Exactly 130 years ago, when the island of Krakatoa, located
in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, erupted on August 26th,
1883, the shock was felt (and heard) for thousands of miles. The extreme
seismic event killed tens of thousands of people from both the initial
explosion and the earthquakes and tidal waves that followed and affected global weather for years to come. Mystic Seaport’s collection of The Nautical Magazine
includes copies for the period. Because of the strong British naval and commercial
presence in the area, the magazine carried a number of reports about the
devastation surrounding the explosion. “This remarkable disturbance of the sea
made itself felt in various parts of the world…notably in Australia and
Southern Africa, also at Karachi in India. The vast amount of pumice which lay
upon the surface of the sea, in some places many feet in thickness, gave an
appearance as if the ocean bed had appeared above water.” More important to the
Schuit family, proprietors of the Anjer Hotel that appears in the accompanying
image of an advertising card from the Museum’s collection, “A succession of
earthquake waves swept the shores of the strait, utterly destroying the towns
of Anjer, Merak, Tyringin and Telok Betong, together with some of the
lighthouses on both shores.”
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| Mystic Seaport, Accession # 1994.99.5 |
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| Enhanced image from front of 1994.99.5 |
The London and China
Telegraph for Feb. 27, 1868 lists G. Schuit as the proprietor of the Anjer
Hotel in Anjer in the Sunda Strait. When Krakatoa erupted 15 years later,
another member of the Schuit family, H. Schuit, was the proprietor, and other
reports tell us that the hotel, which was set above a seawall, was ripped from
its foundation by the waves. An issue of Popular
Science for 1884 states that while Mr. Schuit survived the incident, his
family did not. This earlier picture is one of the few reminders of the idyllic
setting of the Anjer Hotel before 1883.
This business card, showing Mr. Schuit’s multiple enterprises, was probably
obtained by Capt. Timothy Benson in the 1870’s or ‘80’s while on trading
voyages to the Orient. There is evidence in our manuscript collection that Capt.
Benson visited Anjer as late as 1881, 2 years before the Krakatoa cataclysm.