Notes from my Knapsack 4-4-24

Notes from my Knapsack 4-4-24
Jeff Gill

History and cosmic events with local impact
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Around 3:00 pm on April 8, Licking County will become strangely dim.

Unless, of course, there's a thunderstorm overhead.

Actually, when a solar eclipse passes, and is as close to totality as we will see in Licking County, you would notice the intensification of darkness even on a cloudy day. Eclipses are powerful astronomical phenomena, and a total solar eclipse is like nothing else you might experience out in nature.

Past solar eclipses passing across Kentucky and Tennessee have taught police and fire officials a lesson, since you can easily add thousands to an area over a few days, with no problem: it's all of them wanting to go home, or find a bathroom, within the same fifteen minutes after an eclipse ends that creates the immediate havoc. We won't see a total eclipse in Granville on April 8th, but we will see traffic jams heading past about 4 pm.

Natural phenomena do leave a mark on the collective memory of a community, or state, or region. Granville's history includes two strange events of the early 1800s with a lasting legacy in our public recollection.

Bushnell's "History of Granville" written in 1880 recalls the "Earthquake of 1811," the New Madrid Fault which still threatens the Midwest today. In 1811, the initial jolt on Dec. 16th was felt all across the Great Lakes region.

Early on Dec. 16, 1811, the new doctor for the village, Dr. William Richards was "sleeping one night in the same room with David Messenger, Jr., when the house was shaken by one of the great earthquake waves that changed the channel of the Mississippi. Messenger was frightened by the rolling of the house, and waking the Doctor, asked what he thought was the cause of the house shaking so. The Doctor roused up enough to mutter that it must be a hog rubbing against the house, and went to sleep again."

Along with that memorable story, Rev. Bushnell interviewed an elderly man of 1880 who had childhood memories of 1811: "The day before this occurrence Daniel Baker had been with his family to Newark to make some purchases, among other things some blue-edged dishes. That night the family slept in pioneer style in their new cabin. The dishes stood on the table and the bed of Daniel, Jr., then a small boy, was on the floor and near the table. He was awakened in the night by the rattling of the dishes over his head, but was too young to be alarmed."

Bushnell also recounts the great "Meteor Shower" of 1833, a major occurrence of the annual Leonid meteor shower that was visible all across the early United States, with variable impacts depending on the local weather. Alabama had clear skies, and "Stars Fell on Alabama" became a popular book and orchestral jazz standard out of those vivid memories.

Early in the morning of Nov. 13th in Granville, Ohio: "It was but the quiet, gentle, beautiful, prolonged rain of glowing sparks that died as they neared or touched the ground. Here, there, everywhere, they fell like lighted snow-flakes at the gentle beginning of a snow storm, each leaving a fine luminous track behind it. The morning bell was rung rather boisterously in the hope of waking people up to see the sublime spectacle. Some were panic stricken and expected the end of the world. One old lady rose, went into the street and shouted in terror. But most of the people appreciated it at once as an unusual natural phenomenon. It was a season of rapt enjoyment until the display was lost in the rising day."

Our eclipse this April will likely be a similar sort of experience.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's planning to be out with his eclipse glasses on Apr. 8! Tell him your cosmic experience at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.

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Maria: if you need 500 words not 600, delete the paragraph starting "Along with that memorable story…" but it was too good not to include, in case you have the space!