Noiseless Earthquake in Jefferson County?

It’s a strange, strange Saturday! This historic newspaper article comes from a July 25, 1899 edition of The Wheeling Intelligencer. Just what the heck was going on in West Virginia’s eastern panhandle in the late 19th century? 

STRANGE PHENOMENON

Occurs in Jefferson County-Sort of Noiseless Earthquake

Special dispatch to the Intelligencer

CHARLES-TOWN, W.Va., July 24–A strange phenomenon occurred yesterday in the orchard of Harrison Roper, a few miles west of this city. Huge beds of rocks, weighing tons, which for centuries have lain undisturbed, on Sunday slowly began to upheave and mixed with earth worked among themselves for some minutes, after which they again became quiet, and have since remained so. 

The disturbance was not accompanied by any rumbling noises as of an earthquake. Trees of the orchard which stood in the track of the disturbance were uprooted. People from the surrounding neighborhood have been all day flocking to the scene of the phenomenon.