MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND SOUTHERN ECONOMY:

When the Mississippi Ran Backwards

Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes

by Jay Feldman

Memphis Book Review

Amy Courson-Brock

Heritage District 8

When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes

by Jay Feldman

When I decided to read this book and started my research on Jay Feldman, I was surprised at the vast differences of his academic and personal background. The first line in the "About" section of his website tells he was born in Brooklyn, New York, and and grew up being a staunch fan of the Dodgers. He also was in the the band, Kings County Outpatients, which was Brooklyn's first bluegrass band. His academic career includes a BA is in Speech and Theater, an MA in Dramatic Art, and work towards a doctorate.

In 1964 he was arrested in California while participating in the Free Speech Movement and then he eventually moved to a rural Californian commune. In 1975, he moved to New Mexico and there, to make his living, he worked as a musician as well as owning his own store, Music of the Spheres, which specialized in vintage stringed instruments. He spent 5 years in New Mexico before returning to California. Upon his return in 1980, Feldman began concentrating on writing.

Feldman's writings are widely published. He has written books on history and baseball as well as articles for numerous regional, local, and national publications. He even wrote a series for CBS called Brooklyn Bridge.

During the years 1985-1990, he went back to his youth and founded Baseball for Peace. With this organization, he used baseball to garner understanding between Americans and Nicaraguans. The group spent these five years in Nicaragua playing baseball and giving away baseball equipment.

He has also been involved in the making of History's DVD: Earthquake in the Heartland. This is the movie that gives the background and details of the New Madrid earthquakes.

As you read through his website, his love for Speech, Performing Arts, Music, and Baseball, have taken him many places and given him many life skills to draw from when he writes. Now he and his wife, Marti, live in California with their musically named dog, “Banjo”.

This book could be recommended to anyone that enjoys history and I certainly would do so. Feldman has taken many historical events and has completely interwoven them to keep the reader engaged and wanting to read more. The book is intriguing and exciting. It has the ability to keep the reader's attention on a very interesting, yet overlooked piece of early American history. He uses all the key players to show how westward movement was defined. The people and events shaped it intentionally and unintentionally. All the forces of nature and human plotting came together in a very fateful way to pave the way for our present America.

Feldman uses many sources not only to lay out the facts, but to bring the events and people to life by including eye witness accounts, a court case, as well as Native American facts to bring layer upon layer of information together as accurately and interestingly as possible. The author also uses period maps which were very helpful in locating the New Madrid faults and understanding what encompassing distances the earthquakes and aftershocks traveled. He also uses very simple maps to show the before/after locations of the town of New Madrid. With these maps, you could see how much of the town was really lost as it was consumed by the Mississippi. There are also pictures of some of the key people help the reader to 'put a face with a name' and make them more real.

Essentially, this book is hard to put down and actively engages the reader to participate in keeping track of facts and people who helped shape our nation. Keeping track or possibly the pun “Keeping Score” would be a better way to phrase it. The author lists 23 newspapers, 9 unpublished manuscripts, 20 collections, 3 websites, 103 articles, and almost 300 books and pamphlets in the bibliography. He used this vast array of resources along with his awesome command of the data to create a book that keeps the reader focused and wanting to learn more about this little known period of history.

There are four parts to this book: Part 1: Portents, Part 2: Rumblings, Part 3: Upheaval, and Part 4: Aftershocks, which includes an epilogue. The author has arranged these parts in a way that catches your attention. He lays out the earthquakes and then tells the effects and other events as they happen. This is definitely the best way to arrange the contents because the author has woven all the key events and people throughout. It certainly would be much more difficult to read and understand the entire process and the ramifications of the people's actions if the book had been written otherwise.

Many people think that history books are dry and/or boring. However, Jay Feldman's book was one that kept me engaged to the point that I actually wanted to create a story web to try to keep all the interwoven people and events straight. I found myself going back through the book parts to re-read information about the cast of characters and events that survived or compounded the situation of the earthquakes. Feldman's retelling of the New Madrid isn't just a book about earthquakes. He does give the reader basic seismology information about how an earthquake happens, but the book is directed more to the surrounding and concurrent events and how they changed the lives of not only the main characters, but also of our country as it was developing into what we know now.

The earthquakes started on December 16, 1811, and ended late in the month of April 1812. During this time more than 2000 tremors were felt as far away as Canada. The Richter Scale hadn't been established yet, but modern studies have found that at least 3 of them would have measured greater than 8.0 on a scale of 10.0. These 2000 tremors created havoc across the country by destroying buildings and people.

During all of these quakes, Americans were struggling to expand their lands, and it's fair to say that negotiations with the British, Spanish, and Native Americans weren't going well. Within all this negativity, suddenly, the land erupts into what many people thought was the end of the world.

Survivor accounts of the earthquakes were amazing. They told of being awakened in the dark to the violent shaking. How they were confused and tried to garner an understanding of what was taking place. In one of these recollections, an entire town left a young girl who had been injured, in bed with food and water near her, as they fled the area. One man went back to stay with her because he felt so badly for her. However, after a few short weeks, the inhabitants were very casual about the earthquakes and simply took them in stride.

One key player was Tecumseh, a great Shawnee leader, who was working on creating a pan-tribal alliance between northern and southern tribes. He wanted them to work at helping the British fight against the United States government and William Henry Harrison. His brother, known as the Prophet, began helping him, but eventually he earned Tecumseh's disdain and anger. Other tribes also earned his disdain and anger for not agreeing with his beliefs. Tecumseh was known as a great speaker and during one of his speeches, in anger, he made a statement that he couldn't foresee as being so incredibly literal.

“Your blood is white,” he disdainfully told Big Warrior. “You have taken my talk and the sticks and the wampum and the hatchet, but you do not mean to fight. I know the reason. You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. I leave Tuckhabatchee directly and shall go straight to Detroit. When I arrive there, I will stamp my foot on the ground and shake down every house in Tuckhabatchee.“ Then he turned and left. (P 9)

Upon the earthquake's arrival, the tribes were literally and figuratively shaken into action with the motivation that Tecumseh was a great leader sent by the Great Spirit and they should rise up with him to fight the Americans and their government. They wanted to keep their land, which in essence they felt belonged to no man.

Another person that moved west with a selfish intent was George Morgan. He wanted to make money on land he acquired in the west. After all his plotting, planning, and the building of the town, New Madrid, it was destroyed from its original location during the earthquakes.

His rival, James Wilkinson, was also selfishly looking to make a fortune in land by going west and working against Morgan. However, both their time, effort, and alliances with 'all the right people' was lost due to the earthquakes.

One knows that you can't pick your family, however, I'm sure that Thomas Jefferson wished he could have. His nephews were two of the most brutal slave owners of the time. Lilburne and Isham Lewis were drunks that enjoyed brutality. One night they killed a young slave, George, for breaking a pitcher.

George was chained, spread-eagle to the floor as the other slaves were called in to watch George's death as an example. Lilburne, using an ax, cut off George's head. Another slave was made to use the ax to dismember his body and put it into the fireplace. More slaves were forced to clean up the mess. Lilburne and Isham thought that since they had threatened the slaves to the same action if they talked, and since George's body was going to burn until it was gone, that no one would ever know what had happened. What these two men didn't realized was that a natural disaster beyond their comprehension would rise up and be their down fall. Lilburne walled George's remains in the chimney. The February 7 earthquake caused Lewis' chimney to collapse which in turn allowed George's remains to be found by a dog. A neighbor found the dog chewing the skull and took it to the authorities. Once this happened, Lilburne and Isham were arrested.

Lilburne had lost his wife and son, his home, his land and owed money to many. His mental state was going downhill fast. He decided upon a suicide pact with his brother. It appears that Lilburne's luck had truly run out. In preparing for the pact, he was showing Isham how to fire the gun with a stick, in case the original plot failed. He leaned too hard on the gun and shot himself in the chest. Isham ran away while his brother lay dying.

Yet another part to the web is the first steamship to travel the Mississippi. Nicholas Roosevelt, who would eventually be uncle to Teddy Roosevelt, was an inventor as well as an engine builder. He, Fulton, and others, who were interested in opening trade and travel up and down the Mississippi, built a steamboat named 'New Orleans'. His steamboat was traveling the Mississippi when the first earthquake hit. The New Orleans, though many had predicted wouldn't be able to take on the Mississippi, successfully stayed afloat and that began the boom of the steamboat travel and trade.

Roosevelt had an interesting background himself. He was married to a woman, Lydia, who was 24 years younger than he and in a time when women didn't have rights, she stood at his side during this dangerous pursuit. Even though Lydia was pregnant on this maiden voyage, they brought along their young daughter and dog.

Another change that came about due to the earthquakes was religion. The people who were living through these earthquakes were, of course, terrified. They felt God was causing these earthquakes to show His anger. Many people joined churches and 'found religion'. However, once the quakes subsided and life went back to normal, the new members began to fall away from the church. The growth and decline of religion was felt in vast percentages.

The interwoven events mentioned above could certainly be considered as 6 degrees of separation. Even though the times were primitive in comparison to our world today, it appears that so many were working, albeit in different directions and reasons, to advance our country and/or themselves.

This book brings to light that even though we think we know our world, we don't. The earthquakes of 1811-1812 are possible again, in the same area, for the same amount of time, but at much greater loss of life and property. I think anyone that would want to learn about their world, and especially since we are fairly close to this region, would want to know how this event has shaped/changed our earth's physical features as well as how it shaped/changed the future which has lead us to now. It is amazing that in the transformation of our world so many events were taking place simultaneously.

Before reading this book, I did know that the Mississippi ran backwards, but I didn't know for how long or why. I think many other Americans are the same way. This was a major event in American history, but it appears that next to nothing has been taught about it. I think that this book would be an excellent addition to any high school history class. It would enable our students to see the progression and pitfalls of our country.

Since reading it I know it will assist me in teaching history in the aspect that now I have a better understanding of our history and how it has affected all of us. I teach a section on the Mississippi. Now I will be able to bring in more history and a better understanding of how, due to the earthquakes, land formation was changed, the Mississippi ran backwards, the steamboat was proven, and earthquake research has learned from the disaster.