1906 Earthquake

please forgive the jottings - as they seem.

We had our share of the shake here at 515 a.m. -- an unusually steady shake lasting 30 seconds at least, just hard enough to wake us up -- thought nothing of it of course.

About eight o'clock I had to go to the saw mill in Angels -- and the Sup't then told that the telephone manager had been talking to Martinez -- who reported a fearful shock -- and the starting of fire in many places in the city and Oakland -- and no water. He started to tell about the loss of life when the line gave out, and that was the last direct word that came to us.

It was absolutely impossible to get word by any kind of wire or wireless from any point west of Stockton, which frightened us more than the reports, for it surely indicated a bad state of affairs. Indirect word came in; yellow it was too, of 30,000 dead and wounded -- and it was confirmed later. Fire reports grew. And so it was all that day. The hardest thing in the world to run the crew and the work all the long hours until supper. No better news at

Headquarters, so there was nothing to do but send some sort of cheering word and get ready to hike in the early morning. Four of us went down -- and it was a trip like a nightmare -- always going but never getting anywhere. The train was crowded with anxious people, and at Stockton the excitement was near hysteria, and the reports by papers the most discouraging. "Impossible to get into the city except by permit from Funston" -- "Fire north of Market west to Buchanan and still burning" -- "San Jose a ruin" -- "Stanford University wrecked" -- and the train was slow, late and the day very hot.

I decided to try to get in by way of San Jose for the country was wide and no water to cross, and it would take more patrol than they could spare to keep the front closed by night. The rest went via Oakland-- The train arrived at San Jose in the end, about 4:30! and queer tilts on wooden houses, and the absence of visible chimneys told part of