be perceived as unusual events that contemporaries remarked upon them in their diaries, almanacks, sermons, and newspapers. Although clocks were still rare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, diarists often gave a precise time when an earthquake struck—which varied, often, drastically from observer to observer. This allows for questions on how and how reliably time was kept.

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