The number reported to have been killed outright, is variously estimated from thirty to forty-five (the largest number of persons agree on the smallest number of deaths given), but in the absence of records such statements should be received with many grains of allowance, where memory alone is the only means left, and the term of forty-three years has elapsed before the period at which this account was placed on paper. A considerable number are reported to have been badly injured.
There is a universal agreement on this point with those from whom these facts were derived, viz.: that the first shock threw down the entire building, and that a large number of persons were in it at that moment, and under the circumstances it would be most singular if no deaths were caused by such an event.
It is now nine years since the above facts were published, and in March, 1864, a writer to me unknown, corroborates this statement relating to that Mission in these words. “The church thrown down at San Juan Capistrano by an earthquake in 1812, was a well built-affair of stone and cement. The cupola or short steeple falling over the church completely destroying the building.”
The motion of the earth is described as having lifted vertically, attended by a rotatory movement. No undulatory motion is described by any one. Dizziness and nausea seized almost every person in the vicinity.
A heavy, loud, deep rumbling, accompanied the successive shocks that followed, which were five in number, all having the motion above described, though comparatively light in their effects to the first. The sounds attending the phenomena came apparently from the South and East.
In the valley of San Inez, to the south and west of Santa Barbara, the church now known as the “Mission Viejo” (La Purissima), was also completely destroyed. At this locality there were also a number of lives lost, but what number is as yet very uncertain. The distance between Capistrano and San Inez is about one hundred and seventy miles. The shock which destroyed this building occurred about one hour after the former, and the greater portion of the inhabitants had left the building but a few minutes before it fell, service having closed. The first shock felt here prostrated the building, as in the preceding case.
A Spanish ship which lay at anchor off San Buenaventura, thirty-eight miles from Santa Barbara, was much injured by the shock, and leaked to that extent, that it became necessary to beach her, and remove the most of her cargo.
The writer above quoted corroborates the fact of a ship having been in this vicinity at the time. The distance of this ship from Santa Barbara is nearly the same as in my original statement but in a different direction. From the circumstantial details of the writer as to the ship “Charan,” alias, “Thomas Newland,” I am inclined to the belief that his statements are more entitled to adoption than my own; I therefore present his statement also and leave the reader to adopt either, so far as regards the ship and her position. “At the same time a Boston ship the Thomas Newland, known before as the Charan, commanded by Capt. Isaac Whitmore, was lying off the anchorage not far from the Gaviota Pass, Santa Barbara County.”
It is an interesting fact, and at the same time somewhat remarkable, that the time which elapsed between the advent of the shocks at Capistrano and San Inez is widely variant from what we should look for, when the distance apart and velocity of motion in earthquakes are taken into consideration. If the velocity of the seismic wave in this earthquake was uniform with those of more recent times, it should have reached La Purissima in twenty-eight minutes and fifty seconds in lieu of an hour; but all due allowances must be made for a question of time in an event of this nature, and also for errors in memory of persons after the lapse of so many years.
The effect of this earthquake on the sea, in the Bay of Santa Barbara, is described as follows: “The sea was observed to recede from the shore during the continuance of the shocks, and left the latter dry for a considerable distance, when it returned in five or six heavy rollers, which overflowed the plain on which Santa Barbara is built. The inhabitants saw the recession of the sea, and being aware of the danger on its return, fled to the adjoining hills near the town to escape the probable deluge.”