The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts
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Title: The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts
Author: George W. Holley
Release date: March 24, 2011 [eBook #35669]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35669
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALLS OF NIAGARA AND OTHER FAMOUS CATARACTS ***
Produced by Steven Gibbs, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
NIAGARA.
[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS FROM THE CANADIAN SIDE - FRONTISPIECE.]
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA
AND _OTHER FAMOUS CATARACTS_.
BY
GEORGE W. HOLLEY.
With Thirty Illustrations.
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXXII.
Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE xiii
PART I.--HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
First French expedition--Jacques Cartier--He first hears of the great
Cataract--Champlain--Route to China--La Salle--Father Hennepin's
first and second visits to the Falls 1
CHAPTER II.
Baron La Hontan's description of the Falls--M. Charlevoix's letter to
Madame Maintenon--Number of the Falls--Geological indications--Great
projection of the rock in Father Hennepin's time--Cave of the
Winds--Rainbows 9
CHAPTER III.
The name Niagara--The musical dialect of the Hurons--Niagara one
of the oldest of Indian names--Description of the River, the Falls,
and the surrounding country 15
CHAPTER IV.
Niagara a tribal name--Other names given to the tribe--The Niagaras
a superior race--The true pronunciation of Indian words 19
CHAPTER V.
The lower Niagara--Fort Niagara--Fort Mississauga--Niagara village--
Lewiston--Portage around the Falls--The first railroad in the
United States--Fort Schlosser--The ambuscade at Devil's Hole--La
Salle's vessel, the _Griffin_--The Niagara frontier 25
PART II.--GEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VI.
America the old world--Geologically recent origin of the Falls--
Evidence thereof--Captain Williams's surveys for a ship-canal--Former
extent of Lake Michigan--Its outlet into the Illinois River--The
Niagara Barrier--How broken through--The birth of Niagara 32
CHAPTER VII.
Composition of the terrace cut through--Why retrocession is
possible--Three sections from Lewiston to the Falls--Devil's Hole--
The Medina group--Recession long checked--The Whirlpool--The
narrowest part of the river--The mirror--Depth of the water in the
Chasm--Former grand Fall 42
CHAPTER VIII.
Recession above the present position of the Falls--The Falls will be
higher as they recede--Reason Why--Professor Tyndall's prediction--
Present and former accumulations of rock--Terrific power of
the elements--Ice and ice bridges--Remarkable geognosy of the lake
region 50
PART III.
LOCAL HISTORY AND INCIDENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
Forty years since--Niagara in winter--Frozen spray--Ice foliage and
ice apples--Ice moss--Frozen fog--Ice islands--Ice statues--
Sleigh-riding on the American Rapids--Boys coasting on them--Ice
gorges 62
CHAPTER X.
Judge Porter--General Porter--Goat Island--Origin of its name--Early
dates found cut in the bark of trees and in the rock--Professor
Kalm's wonderful story--Bridges to the Island--Method of
construction--Red Jacket--Anecdotes--Grand Island--Major Noah and the
New Jerusalem--The Stone Tower--The Biddle stairs--Sam Patch--Depth
of water on the Horseshoe--Ships sent over the Falls 71
CHAPTER XI.
Joel R. Robinson, the first and last navigator of the Rapids--Rescue
of Chapin--Rescue of Allen--He takes the _Maid of the Mist_ through
the Whirlpool--His companions--Effect upon Robinson--Biographical
notice--His grave unmarked 85
CHAPTER XII.
A fisherman and a bear in a canoe--Frightful experience with floating
ice--Early farming on the Niagara--Fruit-growing--The original
forest--Testimony of the trees--The first hotel--General Whitney--
Cataract House--Distinguished visitors--Carriage road down the
Canadian bank--Ontario House--Clifton House--The Museum--Table and
Termination Rocks--Burning Spring--Lundy's Lane--Battle Anecdotes 96
CHAPTER XIII.
Incidents--Fall of Table Rock--Remarkable phenomenon in the river--
Driving and lumbering on the Rapids--Points of the compass at
the Falls--A first view of the Falls commonly disappointing--Lunar
bow--Golden spray--Gull Island and the gulls--The highest water
ever known at the Falls--The Hermit of the Falls 108
CHAPTER XIV.
Avery's descent of the Falls--The fatal practical joke--Death of Miss
Rugg--Swans--Eagles--Crows--Ducks over the Falls--Why dogs have
survived the descent 118
CHAPTER XV.
Wedding tourists at the Falls--Bridges to the Moss Islands--Railway
at the Ferry--List of persons who have been carried over the Falls--
Other accidents 125
CHAPTER XVI.
The first Suspension Bridge--The Railway Suspension Bridge--
Extraordinary vibration given to the Railway Bridge by the fall of
a mass of rock--De Veaux College--The Lewiston Suspension Bridge--
The Suspension Bridge at the Falls 137
CHAPTER XVII.
Blondin and his "ascensions"--Visit of the Prince of Wales--Grand
illumination of the Falls--The steamer _Caroline_--The Water-power
of Niagara--Lord Dufferin and the plan of an international park 144
CHAPTER XVIII.
Poetry in the Table Rock albums--Poems by Colonel Porter, Willis G.
Clark, Lord Morpeth, Jose Maria Heredia, A. S. Ridgely, Mrs.
Sigourney, and J. G. C. Brainard 153
PART IV.
OTHER FAMOUS CATARACTS OF THE WORLD.
CHAPTER XIX.
Yosemite--Vernal--Nevada--Yellowstone--Shoshone--St. Maurice--
Montmorency 164
CHAPTER XX.
Tequendama--Kaiteeur--Paulo Affonso--Keel-fos--Riunkan-fos--
Sarp-fos--Staubbach--Zambesi or Victoria--Murchison--Cavery--
Schaffhausen 171
CHAPTER XXI.
Famous rapids and cascades--Niagara--Amazon--Orinoco--Parana--
Nile--Livingstone 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
NIAGARA FALLS FROM THE CANADIAN SIDE FRONTISPIECE.
THE HORSESHOE FALL FROM GOAT ISLAND Opposite page 6
LUNA FALL AND ISLAND IN WINTER " " 11
THE RAPIDS ABOVE THE FALLS " " 17
THE YOUNGEST INHABITANT " " 22
MOUTH OF THE CHASM AND BROCK'S MONUMENT " " 29
NIAGARA FALLS FROM BELOW " " 54
GREAT ICICLES UNDER THE AMERICAN FALL " " 60
WINTER FOLIAGE " " 66
ICE BRIDGE AND FROST FREAKS " " 69
COASTING BELOW THE AMERICAN FALL " " 70
SECOND MOSS ISLAND BRIDGE " " 76
JOEL R. ROBINSON " " 86
THE _Maid of the Mist_ IN THE WHIRLPOOL " " 91
FISHER AND THE BEAR " " 97
FALL OF TABLE ROCK " " 109
ROCK OF AGES AND WHIRLWIND BRIDGE " " 114
THE THREE SISTERS OR MOSS ISLANDS " " 125
HOW THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE WAS BEGUN " " 137
BLONDIN CROSSING THE NIAGARA " " 145
INDIAN WOMEN SELLING BEAD-WORK " " 148
YOSEMITE FALLS " " 164
BRIDAL VEIL FALL " " 166
VERNAL FALLS " " 168
NEVADA FALLS " " 171
LOWER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE " " 172
UPPER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE " " 174
THE STAUBBACH, SWITZERLAND " " 176
VICTORIA FALLS, ZAMBESI " " 178
MAP OF THE NIAGARA REGION " " 1
PREFACE.
The writer, having resided in the village of Niagara Falls for more than
a third of a century, has had opportunity to become thoroughly
acquainted with the locality, and to study it with constantly increasing
interest and admiration. Long observation enables him to offer some new
suggestions in regard to the geological age of the Falls, their
retrocession, and the causes which have been potent in producing it; and
also to demonstrate the existence of a barrier or dam that was once the
shore of an immense fresh-water sea, which reached from Niagara to Lake
Michigan, and emptied its waters into the Gulf of Mexico.
Whoever undertakes to write comprehensively on this subject will soon
become aware of the weakness of exclamation points and adjectives, and
the almost irresistible temptation to indulge in a style of composition
which he cannot maintain, and should not if he could. So far as the
writer, yielding to the inspiration of his theme, and in opposition to
all resolutions to the contrary, may have trespassed in this direction,
he bares and bows his head to the severest treatment that the critic may
adopt. His labor has been one of love, and in giving its results to the
public he regrets that it is not more worthy of the subject.
As it is hoped that the work may be useful to future visitors to the
Falls, and also possess some interest for those who have visited them,
it seemed desirable to avoid the introduction of notes and the citation
of authorities. For this reason several paragraphs are placed in the
text which would otherwise have been introduced in notes. This is
especially true of the chapters of local history.
The writer is especially indebted to the Hon. Orsamus H. Marshall, of
Buffalo, for a copy of his admirable "Historical Sketches," and for
access to his library of American history. The Documentary History and
Colonial Documents of the State of New York, "The Relations of the
Jesuits," the works of other early French missionaries, travelers, and
adventurers, made familiar to the public by the indefatigable labors of
Shea and Parkman, have all helped to make the writer's task
comparatively an easy one.
Several years ago, the body of this work, which has since been revised
and considerably enlarged, was published in a small volume, that has
long been out of print. Believing that the interest of the volume would
be enhanced for the reader if he were able to contrast Niagara Falls
with other famous falls, cataracts, and rapids, the writer has added
chapters, describing the most noted of these in all parts of the world.
G. W. H.
NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y.
September, 1882.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: MAP OF THE NIAGARA REGION]
PART I.--HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
First French expedition--Jacques Cartier--He first hears of the
great Cataract--Champlain--Route to China--La Salle--Father
Hennepin's first and second visits to the Falls.
In 1534, Jacques Cartier, a shrewd, enterprising, and adventurous
sailor, made his first voyage across the Atlantic, touching at
Newfoundland, and exploring the coast to the west and south of it. The
two vessels of Cartier, called ships by the historians of the period,
were each of only forty tons burden.
On the return of Cartier to France, so favorable was his report of the
results of the expedition, that Francis I. commissioned him, the year
following, for another voyage, and in May, 1535, after impressive
religious ceremonies, he sailed with three vessels thoroughly equipped.
The record of this second voyage of Cartier, by Lescarbot, contains the
first historical notice of the cataract of Niagara. The navigator, in
answer to his inquiries concerning the source of the St. Lawrence, "was
told that, after ascending many leagues among rapids and water-falls,
he would reach a lake one hundred and forty or fifty leagues broad, at
the western extremity of which the waters were wholesome and the winters
mild; that a river emptied into it from the south, which had its source
in the country of the Iroquois; that beyond the lake he would find a
cataract and portage, then another lake about equal to the former, which
they had never explored."
In 1603, a company of merchants in Rouen obtained the necessary
authority for a new expedition to the St. Lawrence, which they placed
under the direction of Samuel Champlain, an able, discreet, and resolute
commander. On a map published in 1613 he indicated the position of the
cataract, calling it merely a water-fall (_saut d'eau_), and describing
it as being "so very high that many kinds of fish are stunned in its
descent." It does not appear by the record that he ever saw the Falls.
During the sixty years that elapsed between the establishment of the
French settlements by Champlain and the expedition of La Salle and
Hennepin, there can be little doubt that the great cataract was
repeatedly visited by French traders and adventurers. Many of the
earlier travelers to the region of the St. Lawrence believed that China
could be reached by an overland journey across the northern part of the
continent. Father Vimont informs us ("Relations of the Jesuits," 1642-3)
that the Jesuit Raymbault "designed to go to China across the American
wilderness, but God sent him on the road to heaven." As he died at the
Saut Ste. Marie in 1641, he must have passed to the north of the Falls
without seeing them. In 1648, the Jesuit father Ragueneau, in a letter
to the Superior of the Mission, at Paris, says: "North of the Eries is a
great lake, about two hundred leagues in circumference, called Erie,
formed by the discharge of the _mer-douce_ or Lake Huron, and which
falls into a third lake, called Ontario, over a cataract of frightful
height."
In some important manuscripts relating to the earliest expeditions of
the French into Canada,--discovered a few years ago, and now in the
possession of M. Pierre Margry, of Paris,--occurs a description of the
Falls communicated by the Indians to Father Gallinee, one of the two
Sulpician priests who accompanied La Salle in his first visit to the
Senecas, in 1669. He seems to have been more indifferent to the charms
of Nature than Father Raymbault, since he crossed the Niagara River near
its mouth, and within hearing of its falling waters, yet did not turn
aside to see the cataract. In his journal he says: "We found a river
one-eighth of a league broad and extremely rapid, forming the outlet of
Lake Erie and emptying into Lake Ontario. The depth of the river is, at
this place, extraordinary, for, on sounding close by the shore, we found
fifteen or sixteen fathoms of water. This outlet (the Niagara River) is
forty leagues long, and has, from ten to twelve leagues above Lake
Ontario, one of the finest cataracts in the world; for all the Indians
of whom I have inquired about it say that the river falls at that place
from a rock higher than the tallest pines--that is, about two hundred
feet. In fact, we heard it from the place where we were, although from
ten to twelve leagues distant, but the fall gives such a momentum to the
water that its velocity prevented our ascending the current by rowing,
except with great difficulty. At a quarter of a league from the outlet,
where we were, it grows narrower, and its channel is confined between
two very high, steep, rocky banks, inducing the belief that the
navigation would be very difficult quite up to the cataract. As to the
river above the Falls, the current very often sucks into this gulf, from
a great distance above, deer and stags, elk and roebucks, which, in
attempting to swim the river, suffer themselves to be drawn so far
down-stream that they are compelled to descend the Falls, and are
overwhelmed in its frightful abyss.
"Our desire to reach the little village called Ganastoque Sonontona
(between the west end of Lake Ontario and Grand River) prevented our
going to view that wonder. * * * I will leave you to judge if that must
not be a fine cataract, in which all the water of the large river (St.
Lawrence) * * * falls from a height of two hundred feet, with a noise
that is heard not only at the place where we were,--ten or twelve
leagues distant,--but also from the other side of Lake Ontario, opposite
its mouth" (Toronto, forty miles distant).
Of the rattlesnakes on the mountain ridges he says: "There are many in
this place as large as your arm, and six or seven feet long, and
entirely black."
From Ganastoque Sonontona the party separated, the two priests, with
their guides and attendants, designing to move to the west, along the
north shore of Lake Erie, and La Salle apparently to return to Montreal,
but in reality, as is supposed, to prosecute by a more southerly route
the grand ambition of his life--the discovery of the Mississippi
River--a purpose which he executed with even more than the "bigot's
zeal," and literally, as it proved in the end, with the "martyr's
constancy," for he was assassinated on the plains of Texas, some few
years after, while endeavoring to secure to France the benefits of his
great discovery.
After separating from his companions at the Indian village, he probably
returned to Lake Ontario and the Niagara River, which he crossed, no
doubt, on his way to some of the Iroquois villages, in search of a guide
and attendants to assist him in his explorations. It may be assumed that
he visited the Falls at this time, but his journal of this expedition
has never been found.
The first description of the Falls by an eye-witness is that of Father
Hennepin, so well known to those conversant with our early history. He
saw it for the first time in the winter of 1678-9, and his exaggerated
account of it is accompanied by a sketch which in its principal features
is undoubtedly correct, though its perspective and proportions are quite
otherwise. He says: "Betwixt the lakes Ontario and Erie there is a vast
and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down in a surprising and
astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its
parallel. 'Tis true that Italy and Switzerland boast of some such
things, but we may well say they are sorry patterns when compared with
this of which we now speak. * * * it [the river] is so rapid above the
descent, that it violently hurries down the wild beasts while
endeavoring to pass it, * * * they not being able to withstand the force
of its current, which inevitably casts them headlong above six hundred
feet high. This wonderful downfall is composed of two great streams of
water and two falls, with an isle sloping along the middle of it. The
waters which fall from this horrible precipice do foam and boil after
the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more
terrible than that of thunder; for, when the wind blows out of the
south, their dismal roaring may be heard more than fifteen leagues off."
[Illustration: THE HORSESHOE FALL FROM GOAT ISLAND]
"The river Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible precipice,
continues its impetuous course for two leagues together to the great
rock, above mentioned [in another chapter as lying at the foot of the
mountain at Lewiston], with inexpressible rapidity. * * * From the great
Fall unto this rock, which is to the west of the river, the two brinks
of it are so prodigiously high, that it would make one tremble to look
steadily upon the water rolling along with a rapidity not to be
imagined."
On his return from the West, in the summer of 1681, the Father informs
us that he "spent half a day in considering the wonders of that
prodigious cascade." Referring to the spray, he says: "The rebounding of
these waters is so great that a sort of cloud arises from the foam of
it, which is seen hanging over this abyss even at noon-day." Of the
river, he says: "From the mouth of Lake Erie to the Falls are reckoned
six leagues. * * * The lands which lie on both sides of it to the east
and west are all level from Lake Erie to the great Fall." At the end of
the six leagues "it meets with a small sloping island, about half a
quarter of a league long and near three hundred feet broad, as well as
one can guess by the eye. From the end, then, of this island it is that
these two great falls of water, as also the third, throw themselves,
after a most surprising manner, down into the dreadful gulph, six
hundred feet and more in depth." On the Canadian side, he says: "One may
go down as far as the bottom of this terrible gulph. The author of this
discovery was down there, the more narrowly to observe the fall of these
prodigious cascades. From there we could discover a spot of ground which
lay under the fall of water which is to the east [American Fall] big
enough for four coaches to drive abreast without being wet; but because
the ground * * * where the first fall empties itself into the gulph is
very steep and almost perpendicular, it is impossible for a man to get
down on that side, into the place where the four coaches may go abreast,
or to make his way through such a quantity of water as falls toward the
gulph, so that it is very probable that to this dry place it is that the
rattlesnakes retire, by certain passages which they find under-ground."
Finding no Indians living at the Falls, he suggests a probable reason
therefor: "I have often heard talk of the Cataracts of the Nile, which
make people deaf that live near them. I know not if the Iroquois who
formerly lived near this fall * * * withdrew themselves from its
neighborhood lest they should likewise become deaf, or out of the
continual fear they were in of the rattlesnakes, which are very common
in this place. * * * Be it as it will, these dangerous creatures are to
be met with as far as the Lake Frontenac [Ontario], on the south side;
and it is reasonable to presume that the horrid noise of the Fall and
the fear of these poisonous serpents might oblige the savages to seek
out a more commodious habitation." In the view of the Falls accompanying
his description, a large rock is represented as standing on the edge of
the Table Rock. This rock is mentioned by Kalm, a Swedish naturalist,
who visited the Falls in 1750, as having disappeared a few years before
that date. Father Hennepin's reference to the animals drawn into the
current and going over the Falls, and to the rattlesnakes, indicates
unmistakably his previous acquaintance with Father Gallinees's
narrative.
CHAPTER II.
Baron La Hontan's description of the Falls--M. Charlevoix's letter
to Madame Maintenon--Number of the Falls--Geological
indications--Great projection of the rock in Father Hennepin's
time--Cave of the Winds--Rainbows.
Even more exaggerated than Father Hennepin's is the next account of the
Falls which has come down to us, and which was written by Baron La
Hontan, in the autumn of 1687. Fear of an attack from the Iroquois, the
relentless enemies of the French, made his visit short and
unsatisfactory. He says: "As for the water-fall of Niagara, 'tis seven
or eight hundred feet high, and half a league wide. Toward the middle of
it we descry an island, that leans toward the precipice, as if it were
ready to fall." Concerning the beasts and fish drawn over the precipice,
he says they "serve for food" for the Iroquois, who "take 'em out of the
water with their canoes"; and also that "between the surface of the
water, that shelves off prodigiously, and the foot of the precipice,
three men may cross in abreast, without further damage than a sprinkling
of some few drops of water." Father Hennepin, it will be remembered,
makes this space broad enough for four coaches, instead of three men.
From the Baron's declaration as to the manner in which the Indians
captured the game which went over the Falls, it would seem that the
bark canoe of the Indian was the precursor of the white man's skiff and
yawl, that serve as a ferry below the Falls. And the timid traveler of
the present day, who hesitates about crossing in this latter craft, will
probably pronounce the Indian foolhardy for venturing on those turbulent
waters in his light canoe, whereas, in skillful hands, it is peculiarly
fitted for such navigation.
A more correct estimate of the cataract than either of the preceding is
that of M. Charlevoix, sent to Madame Maintenon, in 1721. After
referring to the inaccurate accounts of Hennepin and La Hontan, he says:
"For my own part, after having examined it on all sides, where it could
be viewed to the greatest advantage, I am inclined to think we cannot
allow it [the height] less than one hundred and forty or fifty feet." As
to its figure, "it is in the shape of a horseshoe, and it is about four
hundred paces in circumference. It is divided in two exactly in the
center by a very narrow island, half a quarter of a league long." In
relation to the noise of the falling water, he says: "You can scarce
hear it at M. de Joncaire's [Fort Schlosser], and what you hear in this
place [Lewiston] may possibly be the whirlpools, caused by the rocks
which fill up the bed of the river as far as this."
Neither Baron La Hontan nor M. Charlevoix speaks of the number of
water-falls. But Father Hennepin, it will be remembered, mentions three,
two of which were to the south and west of Goat Island. And the Rev.
Abbe Picquet, who visited the place in 1751, seventy years after Father
Hennepin, says (Documentary History, I., p. 283): "This cascade is as
prodigious by reason of its height and the quantity of water which falls
there, as on account of the variety of its falls, which are to the
number of six principal ones divided by a small island, leaving three to
the north and three to the south. They produce of themselves a singular
symmetry and wonderful effect."
[Illustration: LUNA FALL AND ISLAND IN WINTER]
The geological indications are that Goat Island once embraced all the
small islands lying near it, and also that it covered the whole of the
rocky bar which stretches up stream some hundred and fifty rods above
the head of the present island. At that period, from the depressions now
visible in the rocky bed of the river, it would seem probable that the
water cut channels through the modern drift corresponding with these
depressions. In that case there would then have been a third fall in the
American channel, north of Goat Island, lying between Luna Island and a
small island then lying just north of the Little Horseshoe, and
stretching up toward Chapin's Island. On the south side of Goat Island,
there would have been a fall between its southern shore and an island
then situated about two hundred feet farther south.
The highest point in the American Fall, the salient and beautiful
projection near the shore at Prospect Park, is upheld by a more
substantial foundation than is revealed at any other accessible portion
of the face of the precipice. This is made manifest on entering the
"Shadow-of-the-Rock," where the spectator sees a massive wall of
thoroughly indurated limestone, disposed in regular layers more than two
feet in thickness, with faces as smooth as if dressed with the chisel.
Passing in front of this, across the American Fall, under the Horseshoe
and Table Rock, there must have been formerly a broad cleft of soft,
friable limestone, to the disintegration and removal of which was due
the great overhanging of the upper strata noticed by Father Hennepin and
Baron La Hontan.
For three miles above the Falls, the course of the river is almost due
west. But after leaving the precipice it makes an acute angle with its
former direction, and thence runs north-east to the railway suspension
bridge. The formation of the rapids--one of the most beautiful features
of the scene--is due to this change of direction. At no point below its
present position could there have been such a prelude--musical as well
as motional--to the great cataract. And when these rapids shall have
disappeared in the receding flood it is not probable that there will be
other rapids that can equal them in length, breadth, beauty, and power.
The declivity in the lower channel through the gorge is ninety feet; but
on the surface of the upper banks there is a rise of more than one
hundred feet in the same direction--that is, down the river. Hence, when
the Falls were at Lewiston they were more than two hundred and fifty
feet high. Now the greatest descent is one hundred and sixty-eight feet,
the diminution being the result of retrocession in the line of the
dip--from north-east to south-west--in the bed-rock. It is owing to
this dip that the surface of the water on the American side is ten feet
higher than it is on the Canadian. The continuous column of water,
however, is longest in the center of the Horseshoe, because of the
fallen rock and _debris_ lying at the foot of the other portions of the
Fall. At this time the upward slope of the bed-rock is such that--if it
shall prove to be sufficiently hard--the Falls, after receding four
miles farther, will be two hundred and twenty feet high.
It is evident from the descriptions of Father Hennepin and of Baron La
Hontan, that the upper stratum of rock over which the water falls must
have projected beyond the face of the rock below much farther than it
now does. The large masses of fallen rock lying at the foot of the
American and Horse-shoe Falls are evidence of this fact. Travelers still
go behind the sheet on the Canadian side, and into and through the Cave
of the Winds, on the American side. But they do not expect to keep dry
in so doing, nor to sun themselves on the rocks below, like the
"rattlesnakes" of former days. Nevertheless, there is no more exciting
nor exhilarating excursion to be made at the Falls than that through the
Cave of the Winds.
Nowhere else are the prismatic hues exhibited in such wonderful variety,
nor in such surpassing brilliancy and beauty. And although a rainbow is
not a spraybow, it may be admitted that a spraybow is a rainbow, formed
of drops of water, large or small. So here rainbow dust and shattered
rainbows are scattered around; rainbow bars and arches, horizontal and
perpendicular, are flashing and forming, breaking and reforming, around
and above the visitor in the most fantastic and delightful confusion of
form and effect. And if his fancy prompts him, he may arrange himself as
a portrait, at half or full length, in an annular bow. The enamored
Strephon may literally place his charming Delia in a living, sparkling
rainbow-frame, flecked all over with diamonds and pearls.
CHAPTER III.
The name Niagara--The musical dialect of the Hurons--Niagara one of
the oldest of Indian names--Description of the river, the Falls,
and the surrounding country.
There is in some words a mystic power which it is not easy to analyze or
define; they fascinate the ear even of those who do not understand their
meaning. The very sound of them as they are enunciated by the human
voice touches a chord to which the heart instinctively responds. So it
is with the name of the great cataract. No one can hear it correctly
pronounced without being charmed with its rhythmical beauty, or without
feeling confident of its poetical aptness and significance in the
dialect from which it was derived.
And although we have no means of determining the correctness of any of
the fanciful or poetical interpretations which have been given of the
word, still we cannot doubt that it must have had a peculiar force and
justness with those who first applied it. Baron La Hontan, who spent
several years among the Indians, noticed the remarkable fact concerning
their language that it had no labials. "Nevertheless," he says, "the
language of the Hurons appears very beautiful, and the sound of it
perfectly charming, although, in speaking it, they never close their
lips."
The most voluminous and among the earliest existing records connected
with the River St. Lawrence, and the great lakes which it drains, are
the well-known "Relations of the Jesuits," so called, comprising a
yearly account of the labors of the Missionary Fathers sent out by the
College at Paris to Christianize the Indians. In 1615, they established
their mission at Quebec, and from thence extended their operations
westward. In 1626, they reached the large and powerful tribe of Indians
which occupied the splendid domain which may be described with proximate
accuracy as bounded by a line commencing at a point on the southerly
shore of Lake Ontario, about thirty miles west of the mouth of the
Genesee River, and running thence parallel to that river to a point due
west from Avon; thence nearly due west to Buffalo; thence along the
north shore of Lake Erie to the Detroit River; thence up that river to a
point directly west from the west end of Lake Ontario; thence east to
that lake, and finally along the southern shore of it to the place of
beginning.
The oldest and most notable name in all this territory is NIAGARA, as
would naturally be inferred, when we consider the varied and wonderful
features of the mighty river which flows across this country. Taking
leave of Lake Erie, its clear waters gradually spread themselves out in
a broad, bright channel, over a plain, open country, having a slight
declivity, just sufficient to make a gentle current, thereby adding the
living beauty and force of motion to the broad expanse of a lake-like
surface, that surface itself diversified and relieved by the pleasant
islands, large and small, which are scattered over it. Eddying into
every quiet bay, coquetting with every salient angle, moving to the
melody of its own murmurs, it flows on serenely and musically.
But after a time this holiday journey is interrupted. A fearful change
takes place. The careless waters are hurried down a long and sharp
descent, over the rough, denuded, bowlder-studded bed-rock of the
stream. Breaking and bounding, surging and resurging, flashing and
foaming, rushing fiercely upon some huge bowlder, recoiling an instant,
then madly leaping entirely over it, rushing on to others huger still,
then breaking wildly around them, the troubled waters hurry on until,
culminating in their sublimest aspect, they plunge sheer downward in the
grandest of cataracts.
And now the scene and the effect it produces on the beholder both
change. The rapids are beautiful; the falls are grand; those are
exhilarating, these are inspiring; those are noisy, turbulent, fickle;
these are calm, resistless, inexorable.
After the water has made the final plunge over the precipice the
cataract acquires its most impressive characteristics; the majestic
monotone, the bow, the cloud, which is its veil by night, its crowning
glory and beauty by day. The combinations of grandeur and beauty have
reached their climax in the fall, the foam, the voice, the spray, the
bow.
[Illustration: THE RAPIDS ABOVE THE FALLS]
The chasm of the river from the Falls to Lewiston will be sufficiently
described in treating of the geology of the district. From Lewiston to
Lake Ontario, seven miles, the waters of the river flow on through an
elevated and fertile plain, in a strong, calm, majestic current, smiling
with dimples and reversed in occasional eddies, but neither broken by
rapids nor impeded by islands. Finally it is lost in the lake, after
passing an immense bar formed by the enormous mass of sedimentary matter
carried down by its own current. The landscape, as seen from the top of
the terrace above Lewiston, is one of the finest and most extensive of
its peculiar character which can be found on the continent, all its
features being such as appertain to a broad, open country.
The visitor at Niagara, as he looks at the Falls, will have a profounder
appreciation of their magnitude by considering that it requires the
water drainage of a quarter of a continent to sustain them, and that the
remoter springs, which send to them their constant tribute, are more
than twelve hundred miles distant.
CHAPTER IV.
Niagara a tribal name--Other names given to the tribe--The Niagaras
a superior race--The true pronunciation of Indian words.
The name Niagara has been so thoroughly identified with the river and
the Falls that the question whether it was also the name of an Indian
nation or tribe has been quite neglected. It is proposed now to give the
question some consideration, assuming, at once, its affirmative to be
true. This, it is believed, we shall be justified in doing by every
principle of analogy. We know that it was a general practice of the
Indians who occupied this region of country, so abounding in lakes and
rivers, to give the name of the nation or tribe to, or to name them
after, the most prominent bodies and courses of water found in their
territory. Such was the fact with the Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas,
Onondagas, and Hurons, the tribal name of each being perpetuated both in
a lake and a river. The Mohawks, the warrior tribe of the Six Nations,
having no noted lake within their boundaries, left a perpetual memorial
of themselves in the name of a beautiful river. The unwarlike Eries,
too, though finally exterminated by their more powerful and aggressive
neighbors, the Iroquois, are still remembered in the lake which bears
their name.
With the Niagaras the river and the cataract were the most notable and
impressive features of their territory. Their principal village bore the
same name; and when we recall the proverbial vanity of the race, we can
hardly doubt that this must also have been their tribal name. That it
should have been perpetuated in reference to the village, the river, and
the falls, and that the use of it, in reference to the tribe, should
have lapsed, can be readily understood when we recollect that they had
two substitutes for the tribal name. One of these substitutes is
explained at page 70 of the "Relations" of 1641, in a passage which we
translate as follows: "Our Hurons call the Neuter Nation
_Attouanderonks_, as though they would say a people of a little
different language: for as to those nations that speak a language of
which they understand nothing, they call them _Attouankes_, whatever
nation they may be, or as though they spoke of strangers. They of the
Neuter Nation in turn, and for the same reason, call our Hurons
_Attouanderonks_."
Thus it would seem that this was a mere title of convenience used to
indicate a certain fact, namely, a difference of language. The other
substitute by which the nation was best known among their white brethren
will be understood by an extract from a letter contained in the same
"Relations," and written from St. Mary's Mission on the river Severn, by
Father Lalement. In it he gives an account of a journey made by the
Fathers Jean de Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumont to the country of the
_Neuter Nation_, as the Niagaras were called by the Hurons on the north
and the Iroquois on the south of them, learning it, as they did, from
the French. The letter says: "Our French, who first discovered this
people, named them the _Neuter Nation_, and not without reason, for
their country being the ordinary passage by land, between some of the
Iroquois nations and the Hurons, who are sworn enemies, they remained at
peace with both; so that in times past the Hurons and the Iroquois,
meeting in the same wigwam or village of that nation, were both in
safety while they remained. There are some things in which they differ
from our Hurons. They are larger, stronger, and better formed. They also
entertain a great affection for the dead. * * * The Sonontonheronons
[Senecas], one of the Iroquois nations the nearest to and most dreaded
by the Hurons, are not more than a day's journey distant from the
easternmost village of the Neuter Nation, named Onguiaahra [Niagara], of
the same name as the river."
It would seem, then, that this name, Neuter Nation, as applied to this
tribe, was an appellation used merely to indicate a peculiarity of its
location, or of the relation in which it stood to the hostile tribes
living to the north and south of it. The Indians, it is needless to say,
were not philologists, and seem not to have objected to the names
applied to them, nor to have criticised the erroneous pronunciation of
words of their own dialects.
In the extract given above, the name of our river first appears in type.
Its orthography will be noted as peculiar. It is one of forty different
ways of spelling the name, thirty-nine of which are given in the index
volume of the Colonial History of New York, and the fortieth, the most
pertinent to our present purpose, in Drake's "Book of the Indians,"
seventh edition. Prefixed to "Book First" is a "Table of the Principal
Tribes," in which we find the following:
"Nicariagas, once about Michilimakinak; joined the Iroquois in 1723."
M. Charlevoix, apparently using the facts stated in one of Lalement's
letters and quoting also a portion of its language, says: "A people
larger, stronger, and better formed than any other savages, and who
lived south of the Huron country, were visited by the Jesuits, who
preached to them the Kingdom of God. They were called the Neuter Nation,
because they took no part in the wars which desolated the country. But
in the end they could not themselves escape entire destruction. To avoid
the fury of the Iroquois, they finally joined them against the Hurons,
but gained nothing by the union." Later, he says they were destroyed
about the year 1643. But we have before observed that Father Raugeneau
states that their destruction occurred in 1651. The tribe mentioned by
Drake was probably a remnant that escaped in the final overthrow of
their nation in this last-named year, and sought refuge at Mackinaw,
among the Hurons, who had previously retreated to this almost
inaccessible locality, in order, also, to escape from the all-conquering
Iroquois. After the lapse of nearly three-quarters of a century, when
the hostility of the latter had subsided, and they had themselves been
weakened and subdued by the whites, the wretched remnant of the
Niagaras, with that strong love of home so characteristic of the Indian,
returned to their native hunting-grounds, where they remained for a few
years, and then joined their conquerors in that mournful procession of
their race toward the setting sun. If there were a Nemesis for nations
as well as for individuals, it would be fearful to contemplate the time
when the Anglo-Saxon should be called on to pay the "long arrears" of
the Indians' "bloody debt."
[Illustration: THE YOUNGEST INHABITANT]
Returning to the orthography of our name, we find on Sanson's map of
Canada, published in Paris in 1657, that it is shortened into "Oniagra,"
and on Coronelli's map of the same region, published in Paris in 1688,
it crystallizes into _Niagara_. There is also on this map a village
located on or near the site of Buffalo, designated as follows:
"_Kah-kou-a-go-gah, a destroyed nation_." This name bears a closer
resemblance to the true one than several of the forty to which we have
just referred, and if it be reduced to Kahkwa it would still be only a
corrupt abbreviation of Niagara.
More than fifty years ago, while leisurely traveling through western New
York, the writer well remembers how his youthful ears were charmed with
the flowing cadences of the better class of Indians, as they intoned
rather than spoke the beautiful names which their ancestors had given to
different localities. Every vowel was fully sounded.
O-N-E-I-D-A was then Oh-ne-i-dah; C-A-Y-U-G-A was Kah-yu-gah;
G-E-N-E-S-E-E was Gen-e-se-e; C-A-N-A-N-D-A-I-G-U-A was
Kan-nan-dar-quah, and N-I-A-G-A-R-A was Ni-ah-gah-rah.
In regard to the name, the pronunciation nearest to the original which
it may be possible to perpetuate is Ni-ag-a-rah; the accent on the
second syllable, the vowel in the first pronounced as in the word
_nigh_; the _a_ in the third and fourth syllables but slightly
abbreviated from the long _a_ in _far_, and that in the second syllable
but slightly aspirated.
CHAPTER V.
The lower Niagara--Fort Niagara--Fort Mississauga--Niagara
Village--Lewiston--Portage around the Falls--The first railroad in
the United States--Fort Schlosser--The ambuscade at Devil's
Hole--La Salle's vessel, the _Griffin_--The Niagara frontier.
From the earliest visit of the French missionaries and _voyageurs_ to
the lake region, the banks of the lower Niagara were to them a favorite
locality. Very early they were cleared of the grand forest which covered
them, and the genial, fertile, and easily worked soil, enriched by the
deep vegetable mold that had been accumulating upon it for centuries,
produced in lavish abundance wheat, maize, garden vegetables, and
fruits, large and small. "On the 6th day of December, 1678," says
Marshall, "La Salle, in his brigantine of ten tons, doubled the point
where Fort Niagara now stands, and anchored in the sheltered waters of
the river. The prosecution of his bold enterprise at that inclement
season, involving the exploration of a vast and unknown country, in
vessels built on the way, indicates the indomitable energy and
self-reliance of the intrepid discoverer. His crew consisted of sixteen
persons, under the immediate command of the Sieur de la Motte. The
grateful Franciscans chanted '_Te Deum laudamus_' as they entered the
noble river. The strains of that ancient hymn of the Church, as they
rose from the deck of the adventurous bark, and echoed from shore and
forest, must have startled the watchful Senecas with the unusual sound,
as they gazed upon their strange visitors. Never before had white men,
so far as history tells us, ascended the river."
La Salle rested here for a time, but no defensive work was constructed
until 1687, when the Marquis De Nonville, returning from his famous
expedition against the Senecas, fortified it, after the fashion of the
time, with palisades and ditches. The small garrison of one hundred men
which he left were obliged to abandon it the following season, after
partially destroying it. By consent of the Iroquois it was reconstructed
in stone in 1725-6.
Opposite to Fort Niagara, which is on the American side at the mouth of
the river, are Fort Mississauga and the village of Niagara, formerly
Newark, on the Canadian side. The village was captured by the English in
1759, and occupied for a time by Sir William Johnson, who completed here
his treaty with the Indians by which they released to him the land on
both sides of the river. The first Provincial Parliament was held here
in 1792, under the authority of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe. In the same
year the place was visited by the father of Queen Victoria. The pioneer
newspaper of the Province was published here in 1795, and although it
ceased soon after to be the seat of government, which was removed to
York (now Toronto), still it was a thriving village of about five
thousand inhabitants until the completion of the Welland canal, which
entirely diverted its trade and commerce, and left it to the
uninterrupted quiet of a rural town. Several Americans have purchased
dwellings in the place for summer occupation. A mile above was Fort
George, now a ruin.
Seven miles above the mouth of the river, at the head of navigation,
nestling at the foot of the so-called mountain, is Lewiston, named in
1805 in honor of Governor Lewis, of New York. Here, in 1678, La Salle
"constructed a cabin of palisades to serve as a magazine or storehouse."
And this was the commencement of the portage to the river above the
Falls, which passed over nearly the same route as the present road from
Lewiston, which is still called the Portage Road. Here, too, the first
railway in the United States was constructed. True, it was built of
wood, and was called a tram-way. But a car was run upon it to transport
goods up and down the mountain The motion of the car was regulated by a
windlass, and it was supported on runners instead of wheels. This was a
very good arrangement for getting freight down the hill, but not so good
for getting it up. But the wages of labor were low in every sense, since
many of the Indians, demoralized by the use of those two most pestilent
drugs, rum and tobacco, would do a day's work for a pint of the former
and a plug of the latter.
The upper terminus of this portage was for many years merely an open
landing-place for canoes and boats. In 1750, the French constructed a
strong stockade-work on the bank of the river, above their barracks and
storehouses. This they called Fort du Portage. It was burnt, in 1759, by
Chabert Joncaire, who was in command of it when the British commenced
the formidable and fatal campaign of that year against the French. After
Fort Niagara was surrendered to Sir William Johnson, Joncaire retired
with his small garrison to the station on Chippewa Creek.
In less than two years the work was rebuilt in a much more substantial
manner by Captain Joseph Schlosser, a German who served in the British
army in that campaign. It had the outline of a tolerably regular
fortification, with rude bastions and connecting curtains, surrounded by
a somewhat formidable ditch. The interior plateau was a little elevated
and surrounded by an earth embankment piled against the inner side of
the palisades, over which its defenders could fire with great effect.
When the writer first saw its remains, the outlines and ditches of the
work were distinct. Only some slight inequalities in the surface now
indicate its site. Captain Schlosser was afterward promoted to the rank
of colonel, and died in the fort. An oak slab, on which his name was
cut, was standing at his grave just above the fort as late as the year
1808.
Some sixty rods below is still standing what is believed to be the first
civilized chimney built in this part of the country. It is a large and
most substantial stone structure, around which the French built their
barracks. These were burnt by Joncaire on his retreat. A large
dwelling-house was built to it by the English, which afforded shelter
for many different occupants until it was burnt in 1813. Its last
occupant, before it was destroyed, kept it as a tavern, which became a
favorite place for festive and holiday gatherings. What hath been may be
again. When the Falls shall have receded two miles, the brides and
grooms of that age will find their Cataract House near the site of old
Fort Schlosser.
To the west of this old stone chimney stand the few surviving trees of
the first apple orchard set out in this region. As early as 1796, it is
described as being a "well-fenced orchard, containing 1200 trees." Not
fifty are now standing.
Across the river from Lewiston is Queenston, so named in honor of Queen
Charlotte. The battle which bears its name was fought on the 13th of
October, 1813, between the American and British armies. The former
crossed the river, made the attack, and carried the heights. The
commander of the British forces, General Brock, and one of his aids,
Colonel McDonald, were killed. The British were reenforced, and the
American militia refusing to cross over to aid the Americans, the latter
were obliged to return across the river, leaving a number of prisoners
in the hands of the enemy. Some years afterward, the Colonial Parliament
caused a fine monument to be erected on the heights to the memory of
General Brock. It presents a conspicuous and imposing appearance from
the terrace below.
[Illustration: MOUTH OF THE CHASM AND BROCK'S MONUMENT]
Two miles and a quarter above Lewiston is the Devil's Hole, famous as
the scene of a short supplementary campaign, made against the English,
by the Seneca Indians, in 1763. Though doubtless instigated by French
traders, it was a purely Indian enterprise, gotten up among themselves,
and commanded by Farmer's Brother, one of the Seneca chiefs, who was a
fighter as well as an orator. It was one of the best planned and most
successfully executed military stratagems ever recorded. It was
calculated upon the nicest balancing of facts and probabilities, and
executed with unrivaled thoroughness and celerity.
It was known to the Indians that the English were in the habit, almost
daily, of sending supply trains, under escort, from Fort Niagara to Fort
Schlosser. After unloading at the latter post, they returned to the
former. They knew also that there was a smaller supporting force of one
or two companies at Lewiston, which could join the escort from Fort
Niagara, in case of an extra valuable train, and that the whole force at
both places was not large enough to furnish an escort of more than four
hundred men; they knew that the narrow pass at the Devil's Hole was the
best point to place the ambuscade; also that when the train went up they
could see whether its escort was large or small, and so they would know
whether they should concentrate their force to attack the larger escort,
or divide it and attack the train and small escort first and the
relieving force afterward. They conjectured that the train would have a
small escort; but if it should have a large one, so much the better, as
there would be a larger number in a small space for their balls to
riddle. They conjectured also that, if the escort were small, the firing
on the first attack would be heard by the soldiers at Lewiston, and that
they would hurry to the relief of their comrades, not dreaming of danger
before they should reach them.
The fatal result demonstrated the correctness of their reasoning. They
made a double ambuscade: one for the train and escort, the other for the
relieving force; and they destroyed them both, only three of the first
escaping and eight of the latter. This event occurred on the 14th of
September, 1773. John Stedman commanded the supply train. At the first
fire of the Indians, seeing the fatal snare, he wheeled his horse at
once, and, spurring him through a gauntlet of bullets, reached Schlosser
in safety. A wounded soldier concealed himself in the bushes, and the
drummer-boy lodged in a tree as he fell down the bank. Eight of the
relieving force escaped to Fort Niagara to tell the story of their
defeat.
Three miles above Schlosser is Cayuga Creek, near the mouth of which La
Salle built the _Griffin_, a vessel of sixty tons burden, the first
civilized craft that floated on the upper lakes, and the pioneer of an
inland commerce of unrivaled growth and value. She reached Green Bay
safely, but on her return voyage foundered with all on board in Lake
Huron.
The French also built some small vessels on Navy Island. The
reenforcements sent from Venango for the French, during the siege of
Fort Niagara by Sir William Johnson, in 1759, were landed on this
island. To the east of it there is a large deep basin, formed at the
foot of the channel, between Grand and Buckhorn islands. The upper part
of this channel being narrow, the basin appears like a bay. In this bay
the French burnt and sunk the two vessels, as is supposed, which brought
down the Venango reenforcements; hence the name "Burnt Ship Bay." The
writer has seen the ribs and timbers of these vessels beneath the water,
and caught many fine perch which had their haunts near them. The Niagara
frontier was the theater of great activity during the War of 1812.
PART II.--GEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VI.
America the old world--Geologically recent origin of the
Falls--Evidence thereof--Captain Williams's surveys for a ship
canal--Former extent of Lake Michigan--Its outlet into the Illinois
River--The Niagara barrier--How broken through--The birth of
Niagara.
If Professor Agassiz and Elie De Beaumont are correct in their
geological reading, America is the old world rather than the new, and
the northern portion of it, stretching from Lake Huron eastward to
Labrador and northward toward the Arctic, was the first to be lifted
into the genial light of the sun. And Professor Lyell has recourse to
the vast stellar spaces for a standard by which to estimate "the
interval of time which divides the human epoch from the origin of the
coralline limestone over which the Niagara is precipitated at the
Falls." "The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Himalayas," he continues, "have not
only begun to exist as lofty mountain chains, but the solid materials of
which they are composed have been slowly elaborated beneath the sea
within the stupendous interval of ages here alluded to."
A little more than thirty years ago, Professor Agassiz made a tour to
the Upper Lakes with a class of students, for the purpose of giving them
practical lessons in geology and other branches of natural science. The
day was devoted to outdoor examinations of different localities, and in
the evening was given a familiar lecture expository of the day's work.
One of the places thus visited was Niagara, and it was the writer's
good-fortune to be able to listen to the instructive lecture which
followed the examination. Professor Agassiz concurs with other
geologists in the opinion that the Falls were once at Lewiston, and one
of the most interesting portions of the lecture was his animated
description of the retrocession of the Falls, traced step by step back
to their present position. From this oral exposition, from other high
geological authorities, and from personal observation extending through
a quarter of a century, the writer has derived the facts herein
presented.
There can be no doubt that at a comparatively recent geological period
the Falls of Niagara had no existence. It may suffice to mention two
facts which are conclusive on this point. Dr. Houghton, geologist of the
State of Michigan, stated in his report that the elevation of Lake
Michigan above tide-water is five hundred and seventy-eight feet. That
of Lake Erie, as shown by the surveys of the Erie Canal, is five hundred
and sixty-eight feet, the difference of level between the two being ten
feet. The fall or descent in the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Gill
Creek, a few rods above the site of old Fort Schlosser, is twenty feet.
Hence we learn that the surface of the water in Lake Michigan is thirty
feet higher than that of the Niagara River near the mouth of Gill
Creek. If, therefore, we find anywhere below the Falls a barrier drawn
across this river that is more than thirty feet high, its water would
thereby be set back to Lake Michigan. A moderate elevation above this
thirty feet would serve as a safe shore-line for still water.
The existence of this barrier has been demonstrated. In the year 1835,
by direction of the War Department, Captain W. G. Williams, of the
United States Topographical Engineers, surveyed three routes for a canal
around Niagara Falls. The first of these routes was run from the river
nearly in a straight line to the head of Bloody Run, and thence a
portion of the way over the terrace laid bare by the rapid subsidence of
the water after the barrier had been broken through. The second route,
commencing at the same point with the first,--the old Schlosser
Storehouse, just above Gill Creek,--was run up the valley of the creek,
through the ridge above Lewiston, at a slight depression in the general
line of the hill, and thence to Lake Ontario by two different routes.
The highest point in the ridge was found to be sixty feet above the
surface of the water in the river at the starting point. Here, then, is
found the requisite barrier--a dam thirty feet higher than the water in
Lake Michigan, and having a base, as will be seen by reference to the
map, of two and a half miles in breadth. This was its breadth at the
time of the survey. But a careful observance of the topography of the
banks on both sides of the river will show that it must have been
originally not less than twice that breadth, and that the depressions
now existing are the results of the denudation caused by the removal of
the barrier.
While this barrier was unbroken, Lake Erie as extended would have
covered all land that was not twenty-six feet higher than the present
level of the river at old Schlosser landing, since the water there is
sixteen feet below the level of Lake Erie. It is not difficult to trace
this barrier on a good map. From old Fort Grey it stretches eastward a
short distance past Batavia, and thence turns to the south through
Wyoming into Cattaraugus County. In the latter county it forms the
summit level of the Genesee Valley Canal. This summit is a swamp sixteen
hundred and twenty-three feet above tide water, and the water runs from
it northerly through the Genesee River into the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and southerly, through the Alleghany, into the Gulf of Mexico, while
within a short distance rises Cattaraugus Creek which flows west into
Lake Erie.
The gradual rise of the Niagara barrier as it extends to the east was
demonstrated by the surveys of Captain Williams. By the Gill Creek line
to Lewiston he found its elevation above the river, as has been stated,
to be sixty feet. By the Cayuga Creek line to Pekin it was sixty-four
feet, and by the Tonawanda Creek line to Lockport it was eighty-four
feet, as is also shown by the surveys of the Erie Canal.
To the west the barrier extends from Brock's Monument to the ridge which
bounds the westerly side of the valley of the Chippewa Creek, and thence
around the head of Lake Ontario into the Simcoe Hills.
At that period all the islands in the Niagara River valley were
submerged. The lower sections of the valleys of the Chippewa, Cayuga,
Tonawanda, and Buffalo creeks were also submerged. The site of Buffalo
was, probably, a small island, and many other similar islands were
scattered over the broad expanse of water.
And this brings us to our second cardinal fact. Lake Michigan, having
absorbed or spread over all the vast water-links in the great chain
between Superior and Ontario, was the most stupendous body of fresh
water on the globe. Its drainage was to the south, through the valleys
of the Des Plaines, Kankakee, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers, into the
Gulf of Mexico. The evidence of this fact is abundant. The survey of the
Illinois Central Railroad shows that the surface of Lake Michigan is
three hundred feet above the line of low water in the Ohio River at
Cairo, where it joins the Mississippi. It also shows that the low-water
line of the Kankakee, where the railroad crosses it, is eleven feet
above the surface of the lake. This river, which forms the north-eastern
branch of the Illinois, rises in the State of Indiana, near South Bend,
two miles from the St. Joseph. From its very commencement at its
head-springs it is a shallow channel in the middle of a swamp,--called
on the maps the "Kankakee Pond,"--nearly a hundred miles long, and from
two to five miles wide. On its north side, in Porter County, is a broad
cove, with a small stream in the midst of it, which reaches up due north
to within a stone's-throw of the south branch of the East Calumick
River, which empties into the south-west corner of Lake Michigan.
More than thirty years ago, while traveling by stage from Logansport,
Indiana, to Chicago, the writer was told by a fellow-passenger that it
was not an unusual thing, on the occurrence of a strong north wind
during the spring floods, to cross with boats from this branch of the
East Calumick into the Kankakee Pond through this cove. We have not been
able to obtain any authentic topographical survey which shows the
elevation that must be overcome in order to effect this meeting of the
waters.
Again: The river Des Plaines rises near the northern line of the State
of Illinois, and running south parallel with the lake shore, at its
junction with the Kankakee forms the Illinois. The Des Plaines is only
ten miles west of Chicago. One of its eastern tributaries rises very
near the head-waters of the south branch of the Chicago River, and
often, when flooded by heavy rains, its waters flow over into the lake.
At this point, also, the Jesuits and the early settlers were in the
habit of crossing in their boats to the Des Plaines, and thence into the
Illinois. The writer was informed by Colonel William A. Bird, the last
Surveyor-in-Chief of the Boundary Commission, that when the party was at
Mackinaw, in the spring of 1820, Mr. Ramsey Crooks, the adventurous and
enterprising agent of John Jacob Astor, came up to that place from
Joliet on the Illinois in one of the big canoes so generally used at
that day for navigating the lakes, and that Mr. Crooks informed them
that he crossed from the Des Plaines into Lake Michigan without taking
his canoe out of the water. The deep cut in the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, recently excavated by the city of Chicago in order to improve its
sewer drainage, is quite uniform at its upper surface, and is sixteen to
eighteen feet deep for a distance of twenty-six miles. The bottom of
this cut is six feet below the lowest water-mark ever noted in the
lake. At the point where the deep cut reaches the Des Plaines, it is ten
feet lower than the bottom of the river. It is sixteen miles further
down before the bottom of the cut and the river coincide with each
other. Nearly the whole of this distance it is necessary to maintain a
guard-bank, to protect the canal from the inundations of the river. Here
we find there is a dam, only about twelve feet high, that once separated
the waters of the lake from those of the Gulf of Mexico.
There were, therefore, two courses through which the waters of Lake
Michigan could once have passed into the Illinois--the first through the
Des Plaines, and the second from the head-springs of the East Calumick
into the great north cove of the Kankakee Pond. When we consider the
immense drainage which must have been discharged through these channels
into the valley of the Illinois, we can well understand the gigantic
proportions of that valley when compared with the stream which now flows
through it. The perpendicular and water-worn sides of Starved Rock,
below Ottawa, attest the magnitude of the lake-like floods which must
once have dashed around them.
Having established the existence of the Niagara barrier, it remains to
analyze its structure, and then to search out the agencies by which it
was broken down. First, in regard to its organization. An examination of
the locality reveals the fact that the portion of the ridge lying
between old Fort Grey and Brock's Monument was of a peculiar character.
At the former point the hard, compact clay had in it but a slight
mixture of gray loam and sand. At the latter point, fine gravel was
plentifully mingled with this loam. This latter mass, being quite
porous, would rapidly become saturated with water, and its component
parts be easily separated. The declivity of the high, hard, clay bank,
down to the rock at the edge of the precipice, is abrupt on the American
side, while on the opposite side the ascent toward Brock's Monument and
above is gradual. This formation extends upward about one mile and a
half, when the gravel and loam disappear, and the hard clay succeeds and
continues upward with a gradual downward slope nearly to the Falls.
This upper drift was about twenty feet thick, and rested on a laminated
stratum of the Niagara limestone. This stratum, though quite compact,
and having its seams closely jointed, was not so thoroughly indurated as
the lower strata of the Niagara group, and its thin plates were more
easily displaced and broken up. The depression marked in the sixth mile
of the profile referred to was evidently cut out by the waters of Fish
Creek, after the barrier had been removed, since the land near the
head-waters of this stream is higher than at the point where the line
runs through the ridge. It is also noticeable that the ridge, at this
point, approaches the brink of the escarpment more nearly than at any
other, and the sharp declivity of its northern face is clearly shown on
the profile in the accompanying map.
Within the last century there have been two, and perhaps more, large
tidal waves on the Great Lakes. There have also been many severe gales,
which have inundated the low lands around their shores, and attacked,
with destructive effect, their higher banks. One of these gales is
mentioned in another place. It came from about two points north of west,
and, as noted, raised the water six feet on the rapids above the Falls.
In the narrow portions of the river above, it must have elevated the
water still more. Of course a much higher rise would have been produced
by the force of such a gale acting upon the vastly increased surface of
the larger lake.
The first serious impression upon the Niagara barrier must have been
made by these two mighty forces. By them, undoubtedly, was made the
first breach over its top, thus commencing that slow but sure denudation
which finally reached the rock below. And by their aid even the rock
itself was removed.
Here, then, is the composition and structure of our dam. It is thirty
feet high, with a base two and a half miles certainly, and probably
five, in width. How to break through it is the problem to be solved by
the great inland sea which laves it, so that the water may flow onward
and downward to the Atlantic.
Fortunately we have, all along the shores of our inland lakes, an annual
demonstration of the method by which such problems are solved. A
constant abrasion of their banks is produced by the action of water,
frost, and ice. And these are the resistless elements which, by their
persistent and powerful action during the lapse of ages, excavated a
channel for the waters of the Niagara. The gradual upward slope of the
rock and the thick upper drift broke the force of the huge waves that
were occasionally dashed upon them. Their position could not have been
more favorable to resist attack. It was a Malakoff of earth on a
foundation of rock. Little by little the refluent waves carried back
portions of the crumbled mass, and deposited them in the neighboring
depressions. Slowly, wearily, desultorily, the erosion and desquamation
went on. At last the upper drift was broken down, and its crumbled
remains were swept from the rock.
Then the insidious forces of heat and cold, sun and frost became potent.
The thin laminae of limestone were loosened by the frost, broken up and
disintegrated. At last a thin sheet of water was driven through the
gorge by some fierce gale. The steep declivity of the counterscarp was
then fatally attacked, and after a time its perpendicular face was laid
bare. Thenceforth the elements had the top and one end of the rocky mass
to work on, and they worked at a tremendous advantage. The breaking up
and disintegration of the rock went on. It was gradually crumbled into
sand, which was washed off by the rains or swept away by the winds.
Finally a channel was excavated, of which the bottom was lower than the
surface of the great lake above; the sparkling waters rushed in, dashed
over the precipice, and Niagara was born.
As the water worked its way over the precipice gradually, so it would
gradually excavate its channel to Lake Ontario, and it is not probable
that any great inundation of the lower terrace could have occurred.
CHAPTER VII.
Composition of the terrace cut through--Why retrocession is
possible--Three sections from Lewiston to the Falls--Devil's
Hole--The Medina group--Recession long checked--The Whirlpool--The
narrowest part of the river--The mirror--Depth of the water in the
chasm--Former grand Fall.
The water having laid bare the face of the mountain barrier from top to
bottom, we are enabled to examine the composition of the mass through
which it slowly cut its way. After removing the thin plates of the upper
stratum, as we descend, according to Professor Hall, we find:
1. Niagara limestone--compact and geodiferous.
2. Soft argillo-calcareous shale.
3. Compact gray limestone.
4. Thin layers of green shale.
5. Gray and mottled sandstone, constituting with those below the Medina
group.
6. Red shale and marl, with thin courses of sandstone near the top.
7. Gray quartzose sandstone.
8. Red shaly sandstone and marl.
Before reaching the Whirlpool the mass becomes, practically, resolved
into numbers three, four, and five, the limestone, as a general rule,
growing thicker and harder, and the shale also, as we follow up the
stream.
The reason why retrocession of the Falls is possible is found in the
occurrence of the shale noted above as underlying the rock. It is a
species of indurated clay, harder or softer according to the pressure to
which it may have been subjected. When protected from the action of the
elements it retains its hardness, but when exposed to them it gradually
softens and crumbles away. After a time the superstratum of rock, which
is full of cracks and seams, is undermined and precipitated into the
chasm below. If the stratum of shale lies at or near the bottom of the
channel below the Falls, it will be measurably protected from the action
of the elements. In this case retrocession will necessarily be very
gradual. If above the Falls the shale projects upward from the channel
below, then in proportion to the elevation and thickness of its stratum
will be the ease and rapidity of disintegration and retrocession. The
shale furnishes, therefore, a good standard by which to determine the
comparative rapidity with which the retrocession has been accomplished
at different points.
From the base of the escarpment at Lewiston up the narrow bend in the
channel above Devil's Hole, a distance of four and a quarter miles, the
shale varies in thickness above the water, from one hundred and thirty
feet at the commencement of the gorge, to one hundred and ten feet at
the upper extremity of the bend. Here, although there is very little
upward curve in the limestone, there is yet a decided curve upward in
the Medina group, noticed above, composed mainly of a hard, red
sandstone. It projects across the chasm, and also extends upward to near
the neck of the Whirlpool, where it dips suddenly downward. The two
strata of shale, becoming apparently united, follow its dip and also
extend upward until they reach their maximum elevation near the middle
of the Whirlpool. Thence the shale gradually dips again to the Railway
Suspension Bridge, three-quarters of a mile above. For the remaining one
and a half miles from this bridge to the present site of the Falls the
dip is downward. We may then divide this reach of the Niagara River into
three sections:
First. From Lewiston to the upper end of the Bend above Devil's Hole.
Second. Thence to the head of the rapid above the Railway Suspension
Bridge.
Third. Thence to the present site of the Falls.
We are now prepared to consider these sections with reference to the
retrocession of the fall of water. Through the first section the shale,
as before noted, lying much above the water surface, and the superposed
limestone being rather soft and thinner than at any point above, the
retreat was probably quite uniform and comparatively rapid, about the
same progress being made in each of the many centuries required to
accomplish its whole length. Professor James Hall, in his able and
interesting Report on the Geology of the Fourth District of the State of
New York, suggests the probability of there having been three distinct
Falls, one below the other, for some distance up-stream, when the
retrocession first began. The average width of this section between the
banks is one thousand feet. About one mile below its upper extremity is
"Devil's Hole," a side-chasm cut out of the American bank of the river
by a small stream called "Bloody Run," which, in heavy rains, forms a
torrent. The "Hole" has been made by the detrition and washing out of
the shale and the fall of the overlying rock. A short distance above, on
the Canadian side, lies Foster's Glen, a singular and extensive lateral
excavation left dry by the receding flood. The cliff at its upper end is
bare and water-worn, showing that the arc or curve of the Falls must
have been greater here than at any point below.
Near the upper end of this section there is a rocky cape, which juts out
from the Canadian bank, and reaches nearly two-thirds of the distance
across the chasm. At this point the great Fall met with a more obstinate
and longer continued resistance than at any other, for the reason that
the fine, firm sandstone belonging to the Medina group, as has been
stated, here projects across the channel of the river, and, forming a
part of its bed, rises upward several feet above the surface of the
water. And here this hard, compact rock held the cataract for many
centuries. The crooked channel which incessant friction and hammering
finally cut through that rock is the narrowest in the river, being only
two hundred and ninety-two feet wide, and the fierce rush of the water
through the narrow, rock-ribbed gorge is almost appalling to the
beholder. The average width between the banks of this section is about
nine hundred feet.
In the second section is found the Whirlpool, one of the most
interesting and attractive portions of the river. The large basin in
which it lies was cut out much more rapidly than any other part of the
chasm. And this for the reason that, in addition to the thick stratum of
shale, there was, underlying the channel, a large pocket, and probably,
also, a broad seam or cleavage, filled with gravel and pebbles. Indeed,
there is a broad and very ancient cleavage in the rock-wall on the
Canadian side, extending from near the top of the bank to an unknown
depth below. Its course can be traced from the north side of the pool
some distance in a north-westerly direction. Of course the resistless
power of the falling water was not long restrained by these feeble
barriers, and here the broadest and deepest notch of any given century
was made. The name, Whirlpool, is not quite accurate, since the body of
water to which it is applied is rather a large eddy, in which small
whirlpools are constantly forming and breaking. The spectator cannot
realize the tremendous power exerted by these pools, unless there is
some object floating upon the surface by which it may be demonstrated.
Logs from broken rafts are frequently carried over the Falls, and, when
they reach this eddy, tree-trunks from two to three feet in diameter and
fifty feet long, after a few preliminary and stately gyrations, are
drawn down end-wise, submerged for awhile and then ejected with great
force, to resume again their devious way in the resistless current. And
they will often be kept in this monotonous round from four to six weeks
before escaping to the rapids below.
The cleft in the bed-rock which forms the outlet of the basin is one of
the narrowest parts of the river, being only four hundred feet in
width. Standing on one side of this gorge, and considering that the
whole volume of the water in the river is rushing through it, the
spectator witnesses a manifestation of physical force which makes a more
vivid impression upon his mind than even the great Fall itself. No
extravagant attempt at fine writing, no studied and elaborate
description, can exaggerate the wonderful beauty and fascination of this
pool. It is separated from the habitations of men, at a distance from
any highway, and lies secluded in the midst of a small tract of wood
which has fortunately been preserved around it, in which the dark and
pale greens of stately pines and cedars predominate. Within the basin
the waters are rushing onward, plunging downward, leaping upward,
combing over at the top in beautiful waves and ruffles of dazzling
whiteness, shaded down through all the opalescent tints to the deep
emerald at their base. It is ever varying, never presenting the same
aspect in any two consecutive moments, and the beholder is lost in
admiration as he comprehends more and more the many-sided and varied
beauties of the matchless scene. No one visiting the Whirlpool should
fail to go down the bank to the water's edge. On a bright summer
morning, after a night shower has laid the dust, cleansed and brightened
the foliage of shrub and tree, purified and glorified the atmosphere,
there are few more inviting and charming views.
The remaining portion of this section is the Whirlpool rapid, a
beautiful curve, reaching up just above the Railway Suspension Bridge.
It was the most tumultuous and dangerous portion of the voyage once made
by the _Maid of the Mist_. The water is in a perpetual tumult, a
perfect embodiment of the spirit of unrest. Owing to the rapidity of the
descent and the narrowness of the curve, the water is forced into a
broken ridge in the center of the channel. There, in its wild tumult, it
is tossed up into fanciful cones and mounds, which are crowned with a
flashing coronal of liquid gems by the isolated drops and delicate spray
thrown off from the whirling mass, and rising sometimes to the height of
thirty feet. Standing on the bridge and looking down-stream, the
spectator will see near by, on the American shore, a very good
illustration of the manner in which the shale, there cropping out above
the surface of the water, is worn away, leaving the superposed rock
projecting beyond it.
In the third and last section the shale continues its downward dip, and
at several places entirely disappears. The rock lying upon it is quite
compact, and some of it very hard. The deep water into which the falling
water was formerly received partially protected the shale, so that many
centuries must have elapsed before the excavation of this section was
completed. Its average width is eleven hundred feet.
Sixty rods below the American Fall is the upper Suspension Bridge. From
this bridge, looking downward, no one can fail to be impressed with the
serene and quiet beauty of the mirror below, reflecting from the surface
of its emerald and apparently unfathomable depths life-size and
life-like images of surrounding objects. The calm, majestic, unbroken
current is in striking contrast with the fall and foam and chopping sea
above.
The greatest depth of the water in mid-channel between the two
Suspension Bridges, as ascertained by measuring, is two hundred feet.
But it must be borne in mind that this is the depth of the water flowing
above the immense mass of rock, stones, and gravel which has fallen into
the channel. The bottom of the chasm, therefore, must be more than a
hundred feet lower, since the fallen rocks, having tumbled down
promiscuously, must occupy much more space than they did in their
original bed. There are isolated points, as at the Whirlpool and Devil's
Hole, where the river is wider than in any part of this section, but the
depth is less. Taking into consideration both depth and width, this is
the finest part of the chasm. And for this reason chiefly, when the
great cataract was at a point about one hundred rods below the upper
bridge, it must have presented its sublimest aspect. The secondary bank
on each side of the river is here high and firm, whereby the whole mass
of water must have been concentrated into a single channel of greater
depth at the top of the Fall than it could have had at any other point.
And here the mighty column exerted its most terrific force, rolling over
the precipice in one broad, vertical curve, water falling into water,
and lifting up, perpetually, that snowy veil of mist and spray which
constitutes at any point its crowning beauty.
CHAPTER VIII.
Recession above the present position of the Falls--The Falls will
be higher as they recede--Reason why--Professor Tyndall's
prediction--Present and former accumulations of rock--Terrific
power of the elements--Ice and ice bridges--Remarkable geognosy of
the lake region.
There is probably little foundation for the apprehension which has been
expressed that the recession of the chasm will ultimately reach Lake
Erie and lower its level, or that the bed of the river will be worn into
an inclined plane by gradual detrition, thus changing the perpendicular
Fall into a tumultuous rapid. And for these reasons: The contour or arc
of the Fall in its present location is much greater than it could have
been at any point below. Consequently a much smaller body of water, less
effective in force, is passed over any given portion of the precipice,
the current being also divided by Goat and Luna islands. Also, the river
bed increases in width above the Fall until it reaches Grand Island,
which, being twelve miles in length by eight in width, divides the river
into two broad channels, thus still further diminishing the weight and
force of the falling water. The average width of the channel from
Lewiston upward is one thousand feet. The present curve formed by the
Falls and islands is four thousand two hundred feet. Of course the water
concentrated in mass and force below the present Falls must have proved
vastly more effective in disintegrating and breaking down the shale and
limestone than it possibly can be at any point above. After receding
half a mile further the curve will be more than a mile in extent, and
hold this length for two additional miles, provided the water shall
cover the bed-rock from shore to shore.
In reference to this recession, Professor Tyndall, in the closing
paragraph of a lecture on Niagara, delivered before the Royal Institute,
after his return to England, says: "In conclusion, we may say a word
regarding the proximate future of Niagara. At the rate of excavation
assigned to it by Sir Charles Lyell, namely, a foot a year, five
thousand years will carry the Horseshoe Fall far higher than Goat
Island. As the gorge recedes * * * it will totally drain the American
branch of the river, the channel of which will in due time become
cultivatable land. * * * To those who visit Niagara five millenniums
hence, I leave the verification of this prediction." In his "Travels in
the United States," in 1841-2, vol. 1, page 27, Sir Charles Lyell says:
"Mr. Bakewell calculated that, in the forty years preceding 1830, the
Niagara had been going back at the rate of about a yard annually, but I
conceive that one foot per year would be a more probable conjecture."
Thus it appears that the rate suggested was the result of a conjecture
founded on a guess. From certain oral and written statements which we
have been able to collect, we have made an estimate of the time which
was required to excavate the present chasm-channel from Lewiston upward.
During the last hundred and seventy-five years certain masses of rock
have been known to fall from the water-covered surface of the cataract,
and a statement as to the surface-measure of each mass was made. In
using these data it is supposed that each break extended to the bottom
of the precipice, although the whole mass did not fall at once. Of
course, the substructure must have worn out before the superstructure
could have gone down. Father Hennepin says that the projection of the
rock on the American side was so great that "four coaches" could "drive
abreast" beneath it. Seven years later, Baron La Hontan, referring to
the Canadian side, says "three men" could "cross in abreast." We cannot
assign less than twenty-four feet to the four coaches moving abreast.
The projection on the Canadian side has diminished but little, whereas
the overhang on the American side has almost entirely fallen, as is
abundantly shown by the huge pile of large bowlders now lying at the
foot of the precipice. Authentic accounts of similar abrasions are the
following: In 1818, a mass one hundred and sixty feet long by sixty feet
wide; and later in the same year a huge mass, the top surface of which
was estimated at half an acre. If this estimate was correct, it would
show an abrasion equivalent to nearly one foot of the whole surface of
the Canadian Fall. In 1829 two other masses, equal to the first that
fell in 1818, went down. In 1850 there fell a smaller mass, about fifty
feet long and ten feet wide. In 1852, a triangular mass fell, which was
about six hundred feet long, extending south from Goat Island beyond the
Terrapin Tower, and having an average width of twenty feet. Here we have
approximate data on which to base our calculations. In addition to
these, it is supposed that there have been unobserved abrasions by
piecemeal that equaled all the others. Combining these minor masses into
one grand mass and omitting fractions, the result is a bowlder
containing something more than twelve million cubic feet of rock. If
this were spread over a surface one thousand feet wide and one hundred
and sixty feet deep--about the average width and depth of the Falls
below the ferry--it would make a block about seventy-eight feet thick.
This, for one hundred and seventy-five years, is a little over five
inches a year. At this rate, to cut back six miles--the present length
of the chasm--would require nearly sixty thousand years, or ten thousand
years for a single mile, a mere shadow of time compared with the age of
the coralline limestone over which the water flows. So, if this estimate
is reasonably correct, two millenniums will be exhausted before
Professor Tyndall's prophecy can be fulfilled.
As to the "entire drainage of the American branch" of the river, we must
be incredulous when we consider the fact that the bottom of that branch,
two and a half miles above the Falls, is thirty-two feet higher than the
upper surface of the water where it goes over the cliff, and that there
is a continuous channel the whole distance varying from twelve to twenty
feet in depth; and the further fact that, in the great syncope of the
water which occurred in 1848, the topography, so to speak, of the river
bottom was clearly revealed. It showed that the water was so divided,
half a mile above the rapids, as to form a huge Y, through both branches
of which it flowed over the precipice below, thus showing that nothing
but an entire stoppage of the water can leave the American channel dry.
But even if this part of Professor Tyndall's prediction should be
verified, it is to be feared that his "vision" of "cultivatable land" in
the case supposed will prove to be visionary. "To complete my
knowledge," says Professor Tyndall, "it was necessary to see the Fall
from the river below it, and long negotiations were necessary to secure
the means of doing so. The only boat fit for the undertaking had been
laid up for the winter, but this difficulty * * * was overcome." Two
oarsmen were obtained. The elder assumed command, and "hugged" the
cross-freshets instead of striking out into the smoother water. I asked
him why he did so; he replied that they were directed outward and not
downward. If Professor Tyndall had been at Niagara during the summer
season, he would have had the opportunity, daily, of seeing the Fall
"from below," and of going up or down the river on any day in a boat.
All the boats (four) at the ferry are "fit for the undertaking," and all
of them are, very properly, "laid up in the winter," since they would be
crushed by the ice if left in the water. The oarsmen do not consider
themselves very shrewd because they have discovered that it is easier to
row across a current than to row against it. The party had an exciting
and, according to Professor Tyndall's account, a perilous trip. It is
an exciting trip to a stranger, but the writer has made it so frequently
that it has ceased to be a novelty.
[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS FROM BELOW]
"We reached," he says, "the Cave [of the Winds] and entered it, first by
a wooden way carried over the bowlders, and then along a narrow ledge to
the point eaten deepest into the shale." He also speaks of the "blinding
hurricane of spray hurled against" him. This last circumstance,
probably, prevented him from noticing the fact that no shale is visible
in the Cave of the Winds. Its wall from the top downward, some distance
beneath the place where he stood, is formed entirely of the Niagara
limestone. But it is checkered by many seams, and is easily abraded by
the elements.
Long-continued observation of the locality enables the writer to offer
still other reasons why the Fall will never dwindle down to a rapid. As
has already been noticed, the course of the river above the present
Falls is a little south of west, so that it flows across the trend of
the bed-rock. Hence, as the Falls recede there can be no diminution in
their altitude resulting from the dip of this rock. On the contrary,
there is a rise of fifty feet to the head of the present rapids, and a
further rise of twenty feet to the level of Lake Erie. During 1871-2,
the bed of the river from Buffalo to Cayuga Creek was thoroughly
examined for the purpose of locating piers for railway bridges over the
stream. The greatest depth at which they found the rock--just below
Black Rock dam--was forty-five feet. Generally the rock was found to be
only twenty to twenty-five feet below the surface of the water.
About five miles above the present Falls there is, in the bottom of the
river, a shelf of rock stretching, in nearly a straight line, across the
channel to Grand Island, and having, apparently, a perpendicular face
about sixteen inches deep. Its presence is indicated by a short but
decided curve in the surface of the water above it, the water itself
varying in depth from eleven to sixteen feet. The shelf above referred
to extends under Grand Island and across the Canadian channel of the
river, under which, however, its face is no longer perpendicular. If the
Falls were at this point, they would be fifty-five feet higher than they
are now, supposing the bed-rock to be firm. Now, by excavations made
during the year 1870 for the new railway from the Suspension Bridge to
Buffalo, the surface rock was found to be compact and hard, much of it
unusually so. As a general rule it is well known that the greater the
depth at which any given kind of rock lies below the surface, and the
greater the depth to which it is penetrated, the more compact and hard
it will be found to be. The rock which was found to be so hard, in
excavating for the railway, lies within six feet of the surface. The
deepest water in the Niagara River, between the Falls and Buffalo, is
twenty-five feet. At this point, then, it would seem that the shale of
the Niagara group must be at such a depth that the top of it is below
the surface of the water at the bottom of the present fall. Hence, being
protected from the disintegrating action of the atmosphere, and the
incessant chiseling of the dashing spray, it would make a firm
foundation for the hard limestone which would form the perpendicular
ledge over which the water would fall. Supposing the bottom of the
channel below this fall to have the same declivity as that for a mile
below the present fall, the then cataract would be, as has been before
stated, fifty-five feet higher than the present one. If we should allow
fifty feet for a soft-surface limestone, full of cleavages and seams
which might be easily broken down, still the new fall would be five feet
higher than the old one. But, so far as can now be discovered, there is
no geological necessity, so to speak, for making any such allowance. In
the new cataract the American Fall would still be the higher, and its
line across the channel nearly straight. The Canadian Fall would
undoubtedly present a curve, but more gradual and uniform than the
present horseshoe.
But there might possibly occur one new feature in the chasm-channel of
the river as the result of future recession. That would be the presence
in that channel of rocky islands, similar to that which has already
formed just below the American Fall. The points at which these islands
would be likely to form are those where the indurated rock of either the
Medina or the Niagara group lies near the surface of the water. This
probably was the case at the narrow bend below the Whirlpool, before
noticed, and from thence up to the outlet of the pool. After considering
what must have occurred in the last case, we may form some opinion
concerning the probabilities in reference to the first.
We can hardly resist the conclusion that masses of fallen rock must have
accumulated below the Whirlpool as we now see them under the American
Fall. But if so, where are they? The answer to this question brings us
to the consideration of the most remarkable phenomenon connected with
this wonderful river. To the beholder it is matter of astonishment what
can have become of the great mass of earth, rock, gravel, and bowlders,
large and small, which once filled the immense chasm that lies below
him. He learns that the water for a mile below the Falls is two hundred
feet deep, and flows over a mass of fallen rock and stone of great depth
lying below it; he sees a chasm of nearly double these dimensions, more
than half of which was once filled with solid rock; he beholds the large
quantities which have already fallen, which are still defiant, still
breasting the ceaseless hammering of the descending flood. For centuries
past this process has been going on, until a chasm seven miles long, a
thousand feet wide, and, including the secondary banks, more than four
hundred feet deep, has been excavated, and the material which filled it
entirely removed. How? By what? Frost was the agent, ice was his delver,
water his carrier, and the basin of Lake Ontario his dumping-ground.
Although there is little likelihood that islands similar to Goat Island
have existed in the channel from Lewiston upward, still it is probable
that, when the Fall receded from the rocky cape below the Whirlpool up
to the pool, it left masses of rock, large and small, lying on the rocky
floor and projecting above the surface of the water. As there were no
islands above, there were no broken, tumultuous rapids. As has been
before remarked, the water poured over in one broad, deep, resistless
flood. When frozen by the intense cold of winter, the great cakes of
ice would descend with crushing force on these rocks. The smaller ones
would be broken, pulverized, and swept down-stream, the channel for the
water would be enlarged gradually, and the larger masses thus partially
undermined. Then the spray and dashing water would freeze and the ice
accumulate upon them until they were toppled over. Then the falling ice
would recommence its chipping labors, and with every piece of ice
knocked off, a portion of the rock would go with it. Finally, as the
cold continued, the master force, the mightiest of mechanical powers,
would be brought into action. The vast quantities of ice pouring over
the precipice would freeze together, agglomerate, and form an
ice-bridge. The roof being formed, the succeeding cakes of ice would be
drawn under, and, raising it, be frozen to it. This process goes on.
Every piece of rock above and below the surface is embraced in a
relentless icy grip. Millions of tons are frozen fast together. The
water and ice continue to plunge over the precipice. The principle of
the hydrostatic press is made effective. Then commences a crushing and
grinding process which is perfectly terrific. Under the resistless
pressure brought to bear upon it, the huge mass moves half an inch in
one direction, and an hundred cubic feet of rock are crushed to powder.
There is a pause. Then again the immense structure moves half an inch
another way, and once more the crumbling atoms attest its awful power.
This goes on for weeks continuously. Finally the temperature changes.
The sunlight becomes potent; the ice ceases to form; the warm rays
loosen the grip of the ice-bridge along the borders of the chasm below.
The water becomes more abundant; the bridge rises, bringing in its icy
grasp whatever it had attached itself to beneath; it breaks up into
masses of different dimensions: each mass starts downward with the
growing current, breaking down or filing off everything with which it
comes in contact. Fearful sounds come up from the hidden depths, from
the mills which are slowly pulverizing the massive rock. The smaller
bits and finer particles, after filling the interstices between the
larger rocks in the bottom of the chasm, are borne lakeward. The heavier
portions make a part of the journey this year; they will make another
part next year, and another the next, being constantly disintegrated and
pulverized.
This work has been going on for many centuries. The result is seen in
the vast bar of unknown depth which is spread over the bottom of Lake
Ontario around the mouth of the river. On the inner side of the bar the
water is from sixty to eighty feet deep, on the bar it is twenty-five
feet deep, and outside of it in the lake it reaches a depth of six
hundred feet.
[Illustration: GREAT ICICLES UNDER THE AMERICAN FALL]
And finally, to the force we have been considering, more than to any
other, it is probable that all the coming generations of men will be
indebted for a grand and perpendicular Fall somewhere between its
present location and Lake St. Clair; for it must be remembered that the
bottom of Lake Erie is only fourteen feet lower than the crest of the
present Fall, and the bottom of Lake St. Clair is sixty-two feet higher.
It may also be considered that the corniferous limestone of the Onondaga
group--which succeeds the Niagara group as we approach Lake Erie--is
more competent to maintain a perpendicular face than is the limestone of
the latter group.
We may here appropriately notice a remarkable feature in the geognosy of
the earth's surface from Lake Huron to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We have
before stated that the elevation of that lake above tide-water is five
hundred and seventy-eight feet. But its depth, according to Dr.
Houghton, is one thousand feet. If this statement is correct, the bottom
of it is four hundred and twenty-two feet below the sea-level. The
elevation of Lake St. Clair is five hundred and seventy feet. But its
depth is only twenty feet, leaving its bottom five hundred and fifty
feet above the sea-level. The elevation of Lake Erie is five hundred and
sixty-eight feet. But it is only eighty-four feet deep, making it four
hundred and eighty-four feet above the sea-level. From Lake Erie to Lake
Ontario there is a descent of three hundred and thirty-six feet. But the
latter lake is six hundred feet deep, and its elevation two hundred and
thirty-two feet. Hence the bottom of it is three hundred and sixty-eight
feet below the sea-level. From the outlet of Lake Ontario the St.
Lawrence River flows eight hundred and twenty miles to tide-water,
falling two hundred and thirty-two feet in this distance. The water from
the springs at the bottom of Lake Huron is compelled to climb a mountain
nine hundred and eighty feet high before it can start on this long
oceanward journey.
PART III.
LOCAL HISTORY AND INCIDENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
Forty years since--Niagara in winter--Frozen spray--Ice foliage and
ice apples--Ice moss--Frozen fog--Ice islands--Ice
statues--Sleigh-riding on the American rapids--Boys coasting on
them--Ice gorges.
If the first white man who saw Niagara could have been certain that he
was the first to see it, and had simply recorded the fact with whatever
note or comment, he would have secured for himself that species of
immortality which accrues to such as are connected with those first and
last events and things in which all men feel a certain interest. But he
failed to improve his opportunity, and Father Hennepin was the first, so
far as known, to profit by such neglect, and his somewhat crude and
exaggerated description of the Falls has been often quoted and is well
known. So long as "waters flow and trees grow" it will continue to be
read by successive generations. The French missionaries and traders who
followed him seem to have been too much occupied in saving souls or in
seeking for gold to spend much time in contemplating the cataract, or to
waste much sentiment in writing about it. And so it happens that,
considering its fame, very little has been written, or rather published,
concerning it.
Seventy years ago, the few travelers who were drawn to the vicinity by
interest or curiosity were obliged to approach it by Indian trails, or
rude corduroy roads, through dense and dark forests. Within the solitude
of their deep shadows, beneath their protecting arms, was hidden one of
the sublimest works of the physical creation. The scene was grand,
impressive, almost oppressive, not less sublime than the Alps or the
ocean, but more fascinating, more companionable, than either.
Niagara we can take to our hearts. We realize its majesty and its
beauty, but we are never obliged to challenge its power. Its
surroundings and accessories are calm and peaceful. Even in all the
treacherous and bloody warfare of savage Indians it was neutral ground.
It was a forest city of refuge for contending tribes. The generous,
noble, and peaceful Niagaras--a people, according to M. Charlevoix,
"larger, stronger, and better formed than any other savages," and who
lived upon its borders--were called by the whites and the neighboring
tribes the Neuter Nation.
The crafty Hurons, the unwarlike Eries, the invincible league formed by
the six aggressive and conquering tribes composing the Iroquois
confederacy,--the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the
Senecas, and the Tuscaroras,--all extinguished the torch, buried the
tomahawk, and smoked the calumet when they came to the shores of the
Niagara, and sat down within sight of its incense cloud, and listened to
its perpetual anthem. In succeeding contests between the whites, on two
occasions only was nature's repose here disturbed by the din of
battle--first, in the running fight at Chippewa, and again at the
obstinate and bloody struggle of Lundy's Lane.
During the War of 1812, in which these actions occurred, the dense
forest which lay outside of the old belt of French occupation was first
extensively and persistently attacked, the sunlight being let in upon
comfortable log-cabins and fruitful fields. The Indian trail and
corduroy "shake" were superseded by more civilized and comfortable
highways. Post routes were opened and public conveyances established.
For many years, however, the two principal ways of access to Niagara
were by the Ridge road, from the Genessee Falls--now Rochester--and the
river road on the Canadian side from Buffalo to Drummondville.
Some forty years ago, and for many years thereafter, Niagara was,
emphatically, a pleasant and attractive watering-place; the town was
quiet; the accommodations were comfortable; the people were kind,
considerate, and attentive; guides were civil, intelligent, and
truthful; conveyances were good, and were in charge of careful and
respectable attendants; commissions were unknown; "scalping" was left
to the Indians; nobody was annoyed or importuned; the flowers bloomed,
the birds caroled, the full-leaved trees furnished refreshing shade, and
the air was balmy. Then the lowing of cows in the street, the guttural
note of the swine, and the voice of the solicitor were not heard.
Elderly people came to stay for pleasant recreation and quiet enjoyment;
younger people to "bill and coo" and dance. Now all that is changed. A
contemporary orator once described the moral status of a famous
stock-jobbing locality by saying that "ten thousand a year is the Sermon
on the Mount for Wall street." The same gospel is popular at Niagara.
Whoso has seen Niagara only in summer has but half seen it. In winter
its beauties are not diminished, while the accessories due to the season
are numerous and varied. After two or three weeks of intensely cold
weather many beautiful and fantastic scenes are presented around the
Falls.
The different varieties of stalactites and stalagmites hanging from or
apparently supporting the projecting rocks along the side walls of the
deep chasm, the ice islands which grow on the bars and around the rocks
in the river, the white caps and hoods which are formed on the rocks
below, the fanciful statuary and statuesque forms which gather on and
around the trees and bushes, are all curious and interesting.
Exceedingly beautiful are the white vestments of frozen spray with which
everything in the immediate vicinity is robed and shielded; and
beautiful, too, are the clusters of ice apples which tip the
extremities of the branches of the evergreen trees.
There is something marvelous in the purity and whiteness of congealed
spray. One might think it to be frozen sunlight. And when, by reason of
an angle or a curve, it is thrown into shadow, one sees where the
rainbow has been caught and frozen in. After a day of sunshine which has
been sufficiently warm to fill the atmosphere with aqueous vapor, if a
sharp, still, cold night succeed, and if on this there break a clear,
calm morning, the scene presented is one of unique and enchanting
beauty.
[Illustration: WINTER FOLIAGE]
The frozen spray on every boll, limb, and twig of tree and shrub, on
every stiffened blade of grass, on every rigid stem and tendril of the
vines, is covered over with a fine white powder, a frosty bloom, from
which there springs a line of delicate frost-spines, forming a perfect
fringe of ice-moss, than which nothing more fanciful nor more beautiful
can be imagined.
Then, as the day advances, the increasing warmth of the sun's rays
dissolves this fairy frost-work and spreads it like a delicate varnish
over the solid spray, giving it a brilliant polish rivaling the luster
of the rarest gems; the mid-morning breeze sets in motion this flashing,
dazzling forest, which varies its color as the sunlight-angle varies;
and finally, when the waxing warmth and growing breeze loosen the hold
of the icy covering in the tree-tops, and it drops to the still solid
surface in the shade beneath,--the tiny particles with a silver tinkle
and the larger pieces with the sharp, rattling sound of the
castanet,--the ear is charmed with a wild, dashing rataplan, while a
scene of strange enchantment challenges the admiration of the spectator.
Even more beautiful and fairy-like, if possible, is the garment of
frozen fog with which all external objects are adorned and etherealized
when the spring advances and the temperature of the water is raised. As
the sharp, still night wears on, the light mists begin to rise, and when
the morning breaks, the river is buried in a deep, dense bank of fog. A
gentle wave of air bears it landward; its progress is stayed by
everything with which it comes in contact, and as soon as its motion is
arrested it freezes sufficiently to adhere to whatever it touches. So it
grows upon itself, and all things are soon covered half an inch in depth
with a most delicate and fragile white fringe of frozen fog. The morning
sun dispels the mist, and in an hour the gay frost-work vanishes.
The ice islands are sometimes extensive. In the year 1856 the whole of
the rocky bar above Goat Island was covered with ice, piled together in
a rough heap, the lower end of which rested on Goat Island and the three
Moss Islands lying outside of it, all of which were visited by different
persons passing over this new route.
The ice formed on the rocks below the American Fall, stretched upward,
reached the edge of the precipice just north of the Little Horseshoe,
continued up-stream above Chapin's Island, spread out laterally from
that to Goat Island on the south, and over nearly half of the American
rapids to the north. At the brow of the precipice it accumulated upward
until it formed a ridge some forty feet high. About fifteen rods
up-stream another ridge was formed of half the height of the first.
Every rock projecting upward bore an immense ice-cap. Around and between
these mounds and caps horses were driven to sleighs, albeit the course
was not favorable for quick time. The boys drew their sleds to the top
of the large mound, slid down it, up-stream, and nearly to the top of
the smaller hill.
On the lower or down-stream side, they would have had a clear course to
the water below, at the brink of the Falls, and might have made "time"
compared with which Dexter's minimum would have seemed only a funeral
march. But with all Young America's passion for speed, he declined to
try this route. The writer walked over the south end of Luna Island,
above the tops of the trees.
The ice-bridge of that year filled the whole chasm from the Railway
Suspension Bridge up past the American Fall. When the ice broke up in
the spring, such immense quantities were carried down that a strong
northerly wind across Lake Ontario caused an ice-jam at Fort Niagara.
The ice accumulated and set back until it reached the Whirlpool, and
could be crossed at any point between the Whirlpool and the Fort. It was
lifted up about sixty feet above the surface, and spread out over both
shores, crushing and destroying everything with which it came in
contact. Many persons from different parts of the country visited the
extraordinary scene.
At Lewiston the writer, with many others, saw a most remarkable
illustration of the terrific power of this hydrostatic press. Just below
the village, on the American side, there stood, about two rods from
high-water mark, a sound, thrifty, tough white-oak tree, perhaps a
hundred years old, and two feet in diameter. The ice, moved by the
water, struck it near the ground and pressed it outward and upward,
until it was actually pulled up by the roots--or rather some of the
roots were broken and others were pulled out--and landed twenty feet
farther away from the chasm.
Those who watched the operation stated that, from the time the ice
touched the tree until it was landed on the bank above, the motion of
the ice could not be detected by the eye.
[Illustration: ICE BRIDGE AND FROST FREAKS]
Slowly, steadily, surely it pressed on. Suddenly there would be an
explosion, sharp and loud, when a root gave way. No motion in the ice or
tree could be discovered. After a lapse of two or three hours another
sharp crack would give notice of another fracture. Thus the ice pressed
gradually on, and in ten hours the work was done. A thousandth part of
this force would pulverize a bowlder of adamant. We need not wonder,
therefore, that the river Niagara keeps its channel clear.
In the ice-gorge of 1866 the ice was set back to the upper end of the
Whirlpool, over which it was twenty feet deep. The Whirlpool rapid was
subdued nearly to an unbroken current, which all the way below to Lake
Ontario was reduced to a gentle flow of quiet waters. Never was there a
sublimer contest of the great forces of nature. The frost laid its hand
upon the raging torrent and it was still.
The winter of 1875 was intensely cold. The singular figures represented
in the illustrations--the eagle, dog, baboon, and others--are exact
reproductions of the real chance-work of the frost of that season. The
long-continued prevalence of the south-west wind fastened to every
object facing it a border or apron of dazzling whiteness, and more than
five feet thick. The ice mountain below the American Fall, reaching
nearly to the top of the precipice, was appropriated as a "coasting"
course, and furnished most exhilarating sport to the people who used it.
A large number of visitors came from all directions, and, on the 22d of
February, fifteen hundred were assembled to see the extraordinary
exhibition.
In the coldest winters, the ice-bridges cannot be less than two hundred
and fifty feet thick. The ice-bridge of 1875 formed on the 6th and 7th
of May, was crossed on the 8th, and broke up on the 14th--the only one
ever known in the river so late in the spring.
[Illustration: COASTING BELOW THE AMERICAN FALL]
CHAPTER X.
Judge Porter--General Porter--Goat Island--Origin of its
name--Early dates found cut in the bark of trees and in the
rock--Professor Kalm's wonderful story--Bridges to the
Island--Method of construction--Red Jacket--Anecdotes--Grand
Island--Major Noah and the New Jerusalem--The Stone Tower--The
Biddle Stairs--Sam Patch--Depth of water on the Horseshoe--Ships
sent over the Falls.
In preparing this narrative, the writer has had the good fortune to
listen to many recitals of facts and incidents by the late Judge
Augustus Porter and the late General Peter B. Porter, whose names are
intimately and honorably connected with the more recent history, not
only of this particular locality but of the Empire State.
Judge Porter, after having spent several years in surveying and lotting
large portions of the territory of Western New York and the Western
Reserve in Ohio, came from Canandaigua to Niagara Falls with his family
in June, 1806, where he continued to live until his death, nearly fifty
years afterward.
General Porter settled as a lawyer at Canandaigua in 1795, removed to
Black Rock in 1810, and to Niagara Falls in 1838.
In 1805, the two brothers became interested with others in the purchase
from the State of New York of four lots in the Mile Strip lying both
above and below the Falls.
A few years later, they purchased not only the interest of their
partners in these lots, but other lands at different points along this
strip. In 1814, they bought of Samuel Sherwood a paper since named a
_float_--an instrument given by the State authorizing the bearer to
locate two hundred acres of any of the unsold or unappropriated lands
belonging to the State. This float they fortunately anchored on Goat
Island and the islands adjacent thereto lying "immediately above and
adjoining the Great Falls."
The origin of the name of Goat Island is as follows: Mr. John Stedman,
who came into the country in 1760, had cleared a portion of the upper
end of the island, and in the summer of 1779 he placed on it an aged and
dignified male goat. The following winter was very severe, navigation to
the island was impracticable, and the goat fell a victim to the intense
cold. Since which the scene of his exile and death has been called Goat
Island.
By the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814, the boundary
line between Great Britain and the United States, on the Niagara
frontier, was to run through the deepest water along the river-courses
and through the center of the Great Lakes. As the deepest water, at this
point, is in the center of the Horseshoe Fall, the islands in the river
fell to the Americans. General Porter, acting as Commissioner for the
United States, proposed to call the largest one Iris Island, and it was
so printed on the boundary maps. But the public adhered to the old name
of Goat Island.
One of the early chronicles states that the island contained two hundred
and fifty acres of land. At the present time there are in it less than
seventy. A strip some ten rods wide by eighty rods long has been worn
away from the southern side of it since 1818, when Judge Porter made the
first road around it.
The earliest date he found on the island was 1765, carved on a
beech-tree. The earliest date cut in the rock on the main-land was 1645.
Human bones and arrowheads were found on the island. The Indians went to
it with their canoes, which they paddled up and down in the
comparatively quiet water lying on the rocky bar which extends upward
nearly a mile above the head of the island.
Notwithstanding this fact, the Swedish naturalist, Kalm, who visited the
place in 1750, relates a fabulous story of two Indians who, on a hunting
excursion above the Falls, drank too freely from "two bottles of French
brandy" which they brought from Fort Niagara; becoming drowsy, they laid
themselves down in the bottom of their canoe for a nap.
The canoe swung off shore and floated down-stream. Nearing the rapids,
the noise awakened one of them, who had apparently been more fortunate
in learning the English language from the French than most of his tribe,
for, seeing their perilous situation, he exclaimed: "We are gone!" But
the two plied their paddles with such aboriginal vigor that they
succeeded in landing on Goat Island. From the sequel it would seem that
they must have destroyed or lost their canoe. Finding no houses of
refreshment, nor cairns of stores left by former explorers, and most
naturally getting hungry, they concluded it would be desirable to get
back to the fort--a wish more easily expressed than accomplished.
But it was necessary for them to "do or die." So, as the story runs,
they stripped the bark from the basswood trees, and with it made a
ladder long enough to reach from a tree standing on the edge of the
precipice at the foot of the island down to the water below.
After dropping their ladder they followed it downward. Reaching the
water, and being good swimmers, they plunged in with great glee,
expecting to be able to swim across to the opposite shore, which they
could easily climb. But the counter current forced them back to the
island.
After being a good deal bruised on the rocks, they were compelled to
abandon the attempt to cross, and then returned up their ladder to the
island. There, after much whooping, they attracted the notice of other
Indians on the shore. These reported the situation at the fort, and the
commandant sent up a party of whites and Indians to rescue them. They
brought with them four light pike-poles. Going to a point opposite the
head of the island, they exchanged salutations with the new Crusoes, and
began preparations for their rescue. Two Indians volunteered to
undertake the task. "They took leave of all their friends as if they
were going to their death." Each Indian rescuer, according to the
wondrous fable, took two pike-poles and _waded_ across the channel to
the island, gave each of the Crusoes a pike-pole, and then the four
waded back to the main-land, where they were joyfully received by their
anxious, waiting friends, after having been "nine days on the island."
Remembering that the water in mid-channel is twelve feet deep, with a
twelve-mile current, we must concede this to be the most marvelous of
all aquatic achievements.
In 1817 Judge Porter built the first bridge to Goat Island, about forty
rods above the present bridge. In the following spring the large cakes
of ice from the river above, not being sufficiently broken up by the
short stretch of rapids over which they passed, struck the bridge with
terrific force, and carried away the greater part of it. With the
courage and enterprise of a New-Englander, the next season he
constructed another bridge farther down, on the present site, rightly
judging that the ice would be so much broken up before reaching it as to
be harmless.
That bridge, with constant repairs and one almost entire renewal, stood
firm in its place until the year 1856, when it was removed to make room
for the present iron bridge. The old piers were much enlarged and
strengthened, and also raised about three feet higher to receive the new
bridge. As nearly every stranger inquires how the first bridge was
carried over the turbulent waters, a brief description of the process
may be acceptable. First, a strong bulkhead was built in the shallow
water next to the shore; a solid backing was put in behind this, and
the upper surface properly graded and well floored with plank. Strong
rollers were placed parallel with the stream and fastened to the floor.
In the old forest then standing near by were many noble oaks, of
different sizes and great length. A number of these were felled and
hewed "tapering," as it was termed, so that, when finished, they were
about eighteen inches square at the butt, fifteen at the top, and eighty
feet long. Through the small ends were bored large auger-holes. These
sticks were placed, as required, on the rollers, at right angles to the
stream, the small ends over the water, and the shore ends heavily
weighted down.
[Illustration: SECOND MOSS ISLAND BRIDGE]
The first stick being properly placed, levers were applied to the
rollers and the stick was run out until the small end reached an eddy in
the water. Then another similar stick was run out in like manner,
parallel to the first, and about six feet from it. A few light, strong
planks were placed across and made fast. Two men were provided each with
strong, iron-pointed pike-staffs, each staff having in its upper end a
hole, through which was drawn some ten feet of new rope. Thus provided,
they walked out on the timbers, drove their iron pikes down among the
stones, and tied them fast to the timbers. Thus the whole problem was
solved. Around these pike-staffs the first pier was built and filled
with stone. Then other timbers were run out, all were planked over, and
the first span was completed. The other spans were laid in the same way.
The great Indian chief and orator, Red Jacket, occasionally visited
Judge and General Porter--the latter then living at Black Rock. Judge
Porter told this anecdote of the chief: He visited the Falls while the
mechanics were stretching the timbers across the rapids for the second
bridge. He sat for a long time on a pile of plank, watching their
operations. His mind seemed to be busy both with the past and the
present, reflecting upon the vast territory his race once possessed, and
intensely conscious of the fact that it was theirs no longer. Apparently
mortified, and vexed that its paleface owners should so successfully
develop and improve it, he rose from his seat, and, uttering the
well-known Indian guttural "Ugh, ugh!" he exclaimed: "D----n Yankee!
d----n Yankee!" Then, gathering his blanket-cloak around him, with his
usual dignity and downcast eyes, he slowly walked away, and never
returned to the spot.
Before parting with the distinguished chief, we will repeat after
General Porter two other anecdotes characteristic of him. He lived not
far from Buffalo, on the Seneca Reservation, and frequently visited the
late General Wadsworth, at Geneseo. Indeed, his visits grew to be
somewhat perplexing, for the great chief must be entertained personally
by the host of the establishment.
Of course he was a "teetotaler"--only in one way. When he got a glass of
good liquor he drank the whole of it. He was very fond of the rich
apple-juice of the Geneseo orchards. Having repeated his visits to
General Wadsworth, at one time, with rather inconvenient frequency, and
coming one day when the General saw that he had been drinking pretty
freely somewhere else, his host concluded he would not offer him the
usual refreshments. In due time, therefore, Red Jacket rose and excused
himself. As he was leaving the room the orator said, "General, hear!"
"Well, what, Red Jacket?" To which he replied with great gravity:
"General, when I get home to my people, and they ask me how your cider
tasted, what shall I tell them?" Of course he got the cider.
His determined and constant opposition to the sale of the lands
belonging to the Indians is well known. At the council held at Buffalo
Creek, in 1811, he was selected by the Indians to answer the proposition
of a New York land company to buy more land. The Indians refused to
sell, although, as usual, the company only wanted "a small tract." To
illustrate the system, after the speech-making was over, Red Jacket
placed half a dozen Indians on a log, which lay near by. They did not
sit very close together, but had plenty of room. He then took a white
man who wanted "a small tract," and making the Indians at one end "move
up," he put the white man beside them. Then he brought another
"small-tract" white man, and making the aborigines "move up" once more,
the Indian on the end was obliged to rise from the log. He repeated this
process until but one of the original occupants was left on the log.
Then suddenly he shoved him off, put a white man in his place, and
turning to the land agent said: "See what one _small tract_ means; white
man _all_, Indian _nothing_."
Colonel William L. Stone, in his "Life of Red Jacket," relates the
following: In 1816, after Red Jacket took up his residence on Buffalo
Creek, east of the city, a young French count traveling through the
country made a brief stay at Buffalo, whence he sent a request to the
sachem to visit him at his hotel.
Red Jacket, in reply, informed the young nobleman that if he wished to
see the old chief he would give him a welcome greeting at his cabin. The
count sent again to say that he was much fatigued by his journey of four
thousand miles, which he had made for the purpose of seeing the
celebrated Indian orator, Red Jacket, and thought it strange that he
should not be willing to come four miles to meet him. But the proud and
shrewd old chief replied that he thought it still more strange, after
the count had traveled so great a distance for that purpose, that he
should halt only a few miles from the home of the man he had come so far
to see. The count finally visited the sachem at his house, and was much
pleased with the dignity and wisdom of his savage host. The point of
etiquette having been satisfactorily settled, the chief accepted an
invitation to dinner, and was no doubt able to tell his people how the
count's "cider" tasted.
In 1819, when the boundary commissioners ran the line through the
Niagara River, Grand Island fell to the United States, under the rule
that that line should be in the center of the main channel. To ascertain
this, accurate measurements were made, by which it was found that
12,802,750 cubic feet of water passed through the Canadian channel, and
8,540,080 through the American channel. To test the accuracy of these
measurements, the quantity passing in the narrow channel at Black Rock
was determined by the same method, and was found to be 21,549,590 cubic
feet, thus substantially corroborating the first two measurements.
The Indian name of Grand Island is Owanunga. In 1825, Mr. M. M. Noah, a
politician of the last generation, took some preliminary steps for
reestablishing the lost nationality of the Jews upon this island, where
a New Jerusalem was to be founded. Assuming the title of "Judge of
Israel," he appeared at Buffalo in September for the purpose of founding
the new nation and city. A meeting was held in old St. Paul's Church, at
which, with the aid of a militia company, martial music, and masonic
rites, the remarkable initiatory proceedings took place.
The self-constituted judge presented himself arrayed in gorgeous robes
of office, consisting of a rich black cloth tunic, covered by a
capacious mantle of crimson silk trimmed with ermine, and having a
richly embossed golden medal hanging from his neck. After what, in the
account published in his own paper of the day's proceedings, he called
"impressive and unique ceremonies," he read a proclamation to "all the
Jews throughout the world," informing them "that an Asylum was prepared
and offered to them," and that he did "revive, renew, and establish (in
the Lord's name), the government of the Jewish nation, * * * confirming
and perpetuating all our rights and privileges, our rank and power,
among the nations of the earth as they existed and were recognized under
the government of the Judges." He also ordered a census to be taken of
all the Hebrews in the world, and levied a capitation tax of three
shekels--about one dollar and sixty cents--"to pay the expenses of
re-organizing the government and assisting emigrants." He had prepared a
"foundation stone," which was afterward erected on the site of the new
city, and which bore the following inscription:
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord
is our God--the Lord is one."
"ARARAT,
A CITY OF REFUGE FOR THE JEWS,
FOUNDED BY MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH,
IN THE MONTH OF TISRI 5586--SEPT. 1825,
IN THE FIFTIETH YEAR OF
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE."
After the meeting at St. Paul's, the "Judge" returned at once to New
York, and, like the great early ruler of his nation, he only saw the
land of promise, as he never crossed to the island.
The strong round tower, called the Terrapin Tower, which stood near Goat
Island, not far from the precipice, was built in 1833, of stones
gathered in the vicinity. It was forty-five feet high, and twelve feet
in diameter at the base. So much was said in 1873 about the growing
insecurity of the tower that it was taken down.
The Biddle Staircase was named for Mr. Nicholas Biddle, of Philadelphia,
who contributed a sum of money toward its construction. It was erected
in 1829. The shaft is eighty feet high and firmly fastened to the rock.
The stairs are spiral, winding round it from top to bottom. Near the
foot of these stairs, at the water's edge, Samuel Patch, who wished to
demonstrate to the world that "some things could be done as well as
others," set up a ladder one hundred feet high, from which he made two
leaps into the water below. Going thence to Rochester, he took another
leap near the Genesee Falls, which proved to be his last.
The depth of water on the Horseshoe Fall is a subject of speculation
with every visitor. It was correctly determined in 1827. In the autumn
of that year, the ship _Michigan_, having been condemned as unseaworthy,
was purchased by a few persons, and sent over the Falls. Her hull was
eighteen feet deep. It filled going down the rapids, and went over the
Horseshoe Fall with some water above the deck, indicating that there
must have been at least twenty feet of water above the rock. This voyage
of the _Michigan_ was an event of the day. A glowing hand-bill, charged
with bold type and sensational tropes, announced that "The Pirate
_Michigan_, with a cargo of furious animals," would "pass the great
rapids and the Falls of Niagara," on the "eighth of September, 1827."
She would sail "through the white-tossing and deep-rolling rapids of
Niagara, and down its grand precipice into the basin below."
Entertainment was promised "for all who may visit the Falls on the
present occasion, which will, for its novelty and the remarkable
spectacle it will present, be unequaled in the annals of _infernal_
navigation." Considering that the Falls could be reached only by road
conveyances, the gathering of people was very large. The voyage was
successfully made, and the "cargo of live animals" duly deposited in the
"basin below," except a bear which left the ship near the center of the
rapids and swam ashore, but was recaptured.
Two enterprising individuals made arrangements to supply the people
assembled on the island with refreshments. They had an ample spread of
tables and an abundant supply of provisions. As there was much delay in
getting the vessel down the river, the people got impatient and hungry.
They took their places at the tables. When their appetites were nearly
satisfied, notice was given that the ship was coming, whereupon they
departed hurriedly, forgetting to leave the equivalent half-dollar for
the benefit of the purveyors.
In after years, one of the proprietors of this unexpected "free
lunch"--the late General Whitney--established here one of the best
hotels in the country, and left his heirs an ample fortune.
A few geese in the cargo were only badly confused by their unusual
plunge, and were afterward picked up from boats. It was noticed as being
a little singular that geese which went over the Falls in the Pirate
_Michigan_ were for sale at extravagant prices all the next season.
Another condemned vessel of about five hundred tons burden, the
_Detroit_, which had belonged to Commodore Perry's victorious fleet, was
sent down the rapids in 1841. A large concourse of people assembled from
all parts of the country to witness the spectacle. Her rolling and
plunging in the rapids were fearful, until about midway of them she
stuck fast on a bar, where she lay until knocked to pieces by the ice.
From Baron La Hontan we know that the Indians went on the water, just
below the Falls, in their canoes, to gather the game which had been
swept over them. For more than a hundred years there has been a ferry of
skiff and yawl boats at this point, and in all that time not one serious
accident has happened.
CHAPTER XI.
Joel R. Robinson, the first and last navigator of the
Rapids--Rescue of Chapin--Rescue of Allen--He takes the _Maid of
the Mist_ through the Whirlpool--His companions--Effect upon
Robinson--Biographical notice--His grave unmarked.
The history of the navigation of the Rapids of Niagara may be
appropriately concluded in this chapter, which is devoted to a notice of
the remarkable man who began it, who had no rival and has left no
successor in it--Joel R. Robinson.
In the summer of 1838, while some extensive repairs were being made on
the main bridge to Goat Island, a mechanic named Chapin fell from the
lower side of it into the rapids, about ten rods from the Bath Island
shore. The swift current bore him toward the first small island lying
below the bridge. Knowing how to swim, he made a desperate and
successful effort to reach it. It is hardly more than thirty feet
square, and is covered with cedars and hemlocks. Saved from drowning, he
seemed likely to fall a victim to starvation. All thoughts were then
turned to Robinson, and not in vain. He launched his light red skiff
from the foot of Bath Island, picked his way cautiously and skillfully
through the rapids to the little island, took Chapin in and brought him
safely to the shore, much to the relief of the spectators, who gave
expression to their appreciation of Robinson's service by a moderate
contribution.
[Illustration: JOEL R. ROBINSON]
In the summer of 1841, a Mr. Allen started for Chippewa in a boat just
before sunset. Being anxious to get across before dark, he plied his
oars with such vigor that one of them broke when he was about opposite
the middle Sister. With the remaining oar he tried to make the head of
Goat Island. The current, however, set too strongly toward the great
Canadian Rapids, and his only hope was to reach the outer Sister.
Nearing this, and not being able to run his boat upon it, he sprang out,
and, being a good swimmer, by a vigorous effort succeeded in getting
ashore. Certain of having a lonely if not an unpleasant night, and being
the fortunate possessor of two stray matches, he lighted a fire and
solaced himself with his thoughts and his pipe. Next morning, taking off
his red flannel shirt, he raised a signal of distress. Toward noon the
unusual smoke and the red flag attracted attention. The situation was
soon ascertained, and Robinson informed of it. Not long after noon, the
little red skiff was carried across Goat Island and launched in the
channel just below the Moss Islands. Robinson then pulled himself across
to the foot of the middle Sister, and tried in vain to find a point
where he could cross to the outer one. Approaching darkness compelled
him to suspend operations. He rowed back to Goat Island, got some
refreshments, returned to the middle Sister, threw the food across to
Allen, and then left him to his second night of solitude. The next day
Robinson took with him two long, light, strong cords, with a properly
shaped piece of lead weighing about a pound. Tying the lead to one of
the cords he threw it across to Allen. Robinson fastened the other end
of Allen's cord to the bow of the skiff; then attaching his own cord to
the skiff also, he shoved it off. Allen drew it to himself, got into it,
pushed off, and Robinson drew him to where he stood on the middle
island. Then seating Allen in the stern of the skiff he returned across
the rapids to Goat Island, where both were assisted up the bank by the
spectators, and the little craft, too, which seemed to be almost as much
an object of curiosity with the crowd as Robinson himself.
This was the second person rescued by Robinson from islands which had
been considered wholly inaccessible. It is no exaggeration to say that
there was not another man in the country who could have saved Chapin and
Allen as he did.
In the summer of 1855 a canal-boat, with two men and a dog in it, was
discovered in the strong current near Grass Island. The men, finding
they could not save the large boat, took to their small one and got
ashore, leaving the dog to his fate. The abandoned craft floated down
and lodged on the rocks on the south side of Goat Island, and about
twenty rods above the ledge over which the rapids make the first
perpendicular break. There were left in the boat a watch, a gun, and
some articles of clothing. The owner offered Robinson a liberal salvage
if he would recover the property. Taking one of his sons with him, he
started the little red skiff from the head of the hydraulic canal, half
a mile above the island, shot across the American channel, and ran
directly to the boat. Holding the skiff to it himself, the young man got
on board and secured the valuables. The dog had escaped during the
night. Leaving the canal-boat, Robinson ran down the ledge between the
second and third Moss Islands, and thence to Goat Island. On going over
the ledge he had occasion to exercise that quickness of apprehension and
presence of mind for which he was so noted. The water was rather lower
than he had calculated, and on reaching the top of the ledge the bottom
of the skiff near the bow struck the rock. Instantly he sprang to the
stern, freed the skiff, and made the descent safely. If the stern had
swung athwart the current, the skiff would certainly have been wrecked.
In the year 1846, a small steamer was built in the eddy just above the
Railway Suspension Bridge, to run up to the Falls. She was very
appropriately named _The Maid of the Mist_. Her engine was rather weak,
but she safely accomplished the trip. As, however, she took passengers
aboard only from the Canadian side, she could pay little more than
expenses. In 1854 a larger, better boat, with a more powerful engine,
the new _Maid of the Mist_, was put on the route, and as she took
passengers from both sides of the river, many thousands of persons made
the exciting and impressive voyage up to the Falls. The admiration which
the visitor felt as he passed quietly along near the American Fall was
changed into awe when he began to feel the mighty pulse of the great
deep just below the tower, then swung round into the white foam
directly in front of the Horseshoe, and saw the sky of waters falling
toward him. And he seemed to be lifted on wings as he sailed swiftly
down on the rushing stream through a baptism of spray. To many persons
there was a fascination about it that induced them to make the trip
every time they had an opportunity to do so. Owing to some change in her
appointments, which confined her to the Canadian shore for the reception
of passengers, she became unprofitable. Her owner, having decided to
leave the neighborhood, wished to sell her as she lay at her dock. This
he could not do, but he received an offer of something more than half of
her cost, if he would deliver her at Niagara, opposite the fort. This he
decided to do, after consultation with Robinson, who had acted as her
captain and pilot on her trips below the Falls. The boat required for
her navigation an engineer, who also acted as fireman, and a pilot.
Mr. Robinson agreed to act as pilot for the fearful voyage, and the
engineer, Mr. Jones, consented to go with him. A courageous machinist,
Mr. McIntyre, volunteered to share the risk with them. They put her in
complete trim, removing from deck and hold all superfluous articles.
Notice was given of the time for starting, and a large number of people
assembled to see the fearful plunge, no one expecting to see the crew
again alive after they should leave the dock. This dock, as has been
before stated, was just above the Railway Suspension Bridge, at the
place where she was built, and where she was laid up in the
winter--that, too, being the only place where she could lie without
danger of being crushed by the ice. Twenty rods below this eddy the
water plunges sharply down into the head of the crooked, tumultuous
rapid which we have before noticed as reaching from the bridge to the
Whirlpool. At the Whirlpool, the danger of being drawn under was most to
be apprehended; in the rapids, of being turned over or knocked to
pieces. From the Whirlpool to Lewiston is one wild, turbulent rush and
whirl of water, without a square foot of smooth surface in the whole
distance.
About three o'clock in the afternoon of June 15, 1861, the engineer took
his place in the hold, and, knowing that their flitting would be short
at the best, and might be only the preface to swift destruction, set his
steam-valve at the proper gauge, and awaited--not without anxiety--the
tinkling signal that should start them on their flying voyage. McIntyre
joined Robinson at the wheel on the upper deck. Self-possessed, and with
the calmness which results from undoubting courage and confidence, yet
with the humility which recognizes all possibilities, with downcast eyes
and firm hands, Robinson took his place at the wheel and pulled the
starting bell. With a shriek from her whistle and a white puff from her
escape-pipe, to take leave, as it were, of the multitude gathered on the
shores and on the bridge, the boat ran up the eddy a short distance,
then swung round to the right, cleared the smooth water, and shot like
an arrow into the rapid under the bridge. Robinson intended to take the
inside curve of the rapid, but a fierce cross-current carried him to
the outer curve, and when a third of the way down it a jet of water
struck against her rudder, a column dashed up under her starboard side,
heeled her over, carried away her smokestack, started her overhang on
that side, threw Robinson flat on his back, and thrust McIntyre against
her starboard wheel-house with such force as to break it through. Every
eye was fixed, every tongue was silent, and every looker-on breathed
freer as she emerged from the fearful baptism, shook her wounded sides,
slid into the Whirlpool, and for a moment rode again on an even keel.
Robinson rose at once, seized the helm, set her to the right of the
large pot in the pool, then turned her directly through the neck of it.
Thence, after receiving another drenching from its combing waves, she
dashed on without further accident to the quiet bosom of the river below
Lewiston.
[Illustration: THE _Maid of the Mist_ IN THE WHIRLPOOL]
Thus was accomplished one of the most remarkable and perilous voyages
ever made by men. The boat was seventy-two feet long, with seventeen
feet breadth of beam and eight feet depth of hold, and carried an engine
of one hundred horse-power. In conversation with Robinson after the
voyage, he stated that the greater part of it was like what he had
always imagined must be the swift sailing of a large bird in a downward
flight; that when the accident occurred the boat seemed to be struck
from all directions at once; that she trembled like a fiddle-string, and
felt as if she would crumble away and drop into atoms; that both he and
McIntyre were holding to the wheel with all their strength, but produced
no more effect than they would if they had been two flies; that he had
no fear of striking the rocks, for he knew that the strongest suction
must be in the deepest channel, and that the boat must remain in that.
Finding that McIntyre was somewhat bewildered by excitement or by his
fall, as he rolled up by his side but did not rise, he quietly put his
foot on his breast, to keep him from rolling around the deck, and thus
finished the voyage.
Poor Jones, imprisoned beneath the hatches before the glowing furnace,
went down on his knees, as he related afterward, and although a more
earnest prayer was never uttered and few that were shorter, still it
seemed to him prodigiously long. To that prayer he thought they owed
their salvation.
The effect of this trip upon Robinson was decidedly marked. As he lived
only a few years afterward, his death was commonly attributed to it. But
this was incorrect, since the disease which terminated his life was
contracted at New Orleans at a later day. "He was," said Mrs. Robinson
to the writer, "twenty years older when he came home that day than when
he went out." He sank into his chair like a person overcome with
weariness. He decided to abandon the water, and advised his sons to
venture no more about the rapids. Both his manner and appearance were
changed. Calm and deliberate before, he became thoughtful and serious
afterward. He had been borne, as it were, in the arms of a power so
mighty that its impress was stamped on his features and on his mind.
Through a slightly opened door he had seen a vision which awed and
subdued him. He became reverent in a moment. He grew venerable in an
hour.
Yet he had a strange, almost irrepressible, desire to make this voyage
immediately after the steamer was put on below the Falls. The wish was
only increased when the first _Maid of the Mist_ was superseded by the
new and stancher one. He insisted that the voyage could be made with
safety, and that it might be made a good pecuniary speculation.
He was a character--an original. Born on the banks of the Connecticut,
in the town of Springfield, Massachusetts, it was in the beautiful reach
of water which skirts that city that he acquired his love of aquatic
sports and exercises and his skill in them. He was nearly six feet in
stature, with light chestnut hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion. He
was a kind-hearted man, of equable temper, few words, cool, deliberate,
decided; lithe as a Gaul and gentle as a girl. It goes without saying
that he was a man of "undaunted courage." He had that calm, serene,
supreme equanimity of temperament which fear could not reach nor
disturb. He might have been, under right conditions, a quiet, willing
martyr, and at last he bore patiently the wearying hours of slow decay
which ended his life. His love of nature and adventure was paramount to
his love of money, and although he was never pinched with poverty, he
never had abundance.
He loved the water, and was at home in it or on it, as he was a capital
swimmer and a skillful oarsman. Especially he delighted in the rapids of
the Niagara. Kind and compassionate as he was by nature, he was almost
glad when he heard that a fellow-creature was, in some way, entangled in
the rapids, since it would give him an excuse, an opportunity, to work
in them and to help him. As he was not a boaster, he made no superfluous
exhibitions of his skill or courage, albeit he might occasionally
indulge--and be indulged--in some mirthful manifestation of his
good-nature; as when, on reaching Chapin's refuge for his rescue, he
waved from one of its tallest cedars a green branch to the anxious
spectators, as if to assure and encourage them; and when he returned
with his skiff half filled with cedar-sprigs, which he distributed to
the multitude, they raised his pet craft to their shoulders, with both
Chapin and himself in it, and bore them in triumph through the village,
while money tokens were thrown into the boat to replace the green ones.
He never foolishly challenged the admiration of his fellow-men. But when
the emergency arose for the proper exercise of his powers, when news
came that some one was in trouble in the river, then he went to work
with a calm and cheerful will which gave assurance of the best results.
Beneath his quiet deliberation of manner there was concealed a wonderful
vigor both of resolution and nerve, as was amply shown by the dangers
which he faced, and by the bend in his withy oar as he forced it through
the water, and the feathery spray which flashed from its blade when he
lifted it to the surface.
In all fishing and sailing parties his presence was indispensable for
those who knew him. The most timid child or woman no longer hesitated if
Robinson was to go with the party. His quick eye saw everything, and his
willing hand did all that it was necessary to do, to secure the comfort
and safety of the company.
It is doubtful whether more than a very few of his neighbors know where
he lies, in an unmarked grave in Oakwood Cemetery, near the rapids.
Robinson went forth on a turbulent, unreturning flood, where the
slightest hesitancy in thought or act would have proved instantly fatal.
Benevolent associations in different cities and countries bestow honor
and rewards on those who, by unselfish effort and a noble courage, save
the life of a fellow-being. This Robinson did repeatedly, yet no
monument commemorates his worthy deeds.
CHAPTER XII.
A fisherman and a bear in a canoe--Frightful experience with
floating ice--Early farming on the Niagara--Fruit growing--The
original forest--Testimony of the trees--The first hotel--General
Whitney--Cataract House--Distinguished visitors--Carriage road down
the Canadian bank--Ontario House--Clifton House--The Museum--Table
and Termination Rocks--Burning Spring--Lundy's Lane--Battle
Anecdotes.
Soon after the War of 1812, a fisherman--whose name we will call
Fisher--on a certain day went out upon the river, about three miles
above the Fall; and while anchored and fishing from his canoe, he saw a
bear in the water making, very leisurely, for Navy Island. Not
understanding thoroughly the nature and habits of the animal, thinking
he would be a capital prize, and having a spear in the canoe, he hoisted
anchor and started in pursuit. As the canoe drew near, the bear turned
to pay his respects to its occupant. Fisher, with his spear, made a
desperate thrust at him. Quicker and more deftly than the most expert
fencer could have done it, the quadruped parried the blow, and,
disarming his assailant, knocked the spear more than ten feet from the
canoe. Fisher then seized a paddle and belabored the bear over his head
and on his paws, as he placed the latter on the side of the canoe and
drew himself in. The now frightened fisherman, not knowing how to swim,
was in a most uncomfortable predicament. He felt greatly relieved,
therefore, when the animal deliberately sat himself down, facing him, in
the bow of the canoe. Resolving in his own mind that he would generously
resign the whole canoe to the creature as soon as he should reach the
land, he raised his paddle and began to pull vigorously shoreward,
especially as the rapids lay just below him, and the Falls were roaring
most ominously.
Much to his surprise, as soon as he began to paddle Bruin began to
growl, and, as he repeated his stroke, the occupant of the bow raised
his note of disapproval an octave higher, and at the same time made a
motion as if he would attack him. Fisher had no desire to cultivate a
closer intimacy, and so stopped paddling.
[Illustration: FISHER AND THE BEAR]
Bruin serenely contemplated the landscape in the direction of the
island. Fisher was also intensely interested in the same scene, and
still more intensely impressed with their gradual approach to the
rapids. He tried the paddle again. But the tyrant of the quarter-deck
again emphatically objected, and as _he_ was master of the situation,
and fully resolved not to resign the command of the craft until the
termination of the voyage, there was no alternative but submission.
Still, the rapids were frightfully near and something must be done. He
gave a tremendous shout. But Bruin was not in a musical mood, and vetoed
that with as much emphasis as he had done the paddling. Then he turned
his eyes on Fisher quite interestedly, as if he were calculating the
best method of dissecting him. The situation was fast becoming
something more than painful. Man and bear in opposite ends of the canoe
floating--not exactly double--but together to inevitable destruction.
But every suspense has an end. The single shout, or something else, had
called the attention of the neighbors to the canoe. They came to the
rescue, and an old settler, with a musket which he had used in the War
of 1812, fired a charge of buck-shot into Bruin which induced him to
take to the water, after which he was soon taken, captive and dead, to
the shore. He weighed over three hundred pounds.
A son of the settler who shot the bear had a frightful experience in the
river many years afterward. He was engaged in Canada in the business of
buying saw-logs for the American market. Coming from the woods down to
Chippewa one cold day in December, at a time when considerable
quantities of strong, thin cakes of ice were floating in the river, he
took a flat-bottom skiff to row across to his home. This he did without
apprehension, as he had been born and brought up on the banks of the
Niagara, understood it well, and was also a strong, resolute man.
As he drew near the foot of Navy Island, intending to take the chute
between it and Buckhorn Island, two large cakes between which he was
sailing suddenly closed together and cut the bottom of his skiff square
off. Just above the cake on which his bottomless skiff was then floating
there was a second large cake, at a little distance from it, and beyond
this a strip of water which washed the shore of Navy Island. In less
time than it has taken to write this, he sprang upon the first piece of
ice, ran across it with desperate speed, cleared the first space of
water at a single leap, ran across the next cake of ice, jumped with all
his might, and landed in the icy water within a rod of the shore, to
which he swam. He was soon after warming and drying himself before the
rousing fire of the only occupant of the island.
His father had a fine farm on the bank of the river, which he cultivated
with much care. But before the drainage of the country was completed the
land was decidedly wet. A friend from the East who made him a call found
him plowing. The water stood in the bottom of the furrows. But
agriculture has been progressive since those days. It is now almost a
fine art instead of a mere pursuit. And nowhere north of the equator is
there a climate and soil so genial and favorable for the growth of
certain kinds of fruit, especially the apple and the peach, as are those
of Niagara County. Many persons claim that they can tell from the
peculiar consistency of the pulp, and by its flavor and _bouquet_, on
which side of the Genesee River an apple is grown.
It is said that the winter apples of Niagara are as well known and as
greatly prized above all others of their kind on the docks of Liverpool,
as is Sea Island cotton above all other grades of that plant. The
delicious little russet known as the _Pomme Gris_, with its fine
aromatic flavor when ripe, grows nowhere else to such perfection as
along the Niagara River. In 1825, at the grand celebration held to
commemorate the completion of the Erie Canal, the late Judge Porter
made the first shipment east of apples raised in Niagara County. It
consisted of two barrels, one of which was sent to the corporation of
the city of Troy, and the other to that of New York. They were duly
received and honored. From this small beginning the fruit trade has
grown to the yearly value of more than a million of dollars for Niagara
County alone.
With reference to the forest which once covered this country, an
erroneous impression prevails as to its age. Poets and romancers have
been in the habit of speaking of these "primeval forests" as though they
might have been bushes when Nahor and Abraham were infants. But this is
a great error. Since the discovery of the country only one tree has been
found that was eight hundred years old. This is mentioned by Sir Charles
Lyell as having grown out of one of the ancient mounds near Marietta,
Ohio. But the great majority of them were not over three hundred years
old. The testimony of the trees concerning the past is not quite so
abundant as that of the rocks, but that of one tree grown in central New
York is of a remarkable character. It was a white oak, which grew in the
rich valley of the Clyde River, about one mile west of Lyons' Court
House, and was cut down in the year 1837. The body made a stick of
timber eighty feet long, which before sawing was about five feet in
diameter. It was cut into short logs and sawed up. From the center of
the butt-log was sawed a piece about eight by twelve inches. At the butt
end of this piece the saw laid bare, without marring them, some old
scars made by an ax or some other sharp instrument. These scars were
perfectly distinct and their character equally unmistakable. They were
made, apparently, when the young tree was about six inches in diameter.
Outside of these scars there were counted four hundred and sixty
distinct rings, each ring marking with unerring certainty one year's
growth of the tree. It follows that this chopping was done in 1374, or
one hundred and eighteen years before the first voyage of Columbus
across the Atlantic.
It has been questioned whether the rings shown in a cross-section of a
tree can be relied upon to determine truly the number of years it has
been growing. A singular confirmation of the correctness of this method
of counting was furnished some years since.
In the latter part of the last century the late Judge Porter surveyed a
large tract of land lying east of the Genesee River, known as "The
Gore." Some thirty-five years afterward it became necessary to resurvey
one of its lines, and recourse was had to the original surveys. Most of
the forest through which the first line had been run was cleared off,
and such trees as had been "blazed" as line-trees had overgrown the
scars. One tree was found which was declared to be an original
line-tree. On cutting into it carefully the old "blaze" was brought to
light, and on counting the rings outside of it, they were found to
correspond with the number of years which had elapsed since the first
survey.
One of the three small buildings at Niagara which escaped the flames of
1814 was a log-cabin, about thirty by forty feet in its dimensions,
that stood in the center of the front of the International block. In the
latter part of 1815 the inhabitants returned, and the late General P.
Whitney put a board addition to the log-house, and opened the first
hotel. From that has grown up the present International. The immediate
predecessor of the International was the Eagle Tavern, which was, for
some years, in charge of a genial and popular landlord, the late Mr.
Hollis White. It was formed by the addition to the old frame structure
of a three-story brick building, of moderate dimensions. Across the
front of this addition was a long, wide, old-fashioned stoop. This was
well supplied with comfortable arm-chairs, which furnished easy rests
for guests or neighbors, and were well patronized by both, and
especially during the summer season by the genial humorists of the
place. On the opposite side of the street was a small house, a story and
a half high, belonging to Judge Porter, and to which he built an
addition. Then, as now, there were occasionally more visitors than the
hotel could accommodate, and the neighbors assisted in entertaining
them. Judge Porter, did this frequently, and among his guests were
President Monroe, Marshal Grouchy, General La Fayette, General Brown,
General Scott, Judge Spencer, and other distinguished strangers.
The first building erected on the ground where the Cataract House now
stands was of a later date--1824--a frame house about fifty feet square.
It was purchased by General Whitney in 1826, and formed the nucleus of
the great pile which constitutes the present Cataract House.
In 1829, the carriage road down the bank to the ferry on the Canadian
side was made. For several years previous the principal hotel at the
Falls was also on that side. It was called the Pavilion, and stood on
the high bank just above the Horseshoe Fall. It commanded a grand view
of the river above, and almost a bird's-eye view of the Falls and the
head of the chasm below. The principal stage-route from Buffalo was
likewise on that side, and the register of the Pavilion contained the
names of most of the noted visitors of the period. But the erection of
the Cataract House and the establishing of stage-routes on the American
side drew away much of its patronage, and finally, on the completion of
the first half of the Clifton House, in 1833, it was quite abandoned. A
few years later the Ontario House was built, about half-way between the
Clifton and the Horseshoe Fall, toward which it fronted. There was not
sufficient business to support it, and after standing unoccupied for
several years, it took fire and was burned to the ground.
The Clifton was greatly enlarged and improved by Mr. S. Zimmerman in
1865. The Amusement Hall and several cottages were built and gas-works
erected. The grounds were handsomely graded and adorned.
Near the site of Table Rock is the Museum, its valuable collection being
the result of several years' labor by its proprietor, Mr. Thomas
Barnett. It contains several thousand specimens from the animal and
mineral kingdoms, and the galleries are arranged to represent a forest
scene.
Just above the Museum the visitor steps upon what remains of the famous
Table Rock. It was once a bare rock pavement, about fifteen rods long
and about five rods wide, about fifty feet of its width projecting
beyond its base at the bottom of the limestone stratum nearly one
hundred feet below. Remembering this fact, we can more readily credit
the probable truth of the statement made by Father Hennepin--which we
have before noticed--that the projection on the American side in 1682,
when he returned from his first tour to the West, was so great that four
coaches could drive abreast under it. On top of the _debris_ below the
bank lies the path by which Termination Rock, under the western end of
the Horseshoe, is reached. It is a path which few neglect to follow.
The Table itself has always been, and must continue to be, a favorite
resort for visitors. The combined view of the Falls and the chasm below,
as well as the rapids above, is finer, more extensive, here than from
any other point. Moreover, the nearness to the great cataract is more
sensibly felt, the communion with it is deeper and more intimate than it
can be anywhere else. The view from this point can be most pleasantly
and satisfactorily taken in the afternoon, when the spectator has the
sun behind him, and can look at his leisure and with unvexed eyes at the
brilliant scene before him. However long he may tarry he will find new
pleasure in each return to it.
Two miles above, following round the bend of the Oxbow toward Chippewa,
and down near the water's edge, is the Burning Spring. The water is
impregnated with sulphureted hydrogen gas, and is in a constant state
of mild ebullition. The gas is perpetually rising to the surface of the
water, and when a lighted match is applied it burns with an intermittent
flame. If, however, a tub with an iron tube in the center of its bottom
is placed over the spring, a constant stream of gas passes through it.
On being lighted it burns constantly, with a pale blue, wavering flame,
which possesses but little illuminating or heating power. The drive is a
pleasant one, affording a fine view of the Oxbow Rapids and islands and
the noble river above.
A mile and a quarter west of Table Rock is the Lundy's Lane
battle-ground. On the crown of the hill, where the severest struggle
occurred, are two rival pagodas challenging the tourist's attention.
From the top of each he has a rare outlook over a broad level plain,
relieved on its northern horizon by the top of Brock's Monument, and to
the south-east by the city of Buffalo and Lake Erie.
The obliging custodian of either tower will enlighten his hearers with
dextrous volubility, and, according as he is certain of the nationality
of his listeners, will the Stars and Stripes wave in triumph, or the
Cross of Saint George float in glory, over the bloody and hard-fought
field. If he cannot feel sure of his listeners' habitat, like Justice,
he will hold an even balance and be blind withal.
It was the writer's privilege to go over the field on a pleasant June
day with Generals Scott and Porter, and to learn from them its stirring
incidents. General Scott pointed out the location of the famous battery
on the British left which made such havoc with his brave brigade, and
in taking which the gallant Miller converted his modest "I'll try, sir,"
into a triumphant "It is done." The General also found the tree under
which, faint from his bleeding wound, he sat down to rest, placing its
protecting boll between his back and the British bullets, as he leaned
against it. Plucking a small wild flower growing near it, he presented
it to one of the ladies of the party, telling her that "it grew in soil
once nourished by his blood."
General Porter showed us where, with his volunteers and Indians, he
broke through the woods on the British right, just as Miller had
captured the troublesome battery, thus aiding to win the most obstinate
and bloody fight of the war. Its hard-won trophies, however, were too
easily lost, as, by some misunderstanding or neglect of orders, the
proper guard around the field was not maintained, and, in the darkness
proverbially intense just before day, the British returned to the field
and quietly removed most of the guns. So our English friends claim it
was a drawn battle.
Nearly half a century later a dinner was given at Queenston by our
Canadian friends, to signalize the completion of the Lewiston Suspension
Bridge. On this occasion a British-Canadian officer, the late Major
Woodruff, of St. David's, who served with his regiment during the war,
was called upon by the chairman, the late Sir Allan McNabb, to follow,
in response to a toast, the late Colonel Porter, only son of General
Porter. In a mirthful reference to the stirring events of the war he
alluded to the British retreat after the battle of Chippewa, and
condensing the opposing forces into two personal pronouns, one
representing General Porter and the other himself, he turned to Colonel
Porter and said: "Yes, sir, I remember well the _moving_ events of that
day, and how sharp he was after me. But, sir, he was balked in his
purpose, for although he won the _victory_ I won the _race_, and so we
were even."
CHAPTER XIII.
Incidents--Fall of Table Rock--Remarkable phenomenon in the
river--Driving and lumbering on the Rapids--Points of the compass
at the Falls--A first view of the Falls commonly
disappointing--Lunar bow--Golden spray--Gull Island and the
gulls--The highest water ever known at the Falls--The Hermit of the
Falls.
Of incidents, curious, comic, and tragic, connected with the locality
the catalogue is long, but we must make our recital of them brief.
We have before referred to Professor Kalm's notice of the fall of a
portion of Table Rock previous to 1750. Authentic accounts of like
events are the following: In 1818 a mass one hundred and sixty feet long
by thirty wide; in 1828 and '29 two smaller masses; also in 1828 there
went down in the center of the Horseshoe a huge mass, of which the top
area was estimated at half an acre. If this estimate was correct, it
would show an abrasion equivalent to nearly one foot from the whole
surface of the Canadian Fall. In April, 1843, a mass of rock and earth
about thirty-five feet long and six feet wide fell from the middle of
Goat Island. In 1847, just north of the Biddle Stairs, there was a slide
of bowlders, earth, and gravel, with a small portion of the bed-rock,
the whole mass being about forty feet long and ten feet wide. About
every third return of spring has increased the abrasion at these two
points. At the first-named point more than twenty feet in width has
disappeared, with the whole of the road crossing the island. From the
latter point, near the Biddle Stairs, which was a favorite one for
viewing the Horseshoe Fall, the seats provided for visitors and the
trees which shaded them have fallen.
[Illustration: FALL OF TABLE ROCK]
On the 25th of June, 1850, occurred the great downfall which reduced
Table Rock to a narrow bench along the bank. The portion which fell was
one immense solid rock two hundred feet long, sixty feet wide, and one
hundred feet deep where it separated from the bank. The noise of the
crash was heard like muffled thunder for miles around. Fortunately it
fell at noonday, when but few people were out, and no lives were lost.
The driver of an omnibus, who had taken off his horses for their midday
feed, and was washing his vehicle, felt the preliminary cracking and
escaped, the vehicle itself being plunged into the gulf below.
In 1850, a canal-boat that became detached from a raft, went down the
Canadian Rapids, turned broadside across the river before reaching the
Falls, struck amidships against a rock projecting up from the bottom and
lodged. It remained there more than a year, and when it went down took
with it a piece of the rock apparently about ten feet wide and forty
feet long. At the foot of Goat Island some smaller masses have fallen,
and three extensive earth-slides have occurred.
In the spring of 1852 a triangular mass, the vertex of which was just
beyond or south of the Terrapin Tower, while its altitude of more than
forty feet lay along the shore of the south corner of Goat Island, fell
in the night with the usual grinding crash. And with it fell some
isolated rocks which lay on the brink of the precipice in front of the
tower, and from which the tower derived its name. Before the tower was
built, some person looking at the rocks from the shore suggested that
they looked like huge terrapins sunning themselves on the edge of the
Fall. A few days after the fall of the triangular mass, a huge column of
rock a hundred feet high, about fourteen feet by twelve, and flat on the
top, became separated from the bank and settled down perpendicularly
until its top was about ten feet below the surface rock. It stood thus
about four years, when it began gradually to settle, as the shale and
stone were disintegrated beneath it, and finally it tumbled over upon
the rocks below, furnishing an illustration of the manner in which we
suppose the rocks which once accumulated below the Whirlpool must have
been broken down. In the spring of 1871 a portion of the west side of
the sharp angle of the Horseshoe, apparently about ten by thirty feet,
went down, producing a decided change in the curve.
On the 7th day of February, 1877, about eleven o'clock of a cold, cloudy
day, there occurred the most extensive abrasion of the Horseshoe Fall
ever noted. It extended from near the water's edge at Table Rock, more
than half the distance round the curve, some fifteen hundred feet, and
at the most salient angle the mass that fell was from fifty to one
hundred feet wide. By this downfall the contour of the Horseshoe was
decidedly changed, the reentering angle being made acute and very
ragged. Less than three months afterward the abrasion was continued some
two hundred feet toward Goat Island.
The trembling earth and muffled thunder gave evidence of the immensity
of the mass of fallen rock, but no one saw it go down. For several
months after the fall, until the mass of rock got thoroughly settled in
the bed of the Falls, the exhibition of water-rockets, sent up a hundred
feet above the top of the precipice, was unique and beautiful. The
greatest angle of retrocession, which had previously been wearing toward
Goat Island, is again turning toward the center of the stream.
On the 29th of March, 1848, the river presented a remarkable phenomenon.
There is no record of a similar one, nor has it been observed since. The
winter had been intensely cold, and the ice formed on Lake Erie was very
thick. This was loosened around the shores by the warm days of the early
spring. During the day, a stiff easterly wind moved the whole field up
the lake. About sundown, the wind chopped suddenly round and blew a gale
from the west. This brought the vast tract of ice down again with such
tremendous force that it filled in the neck of the lake and the outlet,
so that the outflow of the water was very greatly impeded. Of course, it
only needed a short space of time for the Falls to drain off the water
below Black Rock.
The consequence was that, when we arose in the morning at Niagara, we
found our river was nearly half gone. The American channel had dwindled
to a respectable creek. The British channel looked as though it had been
smitten with a quick consumption, and was fast passing away. Far up from
the head of Goat Island and out into the Canadian rapids the water was
gone, as it was also from the lower end of Goat Island, out beyond the
tower. The rocks were bare, black, and forbidding. The roar of Niagara
had subsided almost to a moan. The scene was desolate, and but for its
novelty and the certainty that it would change before many hours, would
have been gloomy and saddening. Every person who has visited Niagara
will remember a beautiful jet of water which shoots up into the air
about forty rods south of the outer Sister in the great rapids, called,
with a singular contradiction of terms, the "Leaping Rock." The writer
drove a horse and buggy from near the head of Goat Island out to a point
above and near to that jet. With a log-cart and four horses, he drew
from the outside of the outer island a stick of pine timber hewed twelve
inches square and forty feet long. From the top of the middle island was
drawn a still larger stick, hewed on one side and sixty feet long.
There are few places on the globe where a person would be less likely to
go lumbering than in the rapids of Niagara, just above the brink of the
Horseshoe Fall. All the people of the neighborhood were abroad,
exploring recesses and cavities that had never before been exposed to
mortal eyes. The writer went some distance up the shore of the river.
Large fields of the muddy bottom were laid bare. The shell-fish, the
uni-valves, and the bi-valves were in despair. Their housekeeping and
domestic arrangements were most unceremoniously exposed. The clams, with
their backs up and their open mouths down in the mud, were making their
sinuous courses toward the shrunken stream. The small-fry of fishes were
wriggling in wonder to find themselves impounded in small pools.
This singular syncope of the waters lasted all the day, and night closed
over the strange scene. But in the morning our river was restored in all
its strength and beauty and majesty, and we were glad to welcome its
swelling tide once more.
It is a curious fact that nine out of every ten persons who visit the
Falls for the first time, are on their arrival completely bewildered as
to the points of the compass; and this without reference to the
direction from which they may approach them. All understand the general
geographical fact that Canada lies north of the United States. Hence
they naturally suppose, when they arrive at the frontier, that they must
see Canada to the north of them. But when they reach Niagara Falls they
look across the river into Canada, in one direction directly south, and
in another directly west. Only a reference to the map will rectify the
erroneous impression. It is corrected at once by remembering that the
Niagara River empties into the south side of Lake Ontario.
One other fact may be regarded as well-established, namely, that most
visitors are disappointed when they first look upon the Falls. They are
not immediately and forcibly impressed by the scene, as they had
expected to be. The reasons for this are easily explained. The chief
one is that the visitor first sees the Falls from a point above them.
Before seeing them, he reads of their great height; he expects to look
up at them and behold the great mass of water falling, as it were, from
the sky. He reads of the trembling earth; of the cloud of spray, that
may be seen a hundred miles away; of the thunder of the torrent, and of
the rainbows. He does not consider that these are occasional facts. He
may not know he is near the Falls until he gets just over them. At
certain times he feels no trembling of the earth; he hears no stunning
roar; he may see the spray scattered in all directions by the wind, and
of course he will see no bow. Naturally, he is disappointed. But it is
not long before the grand reality begins to break upon him, and every
succeeding day and hour of observation impresses him more and more
deeply with the vastness, the power, the sublimity of the scene, and the
wonderful and varied beauty of its surroundings. Those who spend one or
more seasons at Niagara know how very little can be seen or comprehended
by those who "stop over one train."
[Illustration: ROCK OF AGES AND WHIRLWIND BRIDGE]
They are fortunate who can see the Falls first from the ferry-boat on
the river below, and about one-third of the way across from the American
shore. The writer has frequently tried the experiment with friends who
were willing to trust themselves, with closed eyes, to his guidance, and
wait until he had given them the signal to look upward.
Those who may be at Niagara a few nights before and after a full moon
should not fail to go to Goat Island to see the lunar bow. It is the
most unreal of all real things--a thing of weird and shadowy beauty.
Another striking scene peculiar to the locality is witnessed in the
autumn, when the sun in making its annual southing reaches a point
which, at the sunset hour, is directly west from the Falls. Then those
who are east of them see the spray illuminated by the slant rays of the
sinking sun. In the calm of the hour and the peculiar atmosphere of the
season, the majestic cloud looks like the spray of molten gold.
In 1840 there was a small patch of stones, gravel, sand, and earth,
called Gull Island, lying near the center of the Canadian rapid and
about one hundred rods above the Horseshoe Fall. It was apparently
twenty rods long by two rods wide, and was covered with a growth of
willow bushes. It was so named because it was a favorite resort of that
singular combination of the most delicate bones and lightest feathers
called a gull.
The birds seem large and awkward on the wing, but as they sit upon the
water nothing can appear more graceful. They are far-sighted and
keen-scented. Their eyes are marvels of beauty. They are eccentric in
their habits, the very Arabs of their race--here to-day and gone
to-morrow. They are gregarious and often assemble in large numbers. At
times in a series of wild, rapid, devious gyrations, and uttering a low,
mournful murmur, they seem to be engaged, as it were, in some solemn
festival commemorative of their departed kindred. One moment the air
will be filled with them and their sad refrain; the next moment the cry
will have ceased and not a gull will be seen. They come as they go,
summer and winter alike. In thirty years the writer has never been able
to discover when nor whence they came. In winter they generally appear
in the milder days, and their disappearance is followed by cooler
weather.
In the spring of 1847 a long and fierce gale from the west, which drove
the water down Lake Erie, caused the highest rise ever known in the
river. It rose six feet on the rapids, and for the first time reached
the floor-planking of the old bridge. The greater part of Gull Island
was washed down in this flood, and ten years later it had wholly
disappeared.
The vague tradition--the origin of which cannot be traced--that there is
a flux and reflux of the waters in the Great Lakes, which embraces a
period of about seven years, is not confirmed by our observation, if it
be intended to affirm that the ebb and flow are both completed in seven
years. Our observation shows that there is a flow of about seven years,
and a reflux, which is accomplished in the same period. The water in the
Niagara was very low in 1843-4, again in 1857-8, and again in 1871-2.
This last is the lowest long continued shrinkage ever known. It is,
however, altogether probable that the general level of the lakes will
fall hereafter, owing to the destruction of the forests and the
cultivation of the land along their shores. In this case the waters of
the Niagara and Detroit rivers may, in the far future, meet in the bed
of Lake Erie, and their margins be covered with orchards and vineyards
more extensive and productive than those along the Rhine.
The Hermit of the Falls, so called, Mr. Francis Abbott, came to the
village in June, 1829. He was a rather good-looking, respectable young
man, of moderate attainments, who was subject, apparently, to a mild
form of intermittent derangement. Though his manner was eccentric, his
conduct was harmless, and it is probable that his parents, who, it was
afterward ascertained, were respectable members of the Society of
Friends in England, encouraged his desire to travel, and furnished him
the means to do so. He seems to have had some taste for music, and to
have been a tolerable performer on the flute. He wandered much about the
island, both night and day, and often bathed below the little fall on
the south side of Goat Island, near its head. He lived alone in an
unoccupied log-hut, directly across the island from this fall, until
about the first of April, 1831, when he removed to a little cabin of his
own building, on Point View. In June of that year, just two years after
his arrival, he was drowned while bathing below the ferry. Ten days
after, his body was found at Fort Niagara, brought back, and buried in
the God's-acre at the Falls.
CHAPTER XIV.
Avery's descent of the Falls--The fatal practical joke--Death of
Miss Rugg--Swans--Eagles--Crows--Ducks over the Falls--Why dogs
have survived the descent.
On the morning of the 19th of July, 1853, a man was discovered in the
middle of the American rapid, about thirty rods below the bridge. He was
clinging to a log, which the previous spring had lodged against a rock.
He proved to be a Mr. Avery, who had undertaken to cross the river above
the night before, but, getting bewildered in the current, was drawn into
the rapids. His boat struck the log, and was overturned, yet, by some
extraordinary good fortune, he was able to hold to the timber. A large
crowd soon gathered on the shore and bridge. A sign, painted in large
letters, "We will save you," was fastened to a building, that the
reading of it might cheer and encourage him. Boats and ropes were
provided, with willing hands to use them. The first boat lowered into
the rapids filled and sank just before reaching Avery. The next, a
life-boat, which had been procured from Buffalo, was let down, reached
the log, was dashed off by the reacting waters, upset, and sank beside
him. Another light, clinker-built boat was launched, and reached him
just right. But, in some unaccountable manner, the rope got caught
between the rock and the log. It was impossible to loosen it. Poor
Avery tugged and worked at it with almost superhuman energy for hours.
The citizens above pulled at the rope until it broke.
By this time a raft had been constructed, with a strong cask fastened to
each corner, and ropes attached so that Avery could tie himself to it.
It was lowered, and reached him safely. He got on it and seized the
ropes. Every heart grew lighter as the rescuers moved across the lower
part of Bath Island, drawing in the rope, while the raft swung easily
toward Goat Island. But when it reached the head of Chapin's Island, all
hopes were dashed again. The rope attached to the raft got caught in the
rocks as it was passing below a ledge in a swift chute of water. All
efforts to loosen it were ineffectual. Another boat was launched and let
down-stream. It reached the raft all right, and Avery, in his eagerness
to seize it, dropped the ropes he had been holding, stepped to the edge
of the raft, with his hands extended to catch the boat, when the raft,
under his weight, settled in the water, and, just missing his hold, he
was swept into the rapids, went down the north side of Chapin's Island,
and, almost in reach of it, in water so shallow that he regained his
feet for an instant, threw up his hands in despair, fell backward, and
went over the Fall. The tragedy lasted eighteen hours.
The names connected with the next incident are suppressed, out of regard
for the feelings of surviving friends. It is given as a warning to
future visitors to Niagara not to attempt any mirthful experiments
around the Falls. A party of ladies, gentlemen, and children were on
Luna Island, near a small beech tree, since destroyed, called "the
Parasol." A young girl of ten was standing near her mother, just on the
brink of the water, when a young man of twenty-two stepped up beside her
and seized her playfully by the arms, saying, "Now, Nannie, I am going
to throw you in," and swung her out over the water. Taken by surprise
and frightened, she struggled, twisted herself out of his grasp, and
fell into the rapid within twenty feet of the brink of the precipice.
Instantly the young man plunged in after her, seized hold of her dress,
and swung her around toward her half-distracted mother, who almost
reached her as she slipped by and went over the Fall, immediately
followed by the young man. The young girl was found some days afterward,
lying on her back, on a large rock, holding her open parasol above her
head, as though she had lain down to rest. A few weeks afterward the
father of the young man was coming up the river, on the _Maid of the
Mist_, from the lower landing. A body was discovered floating in the
water, and, by the aid of a small boat, was brought on board the
steamer. It was that of his son.
On the 23d of August, 1844, Miss Martha K. Rugg was walking to Table
Rock with a friend. Seeing a bunch of cedar-berries on a low tree, which
grew out from the edge of the bank, she left her companion, reached out
to pick it, lost her footing, and fell one hundred and fifteen feet upon
the rocks below. She survived about three hours. Pilgrims to Table Rock
used to inquire for the spot where this accident happened. The following
spring, an enterprising Irishman brought out a table of suitable
dimensions, set it down on the bank of the river, and covered it with
different articles, which he offered for sale. In order to enlighten
strangers about the spot, he provided a remarkable sign, which he set up
near one end of the table. This sign was a monumental obelisk, about
five feet high, made of pine boards, and painted white. On the base he
painted, in black letters, the following inscription:
"Ladies fair, most beauteous of the race,
Beware and shun a dangerous place.
Miss Martha Rugg here lost a life,
Who might now have been a happy wife."
An envious competitor, one of his own countrymen, brought his own table
of wares, and placed it just above the original mourner. Thereupon, the
latter, determining that his rival should not have the benefit of his
sign, removed it below his own table, having first removed the table
itself as far down as circumstances would permit. Then he added his
master-stroke of policy. Up to that time the monument had been
stationary. Thenceforward, every day on quitting business he put it on a
wheelbarrow and took it home, bringing it out again on resuming
operations in the morning.
Previous to the War of 1812, the Niagara River abounded in swans, wild
geese, and ducks. Since that war none of the swans have been seen here,
except two pair which came at different times. One of each pair went
over the Falls, and was taken out alive but stunned. Their mates,
faithful unto death, were shot while watching and waiting for their
return.
Eagles have always been seen in the vicinity, and a few have been
captured. A single pair for many years had their aerie in the top of a
huge dead sycamore tree, near the head of Burnt Ship Bay. It was
interesting to watch the flight of the male bird when he left his
brooding mate to go on a foraging expedition. Leaving the topmost limb
that served as his home observatory, he would sweep round in a circle,
forming the base of a regular spiral curve, in which he rose to any
desired height. Then, having apparently determined by scent or sight, or
by both, the direction he would take, he sailed grandly off. How
grandly, too, on his return, he floated to his lofty perch with a single
fold of his great wings, and sat for a few moments, motionless as a
statue, before greeting his mate. When the young eaglets had but
recently chipped their shells, passing sportsmen were content to view
the majestic pair at a respectful distance. A pair of eagles, each
carrying ten talons, a hooked beak, a strong pair of wings, and an
unerring eye, all backed and propelled by an indomitable will and
courage, are not to be recklessly trifled with.
Early in July, 1877, two farmers riding in a buggy from Bergholtz, in
the easterly part of the town of Niagara, toward the town of Wilson on
Lake Ontario, saw a large gray eagle sitting on a fence by the roadside,
and watching with much interest some object in a field beyond. Leaving
their buggy, they ascertained that the object of its solicitude was an
eaglet sitting on the ground, unable to fly, his wings and feathers
having been drenched by a heavy shower. One of the men who first reached
the young bird found it rather bellicose, and while attempting to
secure it was surprised by a vigorous thump on the head from the old
bird, accompanied with a sensation of sharp claws in his hair which
nearly prostrated him. His assailant then rose quickly some forty feet
in the air, and, turning again, descended upon the man with such force
as to compel him to relinquish his game. His friend joined him, and for
nearly half an hour the two were engaged in a fierce fight with the
resolute bird, which they estimated would measure eight feet across the
extended wings. The eagle would soar quickly upward as at first until it
reached the desired range, when it would turn upon them with great
fierceness, thumping with its wings and striking with its talons at
their very faces. Finally, securing a number of good-sized
cobble-stones, they advanced again upon the eaglet, and were at once
attacked by the parent. But they used their stone artillery with vigor,
and succeeded in getting the eaglet to their buggy, leaving its gallant
defender still unconquered and soaring in the air with a slightly
injured wing.
Before the War of the Rebellion, Niagara was a favorite resort of that
winged scavenger, the crow, and, at times, they were very numerous. But
after the first year of the war they entirely disappeared. Snuffing the
battle from afar, they turned instinctively to the South, and did not
re-appear among us until several years after the war had ended.
Large numbers of ducks formerly went over the Falls, but not for the
reason generally assigned, namely, that they cannot rise out of the
rapids. It is true that they cannot rise from the water while heading
up-stream. When they wish to do so, they turn down the current, and
sail out without difficulty. No sound and living duck ever went over the
precipice by daylight. Dark and especially foggy nights are most fatal
to them. In the month of September, 1841, four hundred ducks were picked
up below the Falls, that had gone over in the fog of the previous night.
In two instances, dogs have been sent over the Falls and have survived
the plunge. In 1858 a bull-terrier was thrown into the rapids, also near
the middle of the bridge. In less than an hour he came up the
ferry-stairs, very wet and not at all gay.
The reason why the dogs were not killed may be thus explained. From the
top of the Rapids Tower, before its destruction, the spectator could get
a perfect view of the Canadian Fall. On a bright day, by looking
steadily at the bottom of the Horseshoe, where water falls into water,
he could see, as the spray was occasionally removed, a beautiful
exhibition of water-cones, apparently ten or twelve feet high. These are
formed by the rapid accumulation and condensation of the falling water.
It pours down so rapidly and in such quantities that the water below, so
to speak, cannot run off fast enough, and it piles up as though it were
in a state of violent ebullition. These cones are constantly forming and
breaking. If any strong animal should fall upon one of these cones, as
upon a soft cushion, it might slide safely into the current below. The
dogs were, doubtless, fortunate enough to fall in this way, aided also
by the repulsion of the water from the rocks in the swift channel
through which they passed.
CHAPTER XV.
Wedding tourists at the Falls--Bridges to the Moss Islands--Railway
at the ferry--List of persons who have been carried over the
Falls--Other accidents.
For many years Niagara has been a favorite resort for bridal tourists,
who in a crowd of strangers can be so excessively proper that every one
else can see how charmingly improper they are.
The three fine, graceful bridges which unite Goat Island with the three
smaller islands--the Moss Islands, or the Three Sisters--lying south of
it were built in 1858. They opened up a new and attractive feature of
the locality, with which all visitors are charmed. Those who have been
on them will remember what a broken, wild, tangled mass of rocks, wood,
and vines they are. Nothing on Onalaska's wildest shore could be more
thoroughly primitive.
[Illustration: THE THREE SISTERS OR MOSS ISLANDS]
A rude path with steps cut in the slope of the bank was for several
years the only way of getting down to the water's edge at the ferry. In
1825 several flights of stairs were erected, with good paths between,
which made the task quite safe and easy. The double railway-track at the
ferry was completed in 1845. When the necessary excavations were nearly
finished, and people were told the object of it, the scheme met no
approval from those conservative persons who have no faith in new
things. The idea of a railway "to go by water" was not considered a
brilliant one. Indeed, the greater number shrugged their shoulders at
the thought of riding down _that_ hill. But as soon as the lumber cars
were started for the convenience of the workmen, and people saw how
expeditious and easy was the trip, it was difficult to keep them off the
cars. Hundreds of thousands of passengers have ridden in them without
accident or injury. The motive power is a reaction waterwheel set in a
deep pit, and as all the machinery is concealed, it has quite the
appearance of a self-working apparatus. There is alongside of the
railroad a straight stair-way of two hundred and ninety steps, for those
who prefer to use it.
The number of victims whom carelessness or folly has sent over the Falls
is large, and, it may be believed, is quite independent of the Indian
tradition that the great cataract demands a yearly sacrifice of two
human victims.
OVER THE FALLS.
In 1810 the boat _Independence_, laden with salt, filled and sunk while
crossing to Chippewa. The captain and two of the crew went over the
Falls. One of the crew clung to a large oar, and was saved by a small
boat from Chippewa.
1821 Two men in a scow were driven down the current by the wind, and
went over the Falls.
1825 Two men in a boat from Grand Island went over.
--Three me
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