The Cape Ann Earthquake of 1755

There was a reassuring article in the Globe Sunday about earthquake risk in Boston and as always there will be an Easton connection if one hits Boston. We have little, often missed quakes here in Massachusetts. The last one I remember was centered in Abington and sounded like the washing machine was working in the basement. Other tiny quakes have felt like heavy trucks rumbling by. The last quake to cause damage in the area was in 1940. My mother always told about the day when a display plate fell off the wall in our ancestral home in Braintree although I didn't hear that story quite as often as the one about my father putting out a hundred years worth of dishes for the trash when we moved to Easton. Heard that one whenever a similar plate appeared on Antiques Road Show.

OK, back to the earthquake. The little woodcut is from  religious tract of the time. Church steeples tumbled during the quake as they had in other large quake in 1663 and 1727. We apparently have no record of quake damage in Easton, and since we were embroiled in what Chaffin called "The Great Church Controversy" about the location of a new church, our old meeting house may not have had a steeple to fall off. The US Geological Survey website has a nice modern interpretation of the quake and a reference to a 19th source.

What's the Easton connection to a possible Boston quake? The Globe article mentions that filled land that remains wet is in danger of liquefaction, think shaking a bowl of jello. The buildings of the Back Bay are built on wooden pilings and fill that is still wet with ground and sea water. This 19th century project to fill the Back Bay had, as one of its primary investors, Frederick Lothrop Ames of Easton.