1692 Port Royal 'Quake

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TOMORROW, being the anniversary of the Great Earthquake, will be observed as a holiday in all the Public Offices.

Daily Gleaner, June 6, 1870

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5 WILLIAM AND MARY. A.D. 1693
CHAPTER 1.
An Act for establishing a Perpetual Anniversary Fast on the Seventh of June.
FORASMUCH as it hath pleased Almighty God, the Great Creator and Judge of Heaven and Earth, on the seventh day of June, one thousand six hundred ninety-two, justly to punish the inhabitants of this island for the manifold sins and wickedness committed against his Divine Majesty, by a most terrible and dreadful Earthquake, which not only laid waste our estates and places of habitation in general, but also destroyed many hundreds of people; which tremendous judgment was succeeded by a raging sickness and mortality, that few or no families escaped: Now that so signal a visitation may be had in perpetual remembrance, and we and our posterity may, by humbling ourselves, endeavour to appease God's imminent wrath and prevent heavier judgments: We Your Majesties' most dutiful and loyal subjects, Your Majesties' Lieut.-Governor, Council, and Assembly of this your island of Jamaica, do most humbly beseech your most sacred Majesties that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by their Majesties' Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Assembly, and it is hereby enacted and ordained by the authority of the same, that every seventh day of June (unless it falls out to be on the Lord's Day, and then the day following) shall be forever hereafter set apart, to be kept and observed by all the inhabitants of this island as an anniversary day of fasting and humiliation; and that all and every the inhabitants aforesaid shall, upon the said day, annually resort to some usual place where prayers and preaching are used to be ministered, and there orderly and devoutly abide during the celebration of Divine Service, by prayers, preaching, singing of psalms etc.

[No longer to be read as obligatory but permissive, Law 4 of 1867.]

personal accounts

        of the earthquake