FUMBLE

 

I think the second most important man in the history of American football was a dictatorial opera-loving control freak, who began each training camp by warning his players that it was “Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”  John Heisman (above) described his ideal coach as “...severe, arbitrary and little short of a czar” and proceeded to live up to that image. His teams' diets were heavy on raw meat, and devoid of apples.

John Heisman found football a brutal, violent ground game that killed 44 players in 1904.

It was also filled with arcane idiosyncratic rules, such as a team just scored against could chose to either kick or receive.  A touchdown and a field goal were both worth five points 

It was John Heisman who invented the forward pass, the hidden ball play and divided each half into quarters. And it was John Heisman who led the Georgia Technology Institute “Engineers” to the most decisive victory in the history of the game. Of course, he had a little help.

Twenty miles east of the metropolis of Nashville, in the picturesque village of Lebanon, is tiny Cumberland University (above). In the decades around the dawn of the twentieth century its prestigious School of Law graduated more future Congressmen than any other school in the South – impressive, with a student body of less than 1,000. In the more significant aspects of college life, the 1903 Cumberland football team had a championship 7-1 season, and a post season Thanksgiving day 11-11 tie against a Clemson team coached by John Heisman.

In March of 1916 Cumberland signed a contract to play a fall game against Georgia Tech in exchange for at least $500 from the ticket sales. Then, over the howls of disappointed students and alumni, hard economic times forced acting President Dr. Homer Hill to choose academics over football. New student manager George Allen was told to cancel all football contracts. Except John Heisman, now in his second year coaching at Georgia Tech, and who depended on ticket proceeds for a portion of his income, refused to cancel their game. Also, there had been a “misunderstanding” the previous summer over some alleged “professional ringers” in a baseball game between the two schools, and Heisman, who was also the Georgia Tech baseball coach, had insisted on adding a $3,000 penalty to their football contract, which Cumberland had been forced to agree to. So, if a Cumberland football team did not suit up on Saturday, November 7th, the small school would have to pay Georgia Tech today's equivalent of $60,000.

The burden for preventing the bankruptcy of Cumberland University fell to acting coach and law student Ernest “Butch” McQueen. Promised half of the $500 guarantee, he recruited a squad of 20 volunteers (mostly from his Kappa Sigma fraternity) and put them through some trough scrimmages. Gentry Dugat, who had played football once in high school, agreed to join the team only because the overnight trip to Atlanta would be his first ride in a Pullman sleeping car. There had been hopes of recruiting more “ringers” from the Vanderbilt team while changing trains in Nashville, but none could be obtained. In fact, three of the Cumberland volunteers missed the train to Atlanta, cutting the roster available for the game to just 17.

Waiting for the Cumberland Bulldogs on Georgia Tech's three year old Grant Field was a squad of 40 highly motivated dedicated players, who in their season opener a week earlier had demolished Mercer College 61 to zero. Also waiting was Coach John Heisman, who had found a new enemy to motivate himself; sportswriters, whose habit of “totaling up the number of points each team has amassed...and comparing them with one another” annoyed him  To prove their reasoning was specious, Heisman had decided “...to show folks it was no difficult thing to run up a score in one easy game.” And the Cumberland Bulldog stand-ins were going to be the his stand-ins, too .

There were 1,000 fans in the grandstands the students had built to watch Georgia Tech win the coin toss. In what must be viewed as almost his only act of mercy that afternoon, Heisman decided his team would kick off, and defend the north goal line. The festivities began when Jim Preas kicked off for Georgia Tech. “Morris” Grouger caught the ball at the Cumberland 25 yard line and got not much closer to Georgia's goal line. On their first play Cumberland quarterback Leon McDonald handed the ball off to Grouger again, and he made three yards against Georgia's left tackle. On second and seven, McDonald was stopped at the line of scrimmage. The Bulldogs also failed to advance the ball on third down. On Fourth down McDonald punted – sort of. His kick covered less than 20 yards and was caught by Georgia quarterback Jim Preas. Cumberland finally tackled Preas on their own 20 yard line. On Georgia's first play Junior halfback Evertt “Strupp” Strupper went around the left end for the score. Jim Preas kicked the extra point , and that quickly it was Georgia 7 and Cumberland zero.

This time Heisman picked Tommy Spence to kick off. Again it was “Morris” Grouger who caught the ball, this time at the five yard line. And this time he made five yards before he was tackled. With the ball on their ten yard line, McDonald handed off to running back George Murphy who went to the right side, where he was hit and coughed up the ball. It was picked up by "Engineer" Marshall Guill, who ran the ten yards for Georgia's second touchdown. Preas again kicked the extra point; Tech, 14. Cumberland, 0.

What followed was either depressingly predictable or delightfully surprising – depending on which team you were rooting for. Preas kicks off, Grouger received at the 20 and returned ten yards to the Cumberland 30 yard line. On first down quarterback McDonald fumbled behind the line, and it was recovered by “Hip” West for Georgia at the Cumberland 20. Strupper made fifteen yards on the first down, and Jim Preas went the last five for the score. He then kicked the extra point; Georgia Tech, 21, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, and it was received by McDonald at the ten, who made it to the 20 yard line before being tackled.  Morris Gouger tried the left side and was thrown for a 5 yard loss. McDonald tried a pass, but it was incomplete. Out of frustration, McDonald punted on third down, putting it out of bounds on the Cumberland 35. On the first down for Georgia, Buzz Shaver hit the left side of the Cumberland line for twenty five yards. Halfback “Strup” Strupper went the remaining ten yards for the score. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 28, Cumberland, zero.

Desperate to try anything, Cumberland decided to use the obscure rule that allowed them to kick off. How this was supposed to help the Bulldogs is unclear, in part because it did not.  McDonald got a good foot on the ball, and it was received at the Georgia 20 by Buzz Shaver, who ran it back 70 yards to the Cumberland 10 yard line. Strupper could have scored on the next play but he grounded the ball on the one yard line. The Georgia Tech team had decided that guard J.S. "Canty" Alexander should be allowed to score the next touchdown. But “Canty”was worried that his teammates might be setting him up. He admitted 70 years later that on the hand off, “I was so busy watching to make sure they blocked, that the ball hit me in the chest and I fumbled. But I picked it up on the five and pranced across like a debutante.” Preas hit the extra point. The score was now Georgia Tech, 35, Cumberland zero.

Again Cumberland chose to kick off. Walter “Six” Carpenter caught the ball on the Georgia 35 and was stopped after just a five yard return. Things were actually looking up for Cumberland for a moment, and then on the next snap, “Strup” ran it for sixty yards and the score – after Preas conversion, it was now Georgia, 42, Cumberland zero. Again McDonald kicked off . Again Carpenter caught the ball. This time he made a ten yard return to the Georgia thirty-five. Then “Buzz” Shaver got twenty-five yards over the right side, Ralph Puckett made five up the middle, and Spence went thirty-five for the score. Preas hit the extra point; Georgia, 49, Cumberland, zero.

Cumberland gave up the idea of kicking off, and McDonald received at the Cumberland ten. He then tried three passes, before punting. “Strup” Strupper returned the kick thirty-five yards for another touchdown, and Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia 56, Cumberland, zero. Cumberland decided to try kicking off one more time. Tommy Spence returned it ninety yards for a trouch down, and Preas kicked his ninth extra point – Georgia, 63, Cumberland, zero. Georgia let Tommy Spence kick off, and Morris Gouger caught it at the fifteen and returned it to Cumberland twenty-five, before losing five yards on the first play from scrimmage. McDonald then lost more five yards, before trying two passes in a row. Then, mercifully the whistle blew, signifying the end of the first quarter – just three more to go. And Everett “Strupp” Stupper had already scored four touchdowns.

Cumberland started the Second quarter with a very respectable fifty yard punt by McDonald, but Charlie Turner for Georgia returned it forty-five of those yards, back to the Cumberland twenty. On the very next play Jim Senter scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 70, Cumberland, zero.

Cumberland actually made nine yards on the next series of downs, but that triumph was overshadowed when McDonald's weary foot could punt the ball just eleven yards. Two plays later Preas ran the ball in from the fifteen. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 77, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, Grouger returned to the Cumberland twenty, McDonald threw an interception to Marsall Guill who scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia 84, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, George Murphy received for Cumberland and was nailed at the ten yard line. Charles “Eddie” Edwards then fumbled for Cumberland and one play later George Griffen scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 91, Cumberland, zero.

At some point during the endless horror of that second quarter, members of the Cumberland team contend that they made a major football innovation. Between plays, in an attempt to find a way to survive the overpowering Georgia line, they gathered together, and thus invented the huddle. Maybe – but the half did finally, mercifully end; Georgia Tech, 126, Cumberland, zero.

John Heisman found a way to give a half time pep talk to his Georgia team. “You're doing all right, team,. We're ahead. But you just can't tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise. Be alert, men! Hit 'em clean, but hit 'em. Hard!” He also agreed to reduce the torture to just 12 minutes each for the two remaining quarters.

But even the shortened third quarter was no better for Cumberland than the previous two. According to Grantland Rice, who was covering the game for the Atlanta Journal, “Cumberland's greatest individual play of the game occurred when fullback (George) Allen circled right for a six-yard loss.” It was only a slight exaggeration. Cumberland did complete one six yard forward pass, but they never got the ball into Georgia territory. So crushing was the Georgia Tech line, that when yet another Cumberland fumble rolled toward Cumberland Bulldog B.F. “Bird” Paty, he froze. Shouted the man who had lost the ball, “Pick it up!” Paty shouted back, “Pick it up yourself, you dropped it.” Wrote Rice, “As a general rule, the only thing necessary for a touchdown was to give a Tech back the ball and holler, “Here he comes' and “There he goes'”.

The other Atlanta Journal writer in attendance, Morgan Blake, noticed that the Cumberland team “... couldn't run with the ball, they couldn't block and they couldn't tackle. At spasmodic intervals they were able to down a runner, but they were decidedly too light and green to be effective at any stage of the game.” Near the end of the Third Quarter, Georgian quarterback George Gariffin discovered two Cumberland Bulldogs sitting on the Georgia bench. Heisman yelled at them to get back on their own side of the field. One of the interlopers pleaded, “Don't make us go back. We'll have to go into the game.' “

Morris Grough later claimed he had saved the Bulldogs from even more grief. "I called for a quarterback sneak on fourth down late in the final period. We needed 25 yards and were deep in our (own) territory. I made it back to the line of scrimmage and saved us from really ignominious defeat. If we had punted, as we should have, Tech would have blocked the kick, made another touchdown and the score would have been 229-0.” On the last play of the game, Cumberland lost 5 yards. The final result was aw inspiring; Georgia Teach, 222, Cumberland, zero. Georgia's wooden scoreboard barely had enough room for the numbers

The Georgia Tech Engineers gained 1,620 yards, 978 of it during their own 28 offensive plays, the other 642 by their defense on turnovers. They scored a record 32 touchdowns – 10 on first downs and 14 by their defence and specialty teams. They threw not a single forward pass. They gained 220 yards on punt returns – scoring five TD's - and another 220 yards returning kicks – producing 1 TD. The only issue of concern, if you could call it that, was the two “points after” that they missed. Of course that was 2 out of 32 attempts. They also set records for the most points kicked after touchdown by one player -18 by Jim Preas - most points scored in one quarter – 63 - and most individual players scoring touchdowns - 13 . All of those records still stand.

Meanwhile, Cumberland's offense total was a minus 42 yards. They threw 18 times, gaining a total of 14 yards through the air. Their receivers held onto only two of those passes. They were intercepted six times, and gave up 9 fumbles. Their longest play of the game was a ten yard completed pass. It would have been a first down except it came on fourth and 22. In the entire game neither team scored a first down from scrimmage. Cumberland couldn't, Georgia Tech didn't need to. At the end of the game, Coach Heisman handed over the $500 check to Butch McQueen, adding,  “Maybe we can get together again next baseball season.”

Cumberland did not field another football team until 1920. Shortly thereafter they built a new football field,  Kirk Field, to ensure the teams continued existence. And except for a short disappearance during the Great Depression, it worked. In 1929 Georgia Tech made their first appearance at the Rose Bowl, and about the same time they ceased to be the “Engineers” and became the “Yellowjackets”.

Coach John Heisman coached at Georgia Tech for three more years, to 102 wins, 29 losses and 7 ties, a 77% winning percentage, and a national championship in 1917. Heisman and his wife divorced in 1919, and he left Atlanta. He coached at Pennsylvania University, and then Washington and Jefferson College, and ended his coaching career at the Rice Institute. In his later years he was hired as a trainer for the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan. After his death in 1936 the club created a yearly award to the top college football player – The Heisman Trophy. John Heisman is also remembered for an American football adage, a piece of advice which has guided American business leaders and politicians for the last century; “When in doubt, punt”

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BLAMING GOD

 

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

KJ Bible, Genisus 2:17

I admit it may be unfair to blame 53 year old Boston Puritan, Increase Mather for the 4,000 deaths in Jamaica - unlike the 25 "witches he helped murder in Salem.   But he was so damn certain in his ignorance, that he lacked any compassion which might have honored those 4,000 lives.  

An Anglican minister and an Anglican preacher, "The Godly" Increase always pontificated from a pulpit standing on solid moral bedrock - even as the sand beneath his feet liquefied and swallowed his soul.  The Reverend Mather was certain, for example, that what Yehaweh said about the Port Royal earthquake of 1692 was "All of those people were sinners and deserved their fate!"  And that seems a little arrogant, doesn't it?  Considering he did not actually know any of those people.

"God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand."

Richard Feynman Nobel winning American physicist

As the 17 million square miles of the South American Tectonic Plate drove west at just over an inch a year, it elbowed aside the 1 million square miles of the Caribbean plate, shoving it at half an inch a year into the southeastern edge of 29 million square miles of the North America plate. These large collisions accommodated the curvature of the earth by cracking like a plate of glass dropped onto a concrete slab. For example, Cuba rested firmly on the North American Plate. 

But just off its southern shore was the 25,000 foot deep and 250 mile long Cayman trench, which was consuming the 73,000 square miles of a conave micro-plate, driving north.  Ninety miles to the south the island of Jamaica is thus being shoved inexorably toward that trench, until, eventually, it will be consumed by it. But in the meantime Jamaica was also being pulled apart by the Walton fault, moving west at half an inch a year, connected by transverse faults to the Plantain Garden Fault, slipping west at a full inch a year and running 300 miles from the island of Hispaniola to the once volcanic Blue Mountains in Jamaica's interior. As the waxing quarter moon set on the evening of 6 June, 1693, the delicate balance of all this intricate geological machinery was on the verge of snapping. Again.

"Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah...Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities..."

KJ Genesis 19:24 - 25

Dawn of Wednesday, 7 June, 1692 greeted Port Royal - the second largest English city in the New World and "the richest and wickedest city in the world"- with the continued promise of unending wealth.

Approaching Jamaica from the Caribbean Passage any Spanish or French threat had to first navigate the mile wide entrance between the eastern heights of Salt Pan Hill, defended by a row of cannon called the 12 apostles, and the 14 guns in the star shaped brick edifice of Fort Charles, perched on western tip of the 18 mile long sand spit called the Palisadoes.

Protecting the 60 full rigged transports, slave ships, schooners and cutters anchored safely in Cagway Bay this morning were the additional 26 cannon in Fort James and Fort Carlisle.  

Blocking any land assault across the narrow neck of the Palisadoes was Fort Rupert with another 22 guns. And for good measure defending the south sea side of Port Royal were another 26 cannons of Fort Morgan, named to honor the 4 year deceased Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and infamous privateer, Sir Henry Morgan.

"Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hands are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped."

William H. Bragg 20th century British Nobel physicist, chemist, and mathematician.

During the first 50 years of English occupation, Jamaica's income had come from stealing what the Spanish had stolen from the Aztecs and Incas - in other words, piracy. But within the last decade the economics had shifted. Jamaica's Royal Governor, the Earl of Inchiquin, was no longer the unquestioned lord, and the dominant arm of the British government was no longer the Royal Navy, Both of those powers had been superseded by  the corporate-like Board of Trade and Plantations. 

Civilian lawyer and businessman John White, the new Vice President of the Jamaica Council, was the regional head of operations, directly responsible for the 4,000 Europeans in Port Royal that June morning, men, women and children, who were all employees one way or another, of the Board of Trade. There were also 2,000 to 2,500 Africans - but  almost all of them were not people, but property

"Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

KJ Bible Judges 1:7

Port Royal was a company town - a slice of London transplanted to the Caribbean, 2,000 Tudor brick and mortar multi-story homes and shops tightly packed into 51 sandy acres between the sea and Cagway Bay, where Puritans, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews and Muslims labored with one purpose - to get rich. The venal sins of the sailors and pirates were tolerated since they were making so many so wealthy. 

In the words of observer Edward Ward, Port Royal was “...as sickly as a hospital, as dangerous as the plague, as hot as Hell, and as wicked as the devil”.  Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck saw, "The parrots of Port Royal gather to drink...ale with just as much alacrity as the drunks that frequent the taverns that serve it."  

As Rector of St. Peter's Anglican Church near the junction of the High and Lime Streets, the Reverend Doctor Emmanuel Heath was God's official representative to this den of hypocrisy. Before ten this morning he walked the few yards south to the Merchants' Exchange, to have coffee with Vice President White. The Reverend would later credit Mr. White's lively conversation with delaying his luncheon date with the garrison's commander, Captain  Rudend,  and his family, on Queens Street along the harbor front - and thus saving Dr. Heath's life.

"I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance."

Christopher Marlowe, Elizabethan author

Some 20 minutes before noon, on 9 June, 1692, the rocks which restrained one of the faults to the north or west of the Jamaica snapped.  As it did the primary compressing wave of energy raced away from the epicenter of the break at 4 miles a second, like a giant hammer, slamming each successive molecule of rock into the next. Just behind it came the Secondary wave, "...perpendicular to the direction it is traveling" and moving at 3 miles a second. The combination of the 2 waves produced the shaking, which lasted for about 4 minutes - estimated as the equivalent of a magnitude 7.3 on the standard Richter scale. 

In that brief time the over 4 million square miles of Jamaica jerked a foot or more closer to Cuba, dropping parts of the southern shore of the island as much as thirty feet. A pocket watch found on the harbor bottom 260 years later recorded the time of doomsday as 11:43am.

"Let death steal over them...for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart."

KJ Psalm 55:15

Seated in the tavern, Emmanuel Heath and Vice President White felt the earth begin to "heave and roll". "Said I, “Lord, Sir, what’s this?” He replied, very composedly, “It is an earthquake, be not afraid, it will soon be over.” But...(when) we heard the church and tower fall...we ran to save ourselves." In other words, they did the one thing you should never do in an earthquake - run outside where your head has no protection and all the heavy things are falling to the ground. 

Another survivor described the scene which greeted him. "The sand on the street rose like waves at sea, lifting up all persons that stood upon it....And at the same instant water rushed in...Some were seen catching hold of beams and rafters of houses."

"It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law."

Franz Kafka, 20th century writer

It seems likely John White was hit by some of the falling debris, and in a panic the Reverend abandoned him, running south for the safety of Fort Morgan. But as he reached it, "...I saw the earth open and swallow up a multitude of people, and the sea mounting in upon us over the fortifications." The sea did not so much rush in as rise up from the sand." The vibrations released the water table bonded to the sand grains a few feet below the surface, which could no longer support weight. Forts, buildings, animals and people simply sank into the quicksand. 

A Frenchman, Lewis Galdy, was swallowed by it.  But as the street that swallowed him dropped thirty feet into the harbor, his buoyancy sent him bobbing to the surface of what was abruptly the enlarged bay. Half an hour later he was picked up by a rescue boat.

"For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."

KJ Bible Isaiah 26:21

"Careened" at the docks - tilted so barnacles could be scrapped off her elm wood bottom - the HMS Swan, a 74 foot long fifth rate warship, snapped her lines and plowed into the sinking homes and shops along Queen street, perhaps killing Captain Rudend and his family.  In a primeval fit, the Reverend Heath chose now to run home. "The houses and walls fell on each side of me; some bricks came rolling over my shoes...When I came to my lodging, I found all things in the order I had left them." Emmanuel Heath was lucky. His home was one of the 10% of buildings not destroyed, in the one third of Port Royal not swallowed by the bay.  He lived. His breakfast companion, John White, would also survive the shaking, but die of his injuries a few hours later.

"Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things."

Richard Dawkins, 20 century British evolutionary biologist

There were 2,000 dead in 4 minutes, and another 3,000 who would die over the following year of broken bodies, hearts and minds. The brick forts of James and Carlisle disappeared into Cagway Bay.  Fort Rupert flooded. The least damaged was Fort Morgan. More morbid, among the 33 acres dropped into the harbor was the graveyard, leaving the recently dead floating with their ancestors. Quaker John Pike later wrote his brother, “Great men who were so swallowed up with pride...now lie stinking upon the water, and are made meat for fish and fowls of the air” - and the target for human scavengers, “...their Pockets picked, their fingers cut off for their rings, their gold buttons taken out of their shirts."

“And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

KJ Isaiah 66:24

The survivor Samuel Bernard dealt directly with the trauma. "We shall be unworthy of God’s mercies if we be not by His judgments taught to learn righteousness.” John White's survivors on the Council declared themselves "an instance of God Almighty's severe judgment." But distance made the ignorant more certain, and mercenary. Wrote one distant observer, "A God of limited patience had punished a wicked people." 

London Presbyterian minister John Shower used the deaths as pulp for his first publication: "Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica”, blaming the disaster on "Atheism, and infidelity...and barefaced deism..." He denounced those who thought there must be a rational cause for such horrors, because, "...the Hand of God is not to be overlooked in such things", and warned his readers, "If you do not truly repent...your judgment is near, your destruction is at hand." 

And in the largest English city in the new world, Boston, the Reverend Cotton Mather wrote to his uncle John, in terms that were almost jubilant. "Behold, an accident speaking to all our English America." He was looking for a victory, as that summer his father had executed five "witches" in Salem, but those executions would only lead to more witch trials.

"For the belief in a single truth is the root cause for all evil in the world."

Max Born, Nobel physicist and mathematician

Increase Mather was busy that summer, and would not set down his reaction to the Port Royal Quake for a decade - by which time his reputation was suffering because of the witch hunts. But disaster tales are always popular, and time had moderated the old Puritan's views. He now acknowledged  "...many times, earthquakes proceed from natural causes."  

But then he asserted they were "...usually, a sign that men have sinned, and that God is angry.  Certain it is, that if men had never sinned, they had never been terrified with earthquakes...Whole towns...with all the people in them...(have) gone down alive into the pit.  Would such a thing be, if God were not infinitely displeased by the sins of men?"

"Early the next morning Abraham...looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah...and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace."

KJ Genisus 19: 27-28

But Increase, now over 60 years old, was just warming up, reminding his readers, "...Was it not so with the Sinners in Sodom? An earthquake swallowed up their houses, and all the bodies in them. But what became of their souls? Does not the scripture say, that they are suffering the Vengeance of eternal fire?...Shall we that call our selves Christians be worse than the heathen Romans, of whom it is said, that when they saw the earthquake they feared greatly...have we forgotten what God did in Jamaica ...  when two thousand people (whites and blacks) perished by the earthquakes there."

"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

J.R.R. Tolkien writer

The people of Jamaica did not forget. Almost half a century after the earthquake, in solid ground across the bay in the new city of Kingston, they buried the mortal remains of Lewis Galdy. He had experience a religious rebirth after the earth spit him back up, but had used his time not to preach faith but live it, for better and for worse.  He remained a businessman, and in Jamaica. If he left little of value behind, that was not an act of God, it was an act of Galdy.  And when he died at 80 years of age - 16 years after and ten years older than Increase Mather when he died - Lewis's tombstone would read, "Beloved by all and much lamented at his Death".  If he was, he was more loved by his peers, than bitter old Increase Mather was.

"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone."

KJ Bible John 8:7

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