538 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer |
lar subscription and named “John T. Rankin.” This belonged
to the Wilmington Steam Fire Engine Company. All of these
companies were volunteer organizations, and the apparatus for
each was purchased and maintained by subscriptions from the
business men of the city and by the dues of the members.

In addition to the above named volunteer companies, there
was a fire company composed entirely of negroes, and about
1870, with the assistance of the city, it was furnished with a
steam fire engine. This company, from its inception, was sup-
ported almost entirely by the city; 1t was a very good company,
and did splendid work under the command of Valentine Howe,

who was an exceptionally fine negro.

About 1878 the first appropriation was made by the city for
the support of these companies, and this was gradually in-
creased until 1898, when the city took over the property of the
entire fire department, since which time it has been under the
efficient leadership of Chief Schnibben.

THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1886.

On the 31st of August, 1886, I was a passenger in mid-ocean
on the Cunard steamer Etruria, bound from Liverpool to New
York, in company with the Hon. William A. Courtenay, who
was then mayor of Charleston. These were the days before the
Marconi wireless system of communication with vessels at sea,
and we had no thought of the fearful earthquake of that date
which shook Wilmington to its foundations and nearly de
stroyed the city of Charleston.

At the quarantine station in New York Harbor we were
handed several telegrams, and, looking up in dismay from the
reading of one addressed to me, I saw that Mr. Courtenay had
suddenly vanished without a word. Panic-stricken by the terri-
fying news, he had hurried ashore to catch the first train to
Charleston.

On my arrival at Masonboro Sound, where my family was
residing, I heard with great thankfulness that my household
had escaped injury. My wife had retired early with the two
children, and she was awakened by the upheaval of the bed
and the falling of glassware from the mantel. Terrified by the
thought that the door would be jammed by the twisting frame-
work, she pulled it open with desperate effort-and, with a child

Peace Restored 539

— ae arm, ran to the open ground, on which were soon as-
ed neighbors and servants in a panic, intensified by the

Screams of the horses confined in the stables and by the loud
of the negroes, who thought the day of judgment

lamentations
had come.

g was so greatly shaken
quake that we quickly sought safety in the

The newspa

. pers of the d

ideas nae ay made the following references to

: The Morning Star of Wednesday, September 1, 1886, in its
ccount of the earthquake, reported that “It was exactly ten

——— to ten o’clock p. m. when the first shock occurred. It
asted about thirty seconds and was accompanied by a long rum-

bling sound, like the
passage of a railway train over a brid
The river seemed to be violently agitated, and washed yar

its banks as if a storm were ragi
ging. The first shock w
ten minutes afterwards by a second shock, and ae

ten minutes later, neither of them of as
first. It is i

community. People thronged the streets a
greatly agitated. A great crowd ¢

office, anxiously inquiring as
“As far as known, the dam
eventing was dislodged and fell in the Commercial Hotel and
_ er at and bricks were shaken from chimneys and from
e walls of buildings in the process of erection, among the num-

ber the chimne
of '
cess Streets.” y of a house on the corner of Second and Prin-

The shock was
Signal-Service o

nd many of them were
entered around the telegraph
to news from other places,

quite severe at other places. At Smithville the
severe earth-

evident, with varying degrees of vio-

— and west to Chicago. The dis-
arlesto

Sener apc n, and at Laurinburg also the

oly + ews had a very graphic account of the earth-
enlarged upon the terror and awe of the occasion
slightly from the Star in a few comments. The