Port-au-Prince. Overthrown from top to bottom by the earthquake of Pentecost; about 200 dead; rebuilt in wood.

The governor’s palace, the Intendance, the council house, the Church, the powder magazine, the barracks, the private houses, all became a single heap of ruins. The comte de Nolivos, governor general, and President de Bongars, the Intendant, ordered the ships in the roadstead to supply the town with bread until the ovens were rebuilt, in order to prevent famine. All the inhabitants of the neighboring districts sent provisions to Port-au-Prince with the greatest generosity. The number of the dead came to about 200. Alexandre Pétion, who became President of Haiti, was then in the cradle. When the earthquake struck, his mother forgot him and threw herself into the street; but a Black woman, his nurse, rushed into the collapsing house and carried him out safe and sound to his mother.