James Chapman tells of the Tokyo earthquake



AMERICAN CHURCH MISSION
JAPAN

TREASURER'S OFFICE:
KARASUMARU DORI
SHIMOTACHI URI

KYOTO

6th September 1923

My dear Mother;

The earthquake is all that people here think of right now. I finally got my cable off to New York and then I had a wire yesterday from Bishop McKim asking me to send for him a cable thru the Consul in Kobe. As that is the most reliable way I went down yesterday and got them to send a message to the Secretary of State to be forwarded to New York. Bishop McKim's message said: "Tokyo almost destroyed, Tsukiji wiped out, Ikebukuro half gone." Ikebukuro is where our fine University and Seminary are. He asked for money saying the losses were more than half a million dollars. I am sure it will take twice that amount to replace them. The best news he gave was that all the missionaries were safe. He was speaking for his own I guess. We have located all ours save Miss Neely. She was summering near Yokohama and we have had no communication from her tho the shake was now six days ago. I will send you some of the local papers. You probably have more lurid news where you are and also highly exaggerated news. It always is exaggerated in proportion to the distance it travels, but the real facts are much worse that the first rumors we got. It is fact that Yokohama no longer exists. The number of the dead no man will ever know. Probably more than one in ten. The city had a population of 500,000. The convulsions of the earth there were terrific. Some say the earth dropped three feet. And then it shook so that large safes moved twenty feet across a room and then back in one case. In Yokohama I met Mr. Kauffman with his wife and child (the family with whom Maryjane stayed). They had come down on the Empress of Canada with 1,400 refugees from near Yokohama. Their summer home is near Yokohama. Their house was not shaken down, but they were able to leave it after the earth stopped moving for a while and spent two days and nights on the mountains above the house. A tidal wave came and washed boats up on the front porch.

7th September

The news from Tokyo this a.m. is not so bad as at first as some of our churches are standing. Also Ikebukuro was not injured. I have already cabled that it was half gone. It will do no harm I guess. Bishop McKim underestimated the money needed anyhow. We heard this morning from Miss Neely by phone. She has returned to her home in Kyoto, having been at Hakone all this time and unable to communicate with us. Now I know that all our people are safe. Bishop McKim wired that all his were safe. But the destitution is awful. All those church members who were ready to support pastors in the new independent Diocese of Tokyo will not be able to pay pastors any more. The ...

I don't know what I was going to say. Miss McGrath as usual came to get me to do some talking for her to the workmen who are making her house over. We may have to take in people from Tokyo.

15th September

I did not know I had this sheet of paper written to you as so much has happened to make me forget my regular routine. I had to meet boats at Kobe bringing in refugees from the afflicted district and I made several trips down there and spent several nights there. Welbourn and his family came in on one of the ships and I brought them to my house which is empty. He was bound for Tokyo and reached Yokohama on the 7th to find news that all his goods and chattels had burned up in the general destruction. Bishop McKim has been here and stayed a few days getting mail and sending cables. I have paid out hundreds of dollars in wires and cables in the past few days. In Kobe I got the consulate to handle them as it was worth your life to try to get in the telegraph office. Some of the offices had to close in order to get off the accumulated messages.

I am sending you some papers, the Osaka Mainichi, which have some accounts of the earthquake. When you finish you may send some on to Ellen if she wants them. This paper will also get out a pictorial edition soon which I shall send you.

It is miraculous that none of our foreigners were killed or even injured, tho some had rare experiences. If it had been ten days later more foreigners would have been in Tokyo from the summer resorts. Three or four of our Kyoto people were caught in Tokyo and had to come down as refugees. The boats and trains carried free any who wished to leave the districts afflicted. Even now we are fearing a pestilence. I reckon there have been more violent shakes in historical times, e.g. that one in Central China a year or so ago where 33,000 people died; but for destruction of life and property this Great Earthquake will rank as the worst in the history of the world. So far as we can find out only sixty Americans were killed. Not one of our mission was hurt, nor so far as I have heard was any one of our Japanese clergy or workers hurt. In property we lost more than any mission, as all we had was mostly concentrated in Tsukiji and that is shaken down and burnt up. Seventy patients in the frame hospital were taken out in safety, some on cots. The frame building stood the shake, but all the brick ones tumbled over. Then the fire came and wiped out the frame.

Three dead bodies were found in Bishop McKim's front yard - unknown persons seeking to avoid the fire. On the steamer the other day as I was taking dinner with Bp. McKim a bright looking lady came in and sat by him and entered into conversation of herself. Neither of us knew her. She was telling of her house and everything going, and I thoughtlessly said, "And none of your family were hurt"? Her eyes filled with water as she said, "I lost my husband". I bit my lips and couldn't say anything for ten minutes. The saddest thing is a family of four children, father and mother both gone. Two children of the American Consul are all that are left of his family. In Yokohama the shake was fearful, in Tokyo the fire did the worst work.

Love to you all.

Maryjane writes that she made a mistake and called "Sister Heady" - "Grandma Chapman".

Affectionately, James