Mary Brown's Diaries

For my episode #3, I went to the Winter Park Public Library and chose to write about Mary Brown's diary of 1886. What I find fascinating about historical diaries is that the history is being interpreted by one person (not by a newspaper). She wrote a few diaries which all look similar on the outside but all hold different aspects of her life in Winter Park. The reason I chose her 1886 diary was because she noted on August 31st 1886 the earthquake she felt. Though is sounds like Winter Park had an earthquake - it turns out that the earthquake she felt that day was in Charleston, South Carolina! Further research showed that the earthquake is the most damaging in Southeast America and reached as far as Boston and Chicago. It is interesting that Mary's small note in her diary conveys how such an intense earthquake reached as far as Winter Park, Florida.