Introduction
It can be said that a person's family history is full of surprises if one looks deep enough. In the many years that I have been exploring my family annals I have come across many of these fascinating stories.
The story that follows is one I have discovered of one set of 9th Great Grandparents, Ralph and Mary (Blackburn) Houghton who lived upon this earth in the late 17th and early 18th Century of our world history.
Ralph and Mary are just two of the 2,048 9th Great Grandparents that lived and through them and 2046 other 9th Great Grandparents, myself and my siblings and their children were made possible.
Suffice to say that the story below is rather short but it is one of those that due to a divine providence of some sort, has allowed for me to be writing of their story now.
Port Royal Jamaica
7 June 1692
Port Royal...The biggest and wealthiest trading port in the West Indies in the late 1600s. A port where the likes of Captain Henry Morgan (who's namesake carries the spiced rum that is most likely in your liquor cabinet) plied their trades as pirates and buccaneers and who's debauchery and sinful ways labeled this city the "Sodom & Gamorah" of the new world.
Port Roya Earthquake Wikipedia Article
It was here on the eastern seaboard of the island of Jamaica that a most terrible natural disaster of immense significance took place. The following account is taken from a Thompson family history that I discovered while researching for this story.....
On the 7th of June (1692) a tremendous earthquake shook Port Royal, in Jamaica, to its foundations; it buried nine tenths of the city under water, and made awful devastations over the whole island. Northward of the town, above 1000 acres were sunk.
Two thousand souls perished. In the space of three minutes, this beautiful town was shattered to pieces, and sunk. The earthquake took place about half an hour after 11, A.M.-(Holmes's Annals, i. 445; Univ. Hist., xli. 318, 361-366; Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., iv, 223-230).
“ It was said that One of our Dorchester people, Ralph Houghton, Jr., was buried in the ruins, as we learn from the following memoranda found pinned to the cover of an old manuscript; viz.: 'In 1692, Mrs. Mary Horton, widow of Mr. Ralph Horton, huo was sunke in ye eartbquake at Jemeco the seventh day of June, betwen a Eleven and twelve a clock at nune in 1692. Ye above named person was then 28 years of age from March ye last past.'”-Hist. of Dorchester, p. 259.
There is a discrepancy here. According to the first statement above, Mrs. Mary Houghton was the person who was saved at the sinking of Port Royal, at the time of the earthquake. This proves to be accurate as one will see below.
Further research on the above gives more insight to the above story. Read on......
My 9th Great Grandparents-Mary Blackburn Houghton & Ralph Houghton
From The Thompson Family History
Mrs. Mary Houghton (her maiden name was Blackburn), was one of the three whose lives were saved at the sinking of Port Royal, † in Jamaica, by an earthquake in 1692.
{From what I can surmise from my research, Mary and Ralph had decided to be adventurous souls and made Jamaica their home. Ralph was said to be a mariner and it seems that Mary may have worked in one of the taverns or local Inns and that Port Royal was the port that Ralph sailed from on his sea journeys. Maybe Ralph was a pirate and plied the waters of the West Indies with the likes of Captain Henry Morgan...it has been said that Ralph, earlier in life, had been a part of what was called "The Accadian Expedition"....}
Mary heard and felt the earthquake, and rushed to the door, and as the place sunk in the water she clung to the sill of the house, which separated from the building.
She remained in the water three days and three nights, when a vessel passed by and she was taken on board. Her trunk of clothing floated within her reach and was saved.
She afterwards lived at a tavern at Dorchester, Mass. and waited upon passengers. Several years had elapsed when her "DEAD husband" entered the tavern to put up for the night. They immediately recognized each other, and the effect was such that they both fainted; he having expected she was lost at the time of the earthquake, and she expected he was lost at sea, being gone on a voyage at the time of the disaster.
On June 30, 1695, Mary and Ralph Houghton would give birth to a daughter. They would name her Mary.
Mary and Ralph would also have another daughter, Martha, who was born in 1693.
Mary Blackburn Houghton/Horton died in 1767, at the advanced age of 105 years.-(From the Franklin Mercury, printed at Greenfield, Mass., Oct. 25, 1836.)Having survived the Port Royal Earthquake of 1692, she lived another 72 amazing years.....it is amazing to think that if she had not survived this historic disaster in 1692, I would not be here to write about this family memory.
My 9th Great Grandfather, Ralph, was said to have died about 1699 in Dorchester. His wife Mary outlived him by almost 70 years.
My Family Line to Mary and Ralph
1.
John is the
son of
Marlene Grace (Dietz) Repinski (1936-1999)
2.
Marlene is the
daughter of
Raymond Harold Dietz (1912-1973)
3.
Raymond is the
son of
Grace Elizabeth (Pope) Dietz (1891-1963)
4.
Grace is the
daughter of
Henry Allen Pope (1862-1927)
5.
Henry is the
son of
Thomas Paschal Pope (1838-1906)
6.
Thomas is the
son of
Thomas Faunce Pope (1807-abt.1881)
7.
Thomas is the
son of
Mitchell Pope (1767-1849)
8.
Mitchell is the
son of
Mary (Thompson) Pope (1740-aft.1772)
9.
Mary is the
daughter of
Mary (Blackman) Thompson (1721-aft.1767)
10.
Mary is the
daughter of
Mary (Houghton) Blackman (1695-aft.1767)
11.
Mary is the
daughter of
Mary (Blackburn) Houghton (abt.1664-abt.1767)
This makes
Mary the ninth great grandmother of John.
