CO
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ELECTRIC-
B^- PETER- A- PORTER*-
CHARLES -D -ARMCUD-
-I?
MAP OF THE NIAGARA RIVER.
4
Below Ti.lr Wat.rr
400 Ict-t.
Below TiJc Water
4 10 feet.
Lake Superior
HMO fti-t deep.
Sault St.Marie
Lake jtiirliiguiL
JOOO feet deep.
Below Ti.le Water /jP
Lake Huron
1000 feet deep.
Below Tide Water
268 feet.
Above Tide Water
530 feet.
Above Tide Water
484 feet.
Lake St. Glair
•20 feet deep.
Lake Erie
84 feet deep.
Niagara River
336 feet.
Lake Ontario
500 feet deep.
Above Tide Water
232 fcet.
'TideWater
DEPTHS OF THE GREAT LAKES.
-OFFICIAL-GV1DE:
NIAGARA
FALLS-RIVER'FRONTIER
SCENIC BOIANIC ELECTRIC-
•HISTORIC- GEOLOGIC
HmAVLIC ^
•f
-Vf- PETER- A PORTERr
WITH lUVSTRAnONS EB^
CHARLES D -ARNOLD
Copyright, 1901, by
Peter A. Porter and Chas. D. Arnold.
ECTRCN1C VERSION
AVAILAB16
, QL-lAV
AVAlLABlfi The Matthews- Northrup Works,
Buffalo, N. Y.
CONTENTS.
Map of Niagara River, 4
Map showing Depths of Great Lakes, 5
Contents, 9
Summary of trip suggested at Niagara, n
Expense of trip suggested at Niagara 12
New York State Reservation at Niagara, and Queen
Victoria Niagara Falls Park, 13
Transportation to, and charges at, points of interest at
Niagara, 15
Map showing territory usually embraced in the term
Scenic Niagara, and covering the itinerary suggested, 16
This Guide, 18
Descriptive, 21
To the Visitor, ! . . . 27
Scenic Niagara, 31
New York State Reservation at Niagara, embrac-
ing Goat Island, Green Island, Stedman's Bluff,
American Rapids and Fall, Luna Island, Biddle
Stairs, Slope below Goat Island, Cave of the Winds,
Porter's Bluff, Terrapin Rocks, Views of Canadian
Rapids and Fall, and of the Gorge, the Three Sister
Islands, Parting of the Waters and the Spring ;
Prospect Park, Prospect Point, Hennepin's View, the
.Inclined Railway, Rocks at the foot of the American
Fall ; River Bank for half a mile above Goat Is-
land Bridge, with views of the upper river.
Trip across the Gorge on Upper Steel Arch
Bridge to Canada. .,-;„
Queen Victoria Park in Canada, embracinig;<).ld
Table Rock, The Dufferin Islands, Views of Ameri-
can Rapids and Fall, and Canadian Rapids and
Fall, and of the Gorge.
Trip on top of Bank, Canada, by Electric Rail-
road, to Queenston, showing views of Whirlpool
Rapids, Whirlpool, Preglacial Outlet of the River,
Lower Rapids four miles long, the entire Gorge,
Brock's Monument, and view from top of Mountain.
Trip across the river on Suspension Bridge back
to American side.
Return trip by Electric Road, along the water's
edge, in the Gorge, American side, with views of
Lower Rapids four miles long, Devils Hole, Whirl-
pool, Whirlpool Rapids, the entire Gorge, the four
bridges that span the Gorge, passing beneath
three of them, and remarkable views of the Falls
and Gorge as the car ascends the face of the Cliff.
Trip on the Steamer " Maid of the Mist."
The famous Power House of the Niagara Falls
Power Co.
Historic Niagara, 184
The name Niagara ; the Niagara River ; the
Falls themselves ; the Falls first seen by white
men ; Indian occupation of this territory ; brief
history of the Frontier ; points of historic interest «
along the Niagara River.
Geologic Niagara, 250
Botanic Niagara, 265
Hydraulic Niagara, 271
Electric Niagara, 271
Niagara in Literature, 278
Niagara in Art, 295
ROUTE AND POINTS OF INTEREST,
RECOMMENDED FOR A BRIEF YET COMPARATIVELY
THOROUGH TRIP AT NIAGARA.
NOTE. — If any long stops are made or points of interest visited be-
yond those indicated herein, it is improbable that the complete trip
recommended can be finished in one day.
TRACE THIS TRIP OUT ON THE MAP,
In the Morning.
Prospect Point;
Goat Island Bridge and Green Island;
Goat Island;
Down the steps and to Luna Island;
The Cave of the Winds;
Terrapin Rocks at Brink of Horseshoe Fall;
Three Sister Islands;
Upper end of Goat Island;
Across Goat Island Bridge to main shore, and up the
river bank, on the American Shore.
In the Afternoon.
Get on an electric car at the Soldiers' Monument ; buy a
$i Belt Line Ticket ; ride over the Steel Arch Bridge and up
to Horseshoe Fall on the Canadian side ; get out and study
the scene ; buy ticket to Dufferin Islands and return via
electric cars; ride to Dufferin Islands ; get out and view
them ; return to Horseshoe Fall.
On $i ticket already bought, ride on electric car to
Queenston (seven miles) ; over Suspension Bridge to Ameri-
can side ; and up the Gorge on Electric Railroad, by water's
edge, back to the Tower.
Prospect Point ; down Inclined Railway ; Trip on
Steamer "Maid of the Mist" ; by Inclined Railway to top
of Bank.
Walk to Soldiers' Monument near Tower ; thence by elec-
tric car to Power House.
The Power House.
ii
EXPENSE REQUIRED TO SEE NIAGARA
THOROUGHLY, QUICKLY AND ECONOMICALLY,
ACCORDING TO THE ROUTE RECOM-
MENDED IN THIS GUIDE.
AT NIAGARA,
FOR A ONE-DAY TRIP.
Morning.
Van service around Goat Island $0.15
Trip through Cave of the Winds, while seeing Goat
Island, i.oo
Van service up the American Shore, ...... .10
Afternoon.
Electric Railroad. Buy Belt Line trip ticket. This
takes one from the Soldiers' Monument over upper
Steel Arch Bridge to Canada, up to Horseshoe Fall,
from there down to Queenston (eight miles) ; over
Suspension Bridge to American side and along
water's edge up the Gorge back to the Soldiers'
Monument. Privilege of stopping off at any points
desired, ^. i.oo
When at Horseshoe Fall, buy electric railroad ticket to
Dufferin Islands (upstream) and return, .... .15
Then resume trip on Belt Line ticket already pur-
chased.
Inclined Railway, New York State Reservation, . . .10
Trip on Steamer " Maid of the Mist," .50
Electric Car to Power House, .05
The Power House to the Gallery, ....... .10
Total $3.15
Whoever follows this route and visits the points of inter-
est suggested can feel that he has seen Niagara as thoroughly
as it can be seen in one day.
12
FREE NIAGARA.
. j. .
THE NEW YORK STATE RESERVATION AT NIAGARA
AND THE QUEEN VICTORIA NIAGARA
FALLS PARK.
The visitor should bear in mind that "Niagara is free
to the world."
Niagara to-day, the Falls, the Rapids above and below
them, the Goat Island Group, the Gorge and the Whirlpool
are substantially the same that they have been for hundreds
of years. But the last fifteen years have made a new
Niagara for sight-seers.
By the establishment on the American side, in 1885, of
the New York State Reservation at Niagara, which cost a
million and a half of dollars, and embraces 114 acres, includ-
ing the Goat Island Group, Prospect Park, and a strip of land
along the river bank, extending upstream for about half a
mile above the commencement of the Rapids, the New York
side of Niagara, which is the larger, more important and
more accessible portion, was made free forever to all mankind.
Similarly, the opening of the Queen Victoria Niagara
Falls Park, in 1888, on the Canada side, which comprises 154
acres, and cost nearly half a million dollars, made the lands
at the Falls, and for a mile both above and below them,
on that shore, accessible to all without pay.
So, now, Niagara Falls, the grandest sight on earth, the
rapids above them, and the gorge below them, can be
viewed, studied, and enjoyed by all, both from the American
and from the Canadian shores, and without expense.
On each Reservation, however, there are certain extra
but desirable facilities provided for visitors who may desire
to patronize them, and for these certain fees are charged.
These facilities are either transportation or special trips in-
volving outlay on the part of the lessees, and are therefore
facilities which it is obviously no part of the duty of either
Government to furnish free.
13
These expenses on these two Reservations are not neces-
sary to enable one to see Niagara, or even to see it well ;
but they are really essential for any one who would see it
thoroughly, for without incurring them certain glorious views
and unique experiences are absolutely unobtainable.
On the New York State Reservation these fees are :
A Van Service, charge for the entire tour of the Res-
ervation, with privilege of stop offs, $0.25
Guide and dress for trip to the Cave of the Winds, . i.oo
The stairs to the slope below are free.
The Inclined Railway at Prospect Park, up and down, .10
The stairs are free.
Trip on the Steamer " Maid of the Mist," .... .50
In the Canadian Park these charges are :
Electric Railway, according to distance.
Trip down the elevator and with guide and dress, be-
hind the end of the sheet of water, .50
The Inclined Railway, up and down the bank to the
Steamer " Maid of the Mist," .10
The road down the bank is free.
Trip on Steamer " Maid of the Mist," the same as
that noted on the American side, ^. .50
A toll for each carriage going to the Dufferin Islands.
To view Niagara is one thing, to really "see" it is quite
another ; while to study it, comprehend it, and enjoy it, re-
quires time for leisurely sight-seeing.
The building of the various electric railroads hereabouts
have made travel, both at Niagara and to its environs,
rapid and cheap, and has also made accessible many, until
then unknown, views of its scenery.
Whoever visits Niagara and follows the itinerary herein
recommended can feel with certainty that, if he stays but a
day, he has seen it as thoroughly and as economically as it
can possibly be done in that limited time.
14
TRANSPORTATION TO AND CHARGES
AT THE VARIOUS POINTS OF
INTEREST AT NIAGARA.
For the large majority of people who spend but a short
time, say one day, at the Falls, the route given in this Guide
will enable them, if they follow it closely, to see Niagara
pretty thoroughly, and at a known and reasonable expense,
in that time.
But for the information of persons who desire to spend a
longer time at Niagara, visiting two or three of the points of
interest each day, and making trips to places of scenic or
historic interest, which are not included in the itinerary
herein suggested, transportation rates to, and admission fees
charged at, all the usually visited points of interest here-
abouts are appended.
These points include all those mentioned in the route
recommended herein, as well as others.
ON THE AMERICAN SIDE.
IN THE NEW YORK STATE RESERVATION.
The Cave of the Winds, within walking distance, or
reached by van service on Goat Island, .... $1.00
Inclined Railway in Prospect Park, within short walk-
ing distance .10
Trip on steamer "Maid of the Mist," reached by In-
clined Railway, .50
OUTSIDE POINTS OF INTEREST.
Power House, reached by electric car, ..'.... .10
Devil's Hole, on top of bank, reached by electric car, .50
Trip on Electric Railway along water's edge in Gorge.
Rates according to distance.
Fort Niagara, reached by steam railroad to Lewis-
ton, round trip .25
Thence by Electric Railroad, round trip .50
15
MAP OF "SCENIC NIAGARA,"
EMBRACING THE ITINERARY HEREIN RECOMMENDED.
ON THE CANADIAN SIDE.
IN QUEEN VICTORIA PARK.
S* ^1 Arch Bridge to Canada, over and back, . . . $0.15
rning Spring, .50
(p under end of Horseshoe Fall .50
Whirlpool Rapids Elevator, .50
Brock's Monument, .25
All of these points reached by Electric Railway. Rates
according to distance.
BEYOND THE PARK LIMITS.
Niagara-on-the-Lake, reached by steam railroad to
Lewiston, round trip, $0.25
Thence by steam boat, round trip, 25
The various views of the Gorge and of the Lower Rapids
are best obtained from the cars of the electric railroads, on
both sides of the river.
The other points of interest in the immediate vicinity of
the Falls, enumerated in our historic section, are reached
best by carriage.
Rates of carriage hire allowed by law in the City of
Niagara Falls, N. Y.:
For carrying one passenger and ordinary baggage
from any point within the city limits to any other
point therein, not exceeding one mile, $0.50
For each additional passenger and ordinary baggage, .25
Not exceeding two miles, i.oo
For each additional passenger and ordinary baggage, .50
Not exceeding three miles, 1.50
For each additional passenger and ordinary baggage, i.oo
More than three miles, for two-horse carriage, TWO DOL-
LARS for the first hour, and ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS for
each additional hour ; for one-horse carriage, ONE DOLLAR
AND FIFTY CENTS for the first hour, and ONE DOLLAR for each
additional hour.
17
THIS GUIDE.
The first guide book of Niagara was issued about
eighty years ago. Since that time numberless so-called
guides, or attempts at guides, have been sent out.
But the guide which in simple language tells accu-
rately, fully and succinctly of the Niagara Frontier —
first, about the wonderful scenery at and adjacent to
the Falls themselves, and, secondly, about the many
scientific and historic points of interest up and down
the river, treating specially of the subjects enumerated
on our title page — is yet to be written.
Let us see, if in this, the opening year of the twen-
tieth century, celebrated hereabouts by the holding of
the Pan-American Exposition on the Niagara Frontier,
we cannot now produce it.
And we arrange it on a plan that is different from
that adopted in any previous work on the subject.
First of all, our plan presents to the visitor a " vade
mecum," or itinerary, pure and simple, to al} the
scenery of what is usually known as Niagara Falls.
This plan has been adopted because it is the one
which, for so many years past, has proved so eminently
practical and satisfactory to the thousands and thou-
sands of visitors to the famed cities, towns, historic
sites and scenery of continental Europe.
We shall conduct the reader over the entire scenic
Niagara, our route arranged so as to economize time
and yet enable him to see everything, and at a mini-
mum of cost ; and as we journey thus together we
shall point out each and every place of interest, and
18
give each, in its appropriate place, a short history of
every important event, whether of scenic, historic or
artistic interest, as in our saunterings they respec-
tively come within our vision. For in this way mi-
nutely covering the ground, and in no other way, can a
stranger feel that he has really "seen " Niagara ; and
seen it not superficially, but with a full knowledge of
the past history of the immediate locality ; and for
an intelligent comprehension of Niagara this past his-
tory, in its many and varied aspects, is as much a
part and parcel as the falling sheet of water, the
rapids, the rainbow, or the cloud of spray.
Visitors to Niagara may be classed in three divis-
ions : The first, and numerically by far the largest,
of these is composed of those persons who desire to
see all there is to be seen thereabouts in the limited
space of perhaps a day ; the second class comprises
those who can devote two or three days ; and the
third, and smallest class, those who expect to spend a
week or more in the contemplation of this wonder.
While for all three of these classes the programme
which this guide will follow will be appropriate, it is to
be observed that a strict and prompt adherence to the
route suggested will enable a visitor to " do " Niagara
in one day ; while for the other classes of visitors
enumerated above, numerous side trips and variations
from this programme, though still following it in its
entirety, will make the visit all the more attractive
and beneficial. For, while Niagara Falls itself may be
seen in a day, there is no spot on earth where time
and leisurely sightseeing more amply repays the
visitor than at Niagara.
19
NIAGARA.
" Earth's grandest sight conceived to be
The emblem of God's majesty."
DESCRIPTIVE.
FOR the reason that the task of describing any
scene in Nature is difficult in proportion to its
rarity, and that we derive our conception of
the same from the comparison it will bear with other
approximately similar scenes, and for the further
reason that Niagara is unique and totally unlike
any other sight on the face of the earth, it is a most
onerous work to produce such a pen-picture of the
Falls as will convey to the minds of readers who
have never seen them any accurate idea of their
grandeur.
During the past two and a quarter centuries a great
deal has been written about Niagara by thousands of
people. Its description has been attempted in prose
by many who are well known in the literature of the
world ; and by many more who are unknown. The
shortest, perhaps the most eloquent, probably the
most suggestive, certainly the most non-descriptive,
description of Niagara ever penned was that by Fanny
Kemble, whose journal tells of her approach to the
brink of the abyss, and closes with the words :
" I saw Niagara,
O God ! who can describe that sight. ' '
21
Many minds have essayed to reproduce it poetically,
many pens have recorded the impression of visitors
regarding it, without even faintly describing it ; for
there is no known rhythm whose cadence will attune
itself to the tremendous hymn of this " sound of
many waters," neither will blank verse serve to
rehearse its attributes in song. The best specimen
of the latter was written by a gifted poet, who visited
this locality especially to set forth its beauties in verse,
but who recorded only the following words :
I came to see,
I thought to write,
I am but dumb.
There is but one way to record, either in prose or
in poetry, the fascinations of Niagara ; that is, to tell
of its glories in that simple language which is the
Creator's greatest gift to man.
In prose, to record, not the sensations which the
visitor feels, or believes he feels, as each new scene of
grandeur bursts on his sight, but, as nearly as may be
in words, the exact descriptions of what the eye at
the moment sees, whether that be the gorge or the
rapids below the Falls, the Falls themselves, or the
rapids above them.
Many visitors, yes, and persons of trained artistic
sense, say they prefer the views of the rapids to those
of the Falls themselves, as being less emblematic of
overpowering force, yet none the less representative
of ever-changing beauty, and, above all, as being
more comprehensible to the God-given, yet limited,
human mind.
22
In poetry, to describe it, if indeed that can be done,
as a part of that stupendous and eternal poem, whose
strophies and lines are the rivers, mountains, glens,
caves and rainbows of the universe, for of Nature in
its grandest and most varied forms Niagara is a con-
densation and an exemplification.
But while much has been written — attempted prob-
ably on the lines indicated — a good deal of prose
that is worth reading and a very little poetry that is
worth remembering ; it is of Niagara as a whole, as a
unit, in its generality, in its comprehensiveness ; treat-
ing the water, the Falls, the rapids, the gorge, the sky
line of the river as seen from the brink of the Horse-
shoe, the spray, the rainbows, and the islands as com-
ponent parts of one absorbing whole, that almost all
writers have treated.
Some of them specially mention Goat Island, which
is an integral part of Niagara, and which has been
described in prose as " the most interesting spot in all
America," and in poetry as " the fairest spot God
ever made "; others, and they are in the vast major-
ity, refer to it only as an incident. Niagara Falls
have never elicited a strong poem from any poet of
the first rank.
Some men, like Dore, have pictured the Cataract
without ever having seen it ; others, like Brainard,
have written poetic effusions without ever having
beheld it ; but no important description of Niagara
has ever been penned by one who has never gazed
thereon and who has not felt the sensation occa-
sioned by the first view thereof ; and certainly no
one has ever written anything of real enduring merit
23
about Niagara in any one of its numerous phases
which combine to form its transcendent whole, with-
out having visited it, studied it in all its varied
aspects, and been held enthralled by its spell.
Above the Falls, Niagara has, in her rapids, exam-
ples of many of the most remarkable combinations of
Nature's work ; and those who visit here can experi-
ence all the pleasure of the mariner, in standing on
the Goat Island Bridge, knowing that an almost irre-
sistible billowy force is fighting against that structure,
situated near the edge of the gulf into which the
river pours, and that they are still as safe as they
could be on terra firma. It is a feeling that could
not be reproduced in any other situation. One seems,
when stationed at this point and looking down stream,
to be on the verge of eternity ; should the bridge give
way, he would, in a few moments, be carried over the
cliff, and lost ! Yet the stability of the bridge
removes all sense of danger, and compels confidence
even in the presence of the dread power of the current.
Iceland has splendid geysers, sending up heavy
clouds of vapor from its boiling springs, sur-
rounded by ice. The Matterhorn has its magnifi-
cent " Arc-en-ciel" which vies with the finest rain-
bows in splendor ; and from the summits of the Alps
one can look down upon the tops of trees which,
from below, are of high altitude. Here all these
and other yet more remarkable effects are brought
together at one point. England on the south coast
and France on the north coast are both proud of their
splendid beetling cliffs, between which rolls the
majestic current of the English Channel.
24
At Niagara, similar but equally imposing cliffs
are brought together in close proximity, and form the
boundaries of a river which, receiving its waters from
the cataract, concentrate their mighty force into a
turbulent flood, upon which one cannot look without
allowing the mind to compare it with the Styx of the
ancients. And yet this avalanche of power meets
with an effectual stop in its career at the "whirlpool,"
where its course is violently turned aside at an angle
of ninety degrees, thus forming a veritable maelstrom
such as cannot be found in any other portion of the
globe for strength of current and obstinacy of oppos-
ing forces. Thus it would appear that Nature had
exhausted her resources in placing at this point, be-
tween two countries, a dividing line which deserved
to be regarded as impassable. Further, she has re-
versed the usual order of her works, to command the
reverence and awe of humanity. Taking her fair
coronet of rainbows from the skies, she sets it in the
midst of a river-fall ; planting her high trees at the
base of the cliffs, she causes their summits to be
viewed from above ; providing an almost inconceivable
avalanche of waters, she allows them to be observed
from below, as if pouring from the clouds ; and in the
coldest seasons, without the aid of heat, a mighty cloud
of vapor rises, and, condensing in the form of ice on all
the surrounding scenery, forms a fairyland of scenic
effect which is as weird and strange in its conception as
the works of enchantment. Yet the mind of man has
refused to be subdued by the grandeur here displayed,
and has calmly proceeded to utilize the very faces of
the cliffs for the purpose of supporting bridges to
25
act as connecting links between the two countries
which the river seems solely intended to separate ;
and across them the iron horse deliberately conveys
the products of human industry to and from each
land.
There is no point on the earth's surface from which
an entire idea of human existence can be more ade-
quately conceived than from the center of the Rail-
road Steel Arch Bridge, which in the distance ap-
pears as a mere web between the two cliffs, although
solid and substantial as man's ingenuity can make it.
There, suspended in mid-air, between precipices
enclosing a terrifying chasm, through which rushes
the mighty flood, it is impossible to stand without ex-
periencing that feeling of enthusiasm connected with
the assumption that the Creation contains no power
too great for human control. Yet, when the heavily-
laden freight trains cause the fabric to vibrate, the
possibility of the breaking of the bridge seems so near,
and total destruction in that event so certain, that the
feeling of exultation is allied with that of fear, re-
calling the idea of standing face to face with eternity.
Niagara Falls, N. Y., with a population of 22,000
(which has doubled in the last ten years), is a great
manufacturing city. Its wonderful scenery, immedi-
ately adjacent to the Falls, protected by the estab-
lishment of the New York State Reservation, can
never be encroached upon.
Its founders named it Manchester, and, while that
name was soon abandoned for the present one, their
foresight of its capabilities in a manufacturing way
has of late been fully justified.
26
TO THE VISITOR.
Here, at the very beginning, let me say that this
guide is intended to be unique. It is issued solely
in the interest of the visitor. It contains no adver-
tisements whatever, and its author has no financial
interest of any kind in any point or company where
tolls are charged or fares collected.
It is believed to be unquestionably the most com-
plete and the best illustrated guide to Niagara ever
published, and it tells about Niagara in all of its varied
aspects.
A great lawyer was once asked if the legal profes-
sion was not greatly overcrowded. " There is plenty
of room at the top," was his answer. It is on this
line, that among the many so-called guides to Niagara
— alt incomplete and inaccurate — there is plenty of
demand for a complete, impartial and accurate one,
that this is published.
People are distinctly advised that if they want to
really see and comprehend Niagara they must devote
time to it. But it is recognized as a fact that the
great majority of visitors to Niagara are obliged, or
at least feel compelled, to see it in one day. Hence
this guide aims to show them how to do it as thor-
oughly and as economically as possible in that length
of time.
For those who care to make the expenditure, the
entire itinerary herein recommended, with the excep-
27
tion of the trip along the water's edge on the Ameri-
can side in the Gorge, can be done fully as well, prob-
ably as expeditiously, and certainly with greater com-
fort, in a carriage. In this way one entirely escapes
the crowding and the bustle inseparable from the
crowds of excursionists who, particularly on the elec-
tric cars, are a prominent and a daily feature of
Niagara's summer travel ; you can stop at points
where the electric cars do not stop, and you are not
obliged to await the advent of a car when you are
ready to proceed. It is wise for all those to whom a
quiet, peaceful trip about Niagara is of far more im-
portance than the expenditure of a few dollars, to note
this fact carefully. Further, the hire of a carriage
for all day will probably be the same whether occu-
pied by one or more persons, so if there are four in
your party, the increased expense is not so great.
Also let me quote the expressions of two well-known
authors, as to the desirability of not seeing Niagara
hurriedly.
" People who come to see the Falls and run hur-
riedly around them for a few hours and then away,
can form no idea of their magnitude and sublimity.
It requires time to realize their wonderful beauty and
grandeur" ; and "days should be spent here in deep
and happy seclusion, protected from the burning heat
of the sun and regaled by lovely scenes of Nature
and the music of the sweetest waters, and in fellow-
ship, at will, with the mighty Falls. Long, long, I
stayed, but all time was too short. I went and I
returned, and knew not how to go."
29
SCENIC NIAGARA
PROSPECT POINT,
No matter how the visitor reaches the City of Ni-
agara Falls, whether by steam or by electric railroad,
whether from east, west or north (the unnavigable
portion of the river lies to the south), the first point
of interest he visits should be Prospect Point, situ-
ated at the northern end of the American Fall, in the
New York State Reservation, and he will at once com-
prehend the geographical situation of Niagara.
This point is 515 feet above the sea level at Gov-
ernor's Island in New York Bay.
As you stand, then, on Prospect Point and look across
the American Rapids towards Goat Island you are
facing almost due south. The American Fall com-
mences directly at your feet. At its other end is the
Goat Island Group. Beyond Goat Island is the Horse-
shoe Fall. At your left, upstream, are the American
Rapids, and on your right, below you, lies the Niagara
Gorge, which^the ceaseless flow of Niagara during
many thousands of years has carved and hewn out of
the solid rock, an illustration of the incomprehensi-
ble power of the grandest waterfall on earth. It ex-
tends northwards for seven miles, and is clearly visible
from Prospect Point nearly as far as the Whirlpool,
two miles away, where it bends to the left, and at the
pool turns a right angle in its course.
ICE SCENERY IN PROSPECT PARK.
HENNEPIN'S VIEW.
First of all, follow the path which runs on an upward
grade down stream, along the iron railing on the edge
of the bluff, until you reach the point known as Hen-
nepin's View, so named in honor of the Franciscan
priest who gave the first description of Niagara. The
view here is changed so that you not only see both
Falls in the foreground, but gaze at the edge of the
American Fall, whose brink is a number of feet below
you.
Return to the Point, turn to your left, and, starting
upstream, commence your itinerary of Niagara.
The annexed sketch is from a photo taken about
1860, and represents " Bossy Simms," whose owner
was for many years the superintendent of the Inclined
Railway, close by,
and lived near it.
The spot where she
stands is not over
100 feet from the
edge of the Ameri-
can Fall, and the
sight of this gentle
" bossy," who used
frequently in sum-
mer to wade out to
the dangerous place,
with no more evidence of appreciation of danger than
she used to feel when she stood in the bed of some
inland shallow creek, was a curious attraction to
many a visitor of that day.
33
THE AMERICAN RAPIDS.
Up the river from the American Fall, to and above
the Goat Island Bridge, lie the so-called American
Rapids, the most beautiful bit of what may be
termed the smaller and, therefore, the more compre-
hensible Rapids of Niagara.
Following the shore line, let us walk slowly up the
bank noting the many-sided views of the rapids as
we proceed. As we reach the road that comes down
the hill from the Soldiers' Monument on the left,
look back along the path toward the Falls and you
will be able to form some idea of the beauties of
Niagara's winter scenery, as shown in the accom-
panying view taken from this spot.
A little farther along, turning toward Goat Island,
a flat, dark rock appears in the center of the rapids.
This is called Avery's Rock, and was the scene of a
deplorable occurrence on July 17, 1853.
Early in the morning of that day a man was dis-
covered clinging to this rock. He proved to be one
Samuel Avery, who, in the evening before, while trying
to cross the river above Goat Island, had been drawn
by the current into the rapids ; his boat had been
carried over the Fall, but he, by a thousand-to-one
chance, had been washed against, and clung to, this
rock. The news sped like wildfire, and from within
a radius of fifty miles people flocked to the scene,
A huge sign bearing the words " We will save you "
was quickly set up on the shore, where we are stand-
ing. Boats were hurriedly carried to the Goat Island
Bridge and, fastened to long ropes, were lowered
35
toward the rock. Several of these boats were dashed
to pieces, others were swamped. Food was lowered
to him in wooden boxes, by means of ropes from the
bridge, one box reaching him safely. Late in the
afternoon a raft was constructed and safely lowered
to this rock, but stuck on a projecting rock alongside.
Avery mounted it but it could not be drawn from the
rock. Another boat was lowered. It safely touched
the raft. Avery, weak from his long vigil and expo-
sure, rose up and approached the edge of the raft to
get into it. His weight tilted the raft. He lost his
balance, failed to catch the edge of the boat, fell into
the rapids, and, uttering an agonizing shriek, was
carried over the Fall, after an heroic fight for life
lasting nearly twenty-four hours.
Prior to the establishment of the State Reservation,
all the present grassy slope on our left, lying between
the road that we just passed and Goat Island Bridge,
as well as the river shore from that bridge to the head
of the rapids, was covered with mills and other un-
sightly structures. At no other point has the restora-
tion of the natural scenery been more pronounced,
nor the result been more beneficial, than right along
this shore.
BRIDGES TO GOAT ISLAND.
Up stream from where we are standing is the new
Goat Island Bridge, just completed. This is the
fourth bridge to Goat Island, and the third erected
at this point. The first bridge to Goat Island was
erected some fifty rods farther up stream, and was
37
a comparatively small affair, built in 1817. The
masses of ice coming down the river that winter
struck against the piers of the bridge with such force
as to demolish it ; but the Goat Island owners, with
the perseverance of New Englanders, determined at
once to erect another bridge, but selected the present
site, rightly judging that the intervening descent
of the river would so break up the masses of ice as
to render the bridge comparatively safe ; and this
proved to be the case.
This bridge, erected in 1818, stood until 1855, when
it was replaced by an iron-arch structure, which
satisfied all demands of travel until 1900, when the
present magnificent structure was authorized by the
State of New York.
In reply to the oft asked question, How were these
bridges built ? Let me answer : Two giant trees, about
eighty feet long, were felled in the vicinity and hewed
square on two opposite sides. A level platform, pro-
tected on the river side by cribbing, was built on the
main shore. The two logs, parallel and some eight
feet apart, were laid on rollers, and, with their shore
ends heavily weighted with stone, were pushed out
over the rapids. On each log a man walked out to
the end, carrying with him a sharp iron-pointed staff.
A crevice in the rocky bed of the river having been
found under the end of each of these logs, the staff
was driven down into it, and to it the end of the log
was firmly lashed. Planks were then nailed on these
logs and on this bridge stones were dragged out and
laid in a pier, around these staves and under the end
of either log, until a rocky foundation supported
38
both timbers. Each succeeding span was then built
in a like manner. While the bridge was in process of
construction, Red Jacket, the famous Seneca Indian,
was on the bank, an interested spectator. As the first
span was successfully completed and the erection of
the bridge thus assured, some one asked him what he
thought of it. Rising majestically, and drawing his
blanket close about him, he muttered : " Damned
Yankee," and stalked away.
Thus Goat Island was accessible to the public ; and
in 1818, on the completion of the bridge, was made
the first road around it. On the western and southern
sides of the island it was built out beyond the upper
edge of the land of to-day ; for since that date some
four rods in width on the western side and nearly ten
rods in width on the western half of the southern side
of the island have been washed away.
AN IDEAL VIEW.
Directly in front of us, and to the left, up stream, is
that fan-shaped wave that comes tumbling over a vast
flat rock. This point was considered by the late
William M. Hunt as the epitome of Niagara ; and was
the view that he selected in preference to all others
when he was asked to decorate the huge panels in the
Assembly Chamber at Albany, this being his idea of
scenic Niagara. He died before his sketches for the
work were fully completed.
For those who have time, it is well to loiter on the
bridge and gaze upon the views both up and down
stream.
39
THE UPPER RAPIDS.
To many, as one stands and looks up stream from this
bridge, the view is the most beautiful at Niagara. Let
me quote Margaret Fuller's description of this view :
"At last, slowly and thoughtfully, I walked down to
the bridge leading to Goat Island, and when I stood
upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile
of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlast-
ing roar, my emotions overpowered me, a choking
sensation rose to my throat, a thrill rushed through
my veins, 'my blood ran rippling to my fingers' ends.'
This was the climax of the effect which the Falls pro-
duced upon me — neither the American nor the
British Fall moved me as did these rapids. For the
magnificence, the sublimity of the latter, I was pre-
pared by descriptions and by paintings."
In the winter of 1829 it is stated that the cold was
so intense, and the ice in the river and in the rapids
above so thick, that persons were able to cross to
Goat Island from the main shore without using the
bridges ; a remarkable fact, if true, and a condition
which Nature has never vouchsafed us since ; al-
though during the intervening years there have been
some remarkably cold periods. In the year 1896,
save for one wide break over the deepest channel, a
solid mass of ice accumulated below the bridge to
Green Island, and between the main shore and the
smaller islands and Goat Island, on which many per-
sons walked daily for nearly a week. And one man
drove in a cutter one afternoon from Green Island
down almost to the edge of the American Fall.
THE GOAT ISLAND GROUP.
Goat Island, as the words are ordinarily used,
means the group of islands and islets situated between
the American and Canadian Rapids, at the verge of,
and just above, the Falls of Niagara. This group
consists of Goat Island, which is half a mile long and
a quarter of a mile broad, running to a point at its
eastern end, comprising seventy acres, and sixteen
other islands or masses of rock, varying in size from
an average of 400 feet to ten feet in diameter.
Five of these islands and the Terrapin Rocks are
connected with Goat Island by bridges. Many years
ago the two small islands above Green Island were
also thus accessible. As Goat Island divides the
Falls themselves, so it divides with them the interest
of visitors ; for it is the one spot at Niagara. If only
one point here were to be visited, that one spot,
beyond all question, should be Goat Island.
The group embraces over two-thirds of the acreage,
and by reason of its location is by far the most
important part of the New York State Reservation at
Niagara.
" It is a paradise ; I do not believe there is a spot
in the world which within the same space comprises
so much grandeur and beauty." This expression by
a Boston divine, seventy years ago, is but a conden-
sation of what many others since then have verbally
expressed, in longer, but certainly in no more forcible,
words.
" The walk about Goat Island at Niagara Falls is
probably unsurpassed in the world for wonder and
42
beauty," wrote Charles Dudley Warner, and the judg-
ment of the world agrees with him.
GREEN ISLAND.
The little island at the end of the first bridge, now
known as Green Island, in compliment to the Presi-
dent of the Board of Commissioners of the State
Reservation at Niagara, who has been a member of
that Board since its formation in 1883, and its Presi-
dent since 1890, was formerly known as Bath Island,
by reason of the world-famed current baths, the first
places erected where one could safely dip oneself in
the running waters of Niagara. Up stream from
Green Island are two little islands which in former
days were connected with Goat Island by bridges ;
the bridge to the first one being called " Lovers'
Bridge." The bridge was short and not very wide,
and, needless to state, from its name was well patron-
ized. So much so, that it was deemed unsafe. It
cannot be conceived that those owners of Goat Island
thought that by removing the bridge they could any
more stop the course of true love than they could
dam the Niagara River, and the deduction is that
finding it so popular they thought that by removing
the bridge they could turn the entire Goat Island
group into a lovers' paradise, which it has been
ever since.
These two small islands were called, respectively,
Ship Island and Brig Island, by reason of a fancied
resemblance, as seen from the bridge, to such vessels,
the leafless trees in winter suggesting bare masts.
43
On Green Island stood for many years what was
perhaps the ugliest building ever built at Niagara, and
probably one which had the greatest influence in
starting the movement for a restoration of Niagara to
its former unmarred natural state. This building, a
paper mill, not only increased the size of the island by
continual additions, but by running long piers out into
the rapids, for the purpose of collecting the water,
marred the beauty not only on the island itself but
particularly on the river above. It was removed by the
State, on its acquisition of the property in 1885.
GOAT ISLAND.
Let us now stroll over the second and recently
erected bridge, and we stand upon Goat Island,
aptly referred to as " the
fairest spot God ever
made." Taking the zig-
zag steps up the hill to
our right we reach the
top of the bank, and im-
mediately before us is the
shelter house erected for
the protection of visitors
in stormy weather. Goat
Island is almost entirely
covered with an absolutely unique piece of virgin
forest, where no axe has ever been wielded. Study
it constantly, and enjoy it, while you are making the
circuit of the island, for in the words of Longfellow,
"This is the forest primeval."
44
THE ZIGZAG STEPS.
STEDMAN'S BLUFF.
From here, following the path
that winds along the upper edge
of the bank, let us walk leisurely
along, taking in the scenery of
the river as seen through the foli-
age— and the forest beauty as
seen on all sides — until we reach
the northwesterly edge of the
bank of Goat Island, Stedman's
Bluff as it is called, where a glori-
ous panorama bursts upon us, the
same general view that we had
when we stood on Prospect Point,
and yet so different, because it
is at the other edge of the same
Fall. No finer view looking down
the gorge of the river is to be
had at Niagara.
The irregular line of the Ameri-
can Fall is better appreciated from
here than it was from Prospect
Point. The American Fall is
1,100 feet in width and 165 feet
in height, being some six feet
higher than the Horseshoe Fall.
THE THREE PROFILES.
Standing on the bluff, at the
head of the stairs, and facing
45
A SHADED WALK.
Luna Island, imaginative people used to be able
to trace the outlines of three human faces, formed
on the rocky face of Luna Island cliff, near the top,
just beyond the small fall. The growth of the foli-
age has tended to obscure them, and the falling of
pieces of rock from the face of the cliff each spring
has practically obliterated them.
LUNA ISLAND.
Down the broad stone steps, completed only last
year, and which are protected by an iron guard rail,
let us descend to one of the points of view near the
foot of these steps and again take in the scenery.
Let us cross the bridge that spans the little stream
whose fall forms the Cave of the Winds, and we are
on Luna Island, which derived its name from the fact
that it was, at an early date, the most accessible place
from which to view the lunar bow. Now make your
way toward the edge of the larger Fall. Half way be-
tween the bridge and the point, at our feet, lies an im-
beded rock. Stop for a minute and look at it and
compare it with the annexed print. On this, many,
many years ago, an unknown, but patient, hand has
carved the historic words :
"All is change.
Eternal progress.
No death."
Who carved them no one knows, and where he lies
interred is a mystery ; but here, in full view of count-
less thousands of annual visitors, stands his epitaph,
47
and the ceaseless roar of Niagara sings for him a
grand and everlasting requiem.
Come with us next to the exact point, at the edge
of the Fall, and stand close to the railing and look
down upon the wave-washed rocks below, extending
along the entire front of the American Fall ; and
again enjoy, this time with the waters of Niagara
close at our feet, the wonderful panorama down the
gorge. Directly below in the gorge are seen wooden
bridges connecting the various rocks, and on these are
seen figures having
the semblance of hu-
man beings. These
are the visitors to the
Cave of the Winds, a
point which we shall
reach in a short time.
Gazing across toward
Prospect Point, one
will fully appreciate
the daring of Joel Robinson, who, about 1860, in
order to show that even Niagara had no terrors for
him (a fact which he had proved in many instances),
took his iron-pointed staff in his hands and waded
out toward the opposite shore, as shown in the illus-
tration, and planting his staff firmly in a crevice of
the rock assumed the pose and motioned to the
waiting photographer to take this absolutely unique
photograph of an incident at Niagara. As he stood
there, not a hundred feet from the brink of the Fall,
no human aid could reach him. His life depended
on his own self-possession and the protection of
49
KOBINSON S DARING FEAT.
Providence. A false step on his part meant certain
death ; but he safely and successfully posed for the
artist and returned unharmed to where we now stand.
NOTED ACCIDENT.
On the northern shore of this island, a few feet
above the brink, is a spot of mournful memory. On
June 21, 1849, the family of Mr. Deforest of Buffalo,
with a friend, Mr. Addington, were viewing the scen-
ery from this point. The party, in fine spirits, were
about leaving the island, when Mr. Addington ad-
vanced playfully to the little daughter of Mr. De-
forest, saying, " I am going to throw you in," at the
same time lifting her over the edge of the water.
With a sudden impulse of fear, the child sprang from
his hands into the river. With a shriek, the young
man sprang to save her, but before those on shore
had time to speak or even move they had passed
over the precipice. The child's body was found the
same afternoon in the Cave of the Winds ; and a
few days afterward that of the gallant but fated
man was likewise recovered and committed to the
village cemetery. This is, perhaps, the most touch-
ing casualty that ever occurred at the Falls.
THE BIDDLE STAIRS.
Let us retrace our steps from Luna Island over the
bridge, up the long stone steps, and when we have
proceeded a short distance along the edge of Goat
Island another break in the line of trees shows the
51
Canadian Fall in front of us. Just ahead of us, at
the top of the bank, is a wooden building from which
a flight of wooden steps leads down to a spiral stair-
case, whose top is directly beneath us. These are
the so-called Biddle Stairs, named after Nicholas Bid-
die, of United States Bank fame, who suggested this
means of access, and offered to contribute a portion
of their expense if his ideas were followed. Though
his proffered contribution was gratefully declined, his
suggestion was carried out, and for over seventy
years these winding steps have been the only
means of reaching the slope below. By these steps
visitors may descend, free of charge, both those who
desire to go through the Cave of the Winds as well 2s
those who desire only the sights from the banks below.
It has long been felt that this method of descending is
too antiquated, for while a journey will most amply
repay the exertion, the ascent is tiresome, and to the
aged and the infirm this trip is out of the question.
It is expected that in the near future, as has already
been recommended by the Commissioners, an elevator
and more accessible stairs, in both cases running up
the perpendicular edge of the cliff, or, according to
one suggestion, both cars and steps, on an inclined
plane, similar to the plan adopted at Prospect Point,
will be erected. The present spiral stairway is eighty
feet high and was built in 1829.
THE CAVE OF THE WINDS.
The trip to the Cave of the Winds is the most
unique and picturesque at Niagara, and if one desires
53
SAM PATCH'S LEAP.
to take it he enters one of the dressing rooms in the
wooden building before us, after depositing his valu-
ables in the safe at the office. He disrobes and puts
on a flannel suit and, if desired, over this an oilskin
suit, and thus clad emerges from the dressing room
almost unrecognizable by his nearest friends. The
trip is one that should not be omitted, and is the
most interesting of any at the Falls.
Let us follow the guide, round and round and round,
down the inclined stairs until we emerge upon the top
of the debris slope, and face down stream. On our
right hand, close to us, is the solid, rocky base of
Goat Island, and as we glance upward the upper por-
tion projects outward over our head. In the old days,
before the island was accessible, even as late as 1790,
the island was described as having at its western end
a sloping, or "about to fall," appearance. This evi-
dently meant that the upper ledge of rock, which now
projects somewhat beyond the base below, simply
extended farther out into the gulf in those days.
SAM PATCH'S LEAP.
A point about midway between the foot of the
stairs and the entrance to the Cave of the Winds is
opposite the site where, in 1829, Sam Patch made his
two famous leaps. At the water's edge he erected
two huge ladders, each ninety-six feet long, set at
right angles to the water, and far apart at their base.
Their upper ends converged until they met in a small
platform, which overhung the deep water as the lad-
ders canted to the westward. These ladders were
55
CAVE OF THE WINDS, JANUARY, 1896.
fastened by ropes at their upper ends to the bank
above, and also by ropes to great rocks placed on the
path where we are standing. They were also stayed
by ropes extending up and down stream. Climbing
up the ladder to the platform, Patch, whose name is
even yet a synonym for high jumping, waved his hand
to the crowds assembled on the path, on Prospect
Point and on the Canada shore, and, in order to prove his
famous expression/' that some things could be done as
well as others," placed his arms close to his sides and
leaped into space. He descended safely and rose to
the surface amid the enthusiasm of the crowds. He
repeated the feat successfully a few days afterwards.
Later, he made a similar jump of about the same
height at the Genesee Falls at Rochester, N. Y. ; but,
being in an inebriated condition, lost his balance,
struck the water sideways, his body was no doubt
caught in the undertow, and did not rise to the sur-
face. It was recovered some days later, miles away.
THE CAVE ITSELF.
Walking along the path we come to the edge of the
falling water. Just before we reach it, on our left, is
the huge rock, known as " The Rock of Ages."
The impetus of the current carries the sheet of
water well out beyond the face of the cliff, and this
space between the inner face of the falling water and
the rock is known as the "Cave of the Winds."
It was first entered in 1834. The cave is being
slightly enlarged annually by the constant force and
power of a portion of the water bounding back after
57
THE CAVE OF THE WINDS.
it strikes the rock at its base,
and slowly, but surely, cut-
ting away the shale of which
the lower portion of the
back part of the cave is
formed, gradually undermin-
ing the upper ledge of lime-
stone over which the water
flows.
In size it is now about
100 feet wide, 160 feet high,
and about 100 deep.
If thesun is shining bright-
ly, and you stand between it
and the spray cloud, you
can see two and often three
rainbows ; and frequently,
when you stand right in the
edge of the spray, you are
the center of a visible and
complete rainbow circle, a
phenomenon unknown else-
where.
Visitors to the cave pass
down and into it, behind the
small sheet of water, and
out again into the sunlight
at the base of Luna Island.
The trip in front of the little
Fall along the solid, annu-
ally renewed (for each win-
ter the weight of the ice
58
destroys them) rough wooden
bridges, through the clouds of
ever-rising spray, bathing in
the little pools among the
rocks, where miniature Niag-
aras form plunge baths un-
equaled anywhere, and, if the
sun is shining, standing in the
very center of an entire circle
of rainbows, is a unique and
beautiful experience.
BELOW TERRAPIN
ROCKS.
Going back to the foot of
the staircase, let us take a
short trip toward the Canadian
or Horseshoe Fall, a trip of
some difficulty, and one that is
taken by but comparatively
few people, but which, when
taken, amply repays the exer-
tion. Passing along the rough
and rocky path we soon come
to the huge rocks, which, in
ages gone by, undermined by
the action of the elements,
have fallen from their positions
at the top edge of the cliff over
which the waters poured, and
now obstruct the path toward
59
END OF HOKSESHOE FALL.
the vortex of the falling sheet. Over these rocks
and the intervening rapid streams some few adven-
turous visitors, always with a guide, have climbed.
Here went Professor Tyndall, going far around the
curve of the Horseshoe Fall, beneath and beyond the
Terrapin Rocks to a point where the beating spray
shut out all view, and he stood
directly in front of Niagara's de-
scending sheet, enveloped in the
spray and mist — a point which
he described as the " Ultima
Thule " of Niagara — a point that
has been visited by but very, very
few persons of all the millions that
have been to Niagara.
AFTER THE ASCENT.
Now let us return and climb
those stairs ; and, after we have
rested, take our way on to the
Canadian Fall. We soon come
to a break in the line of trees
where the bank has evidently
caved away, and where it is now
protected by a closely-set wooden
railing. Forty years ago, at this
point, the carriage road was out
beyond the edge, where now is
empty air, so great has been the
landslide here. Looking down
from here, one gets the best direct
61
THE BIDDLE STAIRS.
view and direct appreciation of the difference in
levels, for the water at this point appears to be very
much farther away from you than when you stand
on the steel arch bridge just below the Falls, where
the distance between the roadway of the bridge and
the water is about 200 feet ; and while at this point
on Goat Island the distance to the water in the gorge
cannot be over 250 feet, it appears to be very much
more.
PORTER'S BLUFF.
Farther along, passing through a shaded walk, we
stand on one of the most commanding situations at
Niagara, Porter's Bluff, so named by the first Board
of Commissioners of the State Reservation, in honor
of the family which for three generations was the
owner of the island, and by whose members, for three
score and ten years, the natural beauty of the island
was preserved intact and free from money-making de-
facements and man's so-called improvements. Directly
in front of us rises that immense cloud of spray which
Niagara is ever sending up in honor of its Great
Spirit, and at our feet, beneath us, is the brink of the
Horseshoe Fall, whose center not over forty years
ago was in such a curve as to give it that name,
but which, toward the middle, during these last two
score years, has receded so much that it is now a
very acute angle.
Do not hurry at this point, but let us sit down and
study this view, and you will appreciate the situation
and what we may call the geological location of the
Falls.
63
Just consider that the
Fall before you is carry-
ing away the waters from
the four great upper
lakes, whose farthest
springs are over 1,500
miles away, and that the
watershed of those lakes
drains almost half a con-
tinent. This Fall is 159
feet high, about 3,000 feet in length, and at the point
on the brink where the color is the greenest, there
is said to be a depth of twenty feet of water. In
1827, the steamer " Michigan," an unserviceable hulk,
A GOAT ISLAND PATH.
VIEW OF PORTER S BLUFF.
drawing eighteen feet of water, was purchased and
sent over this Fall. She came down the main channel
by the Canada shore and passed over this Fall with-
out touching either the rocky bed of the river or the
brink of the Fall itself.
64
Estimates as to the quantity of water going over
the two Falls vary, and, of course, are necessarily
speculation ; but here are some of them : 100,000,000
tons per hour ; 18,000,000 cubic feet per minute ;
1,500,000,000 cubic feet per hour. In barrels,
1,500,000,000 every twenty-four hours ; which amounts
to 200,000,000 per hour, 3,300,000 per minute, or
56,000 per second. Another estimate is 260,000 cubic
feet per second. Of course, the amount varies as the
river is high or low. These estimates were made by
knowing the width of the river at some point below
the Falls, measuring the velocity, and estimating the
depth. And seven-eighths of all that amount of water
is pouring over the Falls before you.
The water power of Niagara is estimated at
3,000,000 horse power, and the great Power Com-
pany's tunnel, when running at its full capacity of
120,000 horse power, will use but four per cent, of
the water of the river, and it is estimated would lower
the water at the crest of Horseshoe Fall but about
four inches.
The boundary line between the United States and
Canada runs along the middle of the deepest channel
of the river and up the point of the Horseshoe Fall.
So the international boundary line at the Falls has
changed, and will change, according as the apex of the
Horseshoe Fall moves to this side or to that in its
recession.
The edge of the Fall, just below us, is believed to
have been the point from which the Indian warriors,
in ages long gone by, cast into the running waters,
above the brink, their sacrifices of weapons of war,
and articles of personal adornment, as propitiations to
the Great Spirit of Niagara.
The " Fairest Maiden of the Tribe," who steered
her white canoe to death, as the Neuters' annual
peace offering to the Spirit of Niagara, always sought
her fate over the brink, where the water is deepest,
of the Fall before you.
Over this Fall on the night of December 29, 1837,
passed the blazing hull of the steamer " Caroline."
She was an American boat, moored for the night at
Schlosser's Dock, two miles above the Falls. At
midnight she was suddenly boarded by a party of
British, captured, towed out into the stream, set on
fire and sent over the Falls. All this during the
Canadian so-called Patriot Rebellion.
THE TERRAPIN ROCKS.
Now let us descend by the wooden stairs and
take our way out along the safe, but frail-looking,
wooden bridge until we reach its end ; then down
the wooden steps and out to the iron railing, and we
are gazing down into the gorge below, perhaps sur-
rounded by the ever-rising column of spray, in the
scenic and geological center of Niagara.
Why the name Terrapin was applied to these rocks
is unknown ; but conjecture says the broad, flat shape
of the rocks, as seen from the bluff above on Goat
Island, before they were accessible, is responsible for
the name.
Nearly opposite, on the Canadian cliff, just below
the Falls, stood old Table Rock. In the gorge, at
67
the base of Goat Island, is the spot which we just
visited, where Sam Patch made his famous leap.
Looking down the gorge, the commencement of the
Whirlpool Rapids appear at the lower end, while span-
ning the gorge, and just before these rapids com-
mence, are the two railroad bridges, and nearer still
is the steel arch bridge for trolley cars and foot and
carriage passengers.
This is, probably, the best point from which to
study the recession of the Falls. Assuming that the
average rate of this recession over a period of many
centuries has been a foot a year, it will be interesting
to note that a thousand years ago the brink of the
Fall (for there was, probably, but one fall then, whose
channel was the Canadian channel, for Goat Island
being then a part of the main shore, there was no
American Fall) was about where Luna Island is now.
Nineteen hundred years ago, at the commencement of
the Christian era, this Fall was at Prospect Point ; 3,000
years ago it was at the upper steel arch bridge. At
the date of the creation of man, it was a good half
mile beyond this bridge ; 10,000 years ago it was at
the cantilever bridge, far down the gorge; 12,000
years ago it was at the extreme end of the gorge, as
seen from here, that is, at the Whirlpool Rapids.
Truly, Niagara Falls are not a thing of yesterday.
' THE SCENIC CENTER.
Looking up stream, the main body of the Horse-
shoe or Canadian Fall thunders on your right, while
on your left ripple the shallow waters as they run
69
quietly to the edge of the cataract, beneath the little
bridge by which we have just reached this glorious
spot. Looking down stream, the gorge is directly be-
neath you. Goat Island is on your right and beyond
it lies the American Fall. No pen picture can pretend
to do justice to this point of view on the very edge of
the gulf.
Gaze on the views all around you, for this is the
scene you have come to see ; this is the Mecca of your
journey. This is the very scenic and geographic center
of Niagara. Satisfy yourself as far as possible, and
then reluctantly turn away.
From these rocks Niagara by moonlight is a dream
of incomparable loveliness, and from here the lunar
bow, formed by the light of the moon on the spray, is
best seen, as here the spray is heaviest. I have al-
ready quoted Margaret Fuller's views on the scene
from Goat Island Bridge. Let me give her impres-
sion as to the moonlight scene at Niagara here :
A QUOTATION.
" Neither the American nor the British Fall moved
me as did these rapids. For the magnificence, the
sublimity of the latter I was prepared by descriptions
and by paintings. When I arrived in sight of them I
merely felt, 'Ah, yes, here is the Fall, just as I have
seen it in picture.' When I arrived at the Terrapin
Bridge, I expected to be overwhelmed, to retire trem-
bling from this giddy eminence, and gaze with un-
limited wonder and awe upon the immense mass roll-
ing on and on, but, somehow or another, I thought
only of comparing the effect on my mind with what I
had read and heard. I looked for a short time, and
then with almost a feeling of disappointment, turned
to go to the other points of view, to see if I was not
mistaken in not feeling any surpassing emotion at
this sight. But from the foot of Biddle's Stairs, and
the middle of the river, and from below the Table
Rock, it was still * barren, barren all.' And, provoked
with my stupidity in feeling most moved in the wrong
place, I turned away to the hotel, determined to set
off for Buffalo that afternoon. But the stage did not
go, and, after nightfall, as there was a splendid moon,
I went down to the bridge and leaned over the para-
pet, where the boiling rapids came down in their
might. It was grand, and it was also gorgeous, the
yellow rays of the moon made the broken waves ap-
pear like auburn tresses twining around the black
rocks. But they did not inspire me as before. I felt
a foreboding of a mightier emotion rise up and swal-
low all others, and I passed on to the Terrapin Bridge.
Everything was changed, the misty apparition had
taken off its many-colored crown which it had worn
all day, and a bow of silvery white spanned its sum-
mit. The moonlight gave a poetical indefmiteness to
the distant parts of the waters, and while the rapids
were glancing in her beams, the river below the Falls
was black as night, save where the reflection of the
sky gave it the appearance of a shield of blued steel.
No gaping tourists loitered, eyeing with their glasses,
or sketching on cards the hoary locks of the ancient
river god. All tended to harmonize with the natural
grandeur of the scene. I gazed long. I saw how
73
THE MAIDEN'S SACRIFICE.
here mutability and unchangeableness were united.
I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the
rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge, till,
like toppling ambition, o'erleaping themselves, they
fall on 'tother side, expanding into foam ere they
reach the deep channel where they creep submissively
away. Then rose in my breast a genuine admiration,
and a humble adoration of the Being who was the
architect of this and of all. Happy were the first
discoverers of Niagara, those who could come un-
awares upon this view and upon that, whose feelings
were entirely their own."
BLONDIN'S WISH.
It was from these rocks that Blondin, the world-
famous ropewalker, wanted, above all other points at
Niagara, to fasten one end of his rope and to stretch
it from here across the gorge to the other end of this
same Fall on the Canadian shore, and thus directly
in front of Niagara Falls, directly above the ever
foam-capped waves at its base, enveloped and shrouded
in the ever-rising column of spray, to pass from shore
to shore across a four-inch hempen cord in full view of
the thousands that, especially if he walked at this
point, would throng to see him risk his life.
But the owners of Goat Island would not consent
to be parties to such a plan, and absolutely refused
permission, so he reluctantly abandoned his cherished
hope and stretched his rope across the gorge a little
way down stream from the site of the present steel
arch bridge.
75
TERRAPIN TOWER.
On this point, or rather on these rocks, stood for
many years what was known as the Old Terrapin
Tower, a rude, circular structure, built from the
wave-washed stones found hereabouts, some thirty
feet in height and twelve feet in outside diameter ; a
tower which formed an essential feature in all the pic-
tures of Niagara from 1833 until 1873. Up it ran a
winding staircase, by means of which, during that
period, many thousands of visitors ascended to its
frail balcony and from there feasted their eyes on the
scenery about them. This tower in the old days was
the center of attraction to all visitors to Niagara, a
veritable Mecca ; and no matter from what point or on
which side of the river one gazed at the Falls, one
was never satisfied until he had reached this spot and
mounted the steps of this tower. It was blown up
with gunpowder in 1873, not because of its danger,
but that it might not prove an attraction contrary to
the interests of a company who had bought the land
around Prospect Point, which land, so long as it re-
mained in the ownership of the proprietors of Goat
Island, was left free to the world. It has been urged
upon the Commissioners of the Reservation that it
would be appropriate, and a pleasure to those of
mature years, as well as a gratification to coming gen-
erations, to restore this ancient, and much missed,
landmark of the Falls, which in days gone by has de-
lighted so many visitors, and which for nearly half a
century was a crude, but not inharmonious, adjunct
to the Great Cataract.
77
FIRST TERRAPIN BRIDGE.
The first bridge from Goat Island to these Rocks,
built in 1829, was a slight and unprotected affair, and
the logs on which the plank rested extended out some
ten feet beyond the edge of the gulf. It was on these
logs that Francis Abbott, the Hermit of Niagara —
referred to later on — used to walk with a rapid step
to the very end and there quickly turning on his heel
retrace his steps. It was from these projecting logs,
also, that this same eccentric man was accustomed
often to suspend himself by his hands, and such was
his athletic power that he would draw himself up again
and remount the log after hanging over the abyss.
Standing on the spot and studying the picture of this
old bridge, which is here given, one gets a better and
clearer idea of the iron nerve of the man who would
dare to perform such foolhardy feats, for every time
he lowered himself over the gulf it would seem as
though death stared him in the face.
From these Terrapin Rocks, up stream, is seen a
similar, though, by reason of the location, not as per-
fect a view as- that to which we shall later refer,
in the eloquent words of the Duke of Argyle, of what
he describes as the " Shoreless Sea."
ONCE NIAGARA RAN DRY.
On March 29, 1848, "for that day only," persons
walked in the bed of the rocky channel of the Ameri-
can Rapids between Goat Island and the mainland, and
from Goat Island out in the bed of the main channel
78
towards Canada, and down the bed of the river to
the very brink of these Horseshoe Falls, to a point in
the then really horseshoe-shaped curve, almost half
way to the Canadian shore. But the river was not
ice bound ; its flow was diminished, not entirely
cut off, its supply at Lake Erie having been tem-
porarily blocked. Lake Erie was then full of
floating ice, crowding to its outlet, the source of
the Niagara River. During the previous after-
noon a strong northeast wind had driven the ice
back into the lake. During the night the wind
veered suddenly and blew a gale from the west.
This forced the ice-floe sharply, in a mass, into the
narrow channel or source of the river, quickly blocked
it up, and the still advancing ice sealed up this source
with a temporary barrier, pushed some feet into the
air. It did not take long for the water north of this
barrier to drain off, and in the morning, the Niagara
River, as men knew it, " was not." The American
Fall was dry. The Canadian Fall was a mere
shadow of its former self, a few threads or streams
of water only falling over the edge. People, fearful
every moment of an onrush of water from up stream,
walked in the channels, where, up to that time, " the
foot of man had never trod," and where it has never
trod since.
The roar of Niagara was reduced to a moan ; the
spray and, therefore, the rainbows disappeared. All
day this phenomenon lasted, but by night the sun's
rays and the pressure of Lake Erie's waters had made
inroads on the icy dam, and during the night the
barrier was swept away. By the next morning the
79
river again rushed by in its might, and its roar once
more proclaimed that Niagara had resumed its
sway.
Retracing our steps up the wooden stairs, we stand
again on the bluff of Goat Island, from which let
us follow the road along the bluff beyond the
Horseshoe Fall.
NIAGARA'S RECESSION.
It was in 1842 that the first steps were taken, by
Professor Hall of the New York State Survey, to
measure the recession of the Falls. He set up stone
monuments at certain points, to which reference could
be made in later surveys.
Following the path for about forty rods from
Porter's Bluff one of these small monuments is directly
in the path, though when placed it was in the woods,
well away from the road. It is marked with a cross
on top, the arms indicating the cardinal points of
the compass.
THE CANADIAN RAPIDS.
As we proceed we shall soon come to an open,
unobstructed view, and at the right, below us, is the
apex of the Horseshoe Fall, the present point of the
cataract's greatest erosion ; and from this spot we
gaze across into Canada, and while the water close to
Goat Island is remarkably shallow, close to the Cana-
dian shore are the tumbling rapids of that part of the
current where are the swiftest waves and where passes
81
nearly three-fourths of all the water that pours over the
Canadian Fall. Far out — possibly half way between
Goat Island and the Canadian shore — lies a little
speck of land but a few feet in diameter. Three score
years ago, we learn from guide books, from maps and
from the testimony of living men, there was at this
spot an island which embraced more than two acres
in extent.
The constant erosion of the water on the edges of
the shallow soil, the disintegration thereof, aided by
frost and ice, and the submergence by occasional high
water, has, bit by bit, worn it away to a mere speck,
and the gulls, which years ago made it a constant
landing place (from whence it was called Gull Island),
now look almost in vain for a foothold on this, their
former safe and isolated resting place. Where this
island was the water is now very shallow.
Just beyond this point the shore of the island, dur-
ing the past fifty years, has crumbled away, for some
400 feet in length by nearly twenty feet in width ; the
old carriage road having formerly been out beyond
where to-day is the edge of the bluff.
THREE SISTER ISLANDS FROM BELOW.
FIRST SISTER ISLAND.
Proceeding again for quite a distance, we reach the
massive stone bridge that connects Goat Island with
the first Sister Island.
Let us pass over it, stop-
ping on it to look down
over its upper parapet on
to the little cascade be-
neath, which is known as
the Hermit's Cascade,
because during his resi-
dence on Goat Island this was his daily bathing place.
In winter the ice above shuts off all water from this
fall. On the first Sister Island, as well as on the other
two, are numerous little bits of scenery — ideal views
«ST SISTER ISLAND.
THE HERMIT S CASCADE.
of graceful trees, of sandy beaches, or of rocky slopes
and rapid currents — to which it is almost impossible
by description to lead the visitor, but which will point
themselves out to him, when he know that these
little points of vantage exist just off of, and away
from, the main paths between the bridges.
85
These Three Sister Islands are so called after the
three daughters of General Whitney, who were the
first women, long before the bridges were built, to
make the trip to the outer island, probably during
some winter when the water was low. The bridges
to them were built in 1869.
SECOND SISTER ISLAND.
The second Sister Island is a rocky shelf, broad and
flat at its upper end, and here, when the water of the
river is low, one can walk on the rocky ledge above.
In and upon this rocky formation, study the effects
of the action of the water, and the so-called pot holes,
formed by pebbles or small stones brought down by
the water and catching in some little depression in the
rock, and there, turned and twisted perhaps for years
by the current, they gradually wore their own size
away and at the same time cut out circular basins
in the solid rock itself. Just before reaching the
bridge that leads from the second to the third Sister
Island, we strongly advise our visitor to turn to the
right and descend a little flight of wooden steps, and
clambering over a couple of dead trees and a rock
or so, to reach a little clearing where are found some
of the most beautiful views at the Falls. Right at
your feet are the American white tumbling waves, and
the boiling waters that are constantly fed by the little
cataract over which pours the most rapid stream of
any at Niagara ; and no one bit of scenery at the
Falls has a more varied scenic effect than this spot,
so little known and so admirably portrayed in the
87
accompanying cut. At the lower end of the third
Sister Island is a little unbridged piece of woodland,
known as the Little Brother, to which we refer simply
because of its beauty and the wonderful effects of light
and shade which are here for the first time reproduced
in facsimile.
THIRD SISTER ISLAND.
Crossing over to the third Sister Island, we can
only say that the visitor must walk over every part of it
in order to fully appreciate the scenery. At its upper
end one might sit for hours gazing at the ever-chang-
ing panorama. Up stream over the little ledge of
rocks pour the waters from the peaceful shallow river
above. A little way to the right are rushing rapids,
and, as the eye follows the line of this ledge extending
in an unbroken line toward and well over to Canada,
the volume of water and the rapidity of the current
increase with the distance. Just in front of this
ledge of rock, perhaps 300 feet out in the current
from this little island, the water spouts up as it comes
pouring over the ledge and dashes against a flat
rock. The old-time guides used to delight their
hearers with a story that this misnamed " spouting
rock," or, in actual words, this column of water, was
caused by the water pouring against the old smoke-
stack of the steamer " Caroline," which in its descent
of the rapids was broken off and caught in some
unknown way at this point. The current in the main
channel near the Canada shore, opposite here, runs
twenty-eight miles an hour.
89
CENTURIES HENCE.
A thousand years hence the visitor at Niagara will
gaze at the Horseshoe Fall, not from the Terrapin
Rocks but from this third Sister Island. The Fall
will have worn its way back to the long low cascade
that, just above us, extends toward the Canada shore.
The gorge at that time and at this point will, of
course, be far wider than it is at present, and far
LITTLE BROTHER ISLAND.
grander ; for the Falls, by reason of the declivity of the
rocky bed of the rapids, will increase in height as they
recede ; and when they reach this point will be over
200 feet in height, a gain in altitude of over fifty feet.
ANOTHER IDEAL VIEW.
Some years ago Colin Hunter, then an Associate,
now a Royal Academician, came over from London to
91
paint Niagara. Of all the points of view, he selected
the one as seen up stream from the head of the Little
Brother Island. A temporary bridge was built to it,
and here, with a guard at the bridge, so as to be secure
from intrusion, he painted his grand view, looking up
stream. The upper ledge of rocks, with its long,
rapid cascade, was his skyline ; in the foreground were
the tumbling rapids ; far to the right of the picture
the tops of a few trees appearing on the Canada shore
above the waters alone showed the presence of any
land.
After satisfying one's self, if, indeed, that is ever
possible, with the views from upper end of the third
Sister Island, without trying to describe either the
glorious scenery or the various points of interest in
the short journey, we advise the visitor -to clamber
over the rocks along the Canadian side of the island,
from one end to the other, and whenever a point
of vantage occurs, and there are several of them, go
out as near the water's edge as possible and you will
appreciate the difference that a few feet in a point of
observation may make in what is apparently the same
scenery. Just before you reach the foot of the island
a gnarled cedar tree and a rock, accessible by leaping
from stone to stone, gives you access to a point of
observation than which there is nothing more beauti-
ful at Niagara. Do not fail to get this view, for it is
the Colin Hunter view, as quoted above, as nearly as
you can get it, and you will appreciate the artistic
sense of the great painter, who chose this incompar-
able view in preference to the very Falls themselves
for a reproduction of the very best at Niagara.
93
PARTING OF THE WATERS.
Retracing our steps once more back to Goat Island,
and still turning to our right and following along the
bank of the river, an entirely different aspect of Ni-
agara bursts upon us. Instead of a yawning gulf or
rapid current, or seething rapids, we find here the
quiet waters and the shallow stream, in strong con-
trast to the view we have just left. In the old days,
hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years ago, there
can be no question that Goat Island, as is explained
in the geological section of this book, was possibly a
PARTING OF THE WATERS.
portion of the main land, and extended very much
farther up stream, for as we reach the extreme upper
end of the island, a point known as the " parting of the
waters," where the currents divide into the American
and Canadian Rapids, a rocky or a sandy bar extends
directly up stream for over a quarter of a mile ; and
towards the Canadian shore, as far as the outer side
of the third Sister Island, there is an inconsiderable
95
depth of water. All this portion of the river's rocky
bed undoubtedly at one time was covered with soil,
and possibly trees like those on the main part of Goat
Island ; and in those days the island may have con-
tained, as one of the early chronicles says it did, 250
acres of land, as against about eighty acres which
Goat Island and the adjacent islands now embrace.
REACHED BY CANOE.
Here, as one stands at the " parting of the waters," it
is not difficult for us to understand how the Indians
in the early days used to come to Goat Island in their
canoes, for between the currents, or along the quiet
waters over this sandy bar referred to, it was easy with
their light canoes to paddle down to and back from
the island ; and even to-day it is no uncommon oc-
currence for an expert oarsman to row down and land
at this point. Nor is it an especially tiresome journey
back, for by keeping between the currents one en-
counters but little rapid water. In fact, it is said that
John Stedman, being too lazy to row his boat, used
to mount his horse, and compelling the animal to
swim across the channel that lay between the American
shore and this sandy bar, at a distance of about a
quarter of a mile above Goat Island, would let him
walk down on this bar and thus land on the island,
and in the same way would return.
The water on the bar was then, as now, very shal-
low, not over a couple of feet in depth, so that in
winter one may yet walk on the solid accumulation
of ice from this point for a long distance upstream.
96
THE HERMIT OF NIAGARA.
From here, follow the shore of the rapids, and a
little way along, near where the path diverges on the
right from the road, we reach the spot where, on our
left, formerly stood the hut that was occupied by
the Hermit of Niagara, Francis Abbott, heretofore
referred to.
In 1829 a young Englishman, tall of figure, hand-
some in appearance, carrying his few belongings on
his arm, came to the village and hired a room, an-
nouncing his intention of remaining three or four
days. The fascinations of Niagara enthralled him.
He studied every point. Erratic in his way, yet affa-
ble when spoken to, he led a hermit's life, approach-
ing no one, except when necessary. Preparing his
own meals, he longed for absolute solitude. He asked
permission to live on the First Sister Island, to which,
he said, he could obtain access by wading the little
stream between it and Goat Island. This could not
well be granted, but he was allowed to occupy an
abandoned hut that stood near where we are. Here
alone, with his dog and his cat for companions, a few
books, a lyre and a guitar for his solace, he lived for
some months, rarely leaving the island, and then only
to procure needed provisions. Friends in England
supplied him with funds for his simple needs. During
the day he staid in his cabin, but at night, when the
island was free from visitors, he roamed about it,
seeking the most weird and dangerous places, such as
the end of the Terrapin Bridge, as noted before. He
was accomplished in music, and composed much ; he
97
was a good linguist, and wrote a great deal, but in-
variably destroyed all he wrote or composed. After
some months of this strange, and to him happy, life, a
family came to live in an adjacent hut on the island,
and, dreading companionship, he removed to a little
building on the American shore, just above the pres-
ent steel arch bridge. Here he lived for nearly six
months, descending the rude stairs at the ferry each
morning to bathe.
One morning, as he did not come up the stairs after
his customary bath, search was made for him. His
clothes were found by the water's edge, but he was
not to be seen. He had been drowned — no one
knew how. His body was recovered down the river
some days afterwards, was brought back to his poor
abode and given burial in the cemetery at Niagara,
where a long, flat slab, marked, " Francis Abbott, the
Hermit of Niagara, died July 31, 1831," marks his
final resting place.
His absorption in the scenery of Niagara shows the
boundless influence that Nature here can exert on an
oversensitive soul ; and his life remains a shining
example of one who, thoroughly familiar with every
aspect of Niagara, lost his life through overcareless-
ness in venturing into her currents, whose eddyings
and treacherous whirls he knew and yet disregarded
once too often.
SITE OF FIRST BRIDGE.
A little farther down stream, below where the path
diverges on our right, where the bank slopes grad-
98
ually down to the water's edge, is the site of the end
of the first bridge to the island, built in 1817.
Over a hundred years ago Goat Island was claimed
by one John Stedman, according to the story of the
Devil's Hole Massacre, told in our historic section,
and the absence of trees from this upper end of the
island is attributed to the fact that he used it as a
garden, cleared it of trees and thereon is said to have
raised, in successive years, wonderful crops of turnips
and other vegetables.
THE SPRING.
A little farther along on the main road we come to
a sign reading, " To the Spring." If desirous of a
delicious drink of well water, it is amply worth while
to descend this flight of steps and quench our thirst at
the stone-enclosed spring ; and then, before retracing
our steps, walk out to the water's edge at two or
three points and view the beautiful effects of the
American Rapids as seen, not rushing by in their
grandeur as on the other side, but peacefully and
beautifully gliding into little cascades and rippling
streams, bordered by the low banks of this wondrous
isle. Back up the stairs let us go, and following the
path to the right we again reach the hill leading to
the bridge over which passes every visitor to this
isle, and we have completed the entire circuit, of
one and a quarter miles, of
"* * the island which divides
Niagara's tumultuous tides
At the brink of the mighty Fall,"
an island which has been most aptly and most truth-
99
fully described by Basil Hall as "the most interest-
ing spot in all America."
ITS SCENERY.
The scenery of Goat Island is of a twofold nature :
that on the island and that from the island. The
scenery from the island is the scenery of Niagara
Falls, and from it can be obtained all the best views
of both Falls, both rapids above them and the gorge
below them.
The scenery on the island is its forest scenery, and,
by reason of its numerous flora and their abundance,
is wonderfully attractive at all seasons ; in the spring,
when the natural forest blooms in its vernal foliage,
and when the profusion of wild flowers carpet the
ground ; in the summer, when amidst the shaded
walks and retreats on the little islands, fanned by the
ever-stirring breezes created by the rapids, one wan-
ders entranced ; in the fall, when the gorgeous color-
ing of the leaves, changed by the frost into all the
colors of the rainbow, delight and dazzle the eye ; in
winter, when the glorious ice scenery covers every
tree and twig, and Nature
"Wasteful decks the branches bare,
With icy diamonds rich and rare."
" Not one in 500, we are persuaded, knows anything
about the apocalypse which is vouchsafed to him who
in these glorious winter nights seeks the isle, not of
Patmos, but of the Goat," wrote David Gray ; and
were one to have his choice of seeing Niagara but
once, it would be hard to decide whether it should be
in winter or summer, but probably in winter.
"The beauty of Niagara is upon Goat Island —
upon the cliffs over which hangs the greenest verdure
— in the trees that lean out and against the rapids,
as if the forest was enamored of the waters, suffering
their youngest leaves to thrill in the trembling frenzy
of the touch of Niagara. It is in the vivid contrast
of the repose of lofty trees and the whirl of a living
river, and in the contrast, more singular and subtle, of
twinkling, shimmering leaves, and the same magnifi-
cent madness. It is in the flowers that grow quietly
on the edge of the precipice, to the slightest of which
one drop of the clouds of spray that come from the
seething abyss is the sufficient elixir of a long and
lovely life." So wrote George William Curtis.
If your visit to Niagara is a protracted one, you
should not fail to pass through Goat Island by the
different paths, in order to observe its picturesque
forest beauty and its scenic attractions.
The scenery of Goat Island by moonlight, at any
season, once seen is never to be forgotten. One-
might paraphrase and say
" If you would see this isle aright,
Go visit it by pale moonlight."
It were useless to attempt a description of it. From
the Terrapin Rocks and from Luna Island the Lunar
Bow is to be seen best in its glorious indistinctness,
and it is to these points
"That many a Lunar belle goes forth,
To meet a Lunar beau."
And from the Terrapin Rocks, Luna Island and
Prospect Point each morning, when the sun is not
103
obscured, one gazes entranced into the rising clouds
of spray, from which the bow of promise, like
'An arch of glory springs,
Sparkling as the chain of rings,
Round the neck of virgins hung."
And when, on a bright afternoon, along toward
sunset, one stands among the rocks at the base of and
in front of the Luna Island Fall or of the American
Fall, he is the center not only of a complete rainbow
circle, but of three complete concentric circles of
rainbows, a phenomenon visible only here.
Byron's description of Velino may properly be
applied to Niagara. Another poet likens Goat Island
to "Love in the clasp of madness"; while Tom
Moore, who gazed at it from across the gorge in 1804,
makes the Spirit say :
" There amidst the island's sedge
Just above the Cataract's edge
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,"
which was poetic, but not founded on fact. And still
another wrote of
" The isle that linked in wild Niagara's firm embrace,
Still wears the smile of summer on its face."
ITS NAME.
Prior to 1770, John Stedman, before referred to,
claimed to own Goat Island. In the fall of that year
he placed on the island a number of animals, among
them a male goat. His expressed object in putting
104
these animals there was to get them out of the reach
of the bears and wolves which then prowled about
his home on the main shore some two miles farther
up stream. That winter was a very severe one and
by spring all but the goat were dead.
His tenacity of life gave his name to his island
prison, and Goat Island it has been called ever since.
Whether the goat died on the island is not known.
So thoroughly has this name become attached to the
island that it would seem impossible now to change
it, were it so desired, which it is to be hoped it will
not be. In 1819, when the Commissioners under the
treaty of Ghent were engaged in determining the
boundary line between the United States and Canada,
Gen. Porter, one of the Commissioners, and also an
owner of Goat Island, proposed to call it " Iris Is-
land," and it was so designated in the minutes of, and
on the maps published by, the Commissioners. But
the traveling public of the world would have none of
it ; Goat Island it was ; Goat Island it should remain.
So they called it, so they continued to call it, and so
it is known even until to-day, both in literature
and in cartography.
ITS FIRST WHITE VISITOR.
We can only conjecture as to the name of the first
white man who gazed upon Niagara Falls. In like
manner, we can only conjecture as to the name of the
first white man who ever stood on Goat Island. Who
ever the latter was, it is pretty certain that he reached
it from up stream by canoe.
105
In 1764 there came to Fort Niagara, in Bradstreet's
army, in the British service, a man destined in after
years to be a conspicuous figure in colonial history —
Israel Putnam. He was lieutenant-colonel of a Con-
necticut regiment, and tradition says that during the
month the army lay in camp at this fort he visited Goat
Island on a wager — being the first white man to set foot
thereon. One end of a long rope was secured on the
shore, its other end being fastened to a boat, and was
paid out as the boat was swiftly paddled to the island.
The boat and its occupants were later hauled back to
the mainland. The story in itself, minus the rope at-
tachment, is by no means improbable ; but it is much
more than probable that many white men, both French
and British, had been on the island before 1764.
Augustus Porter first visited Goat Island in 1805.
He found at its upper end the clearing of a few acres
made many years before by Stedman.
He also found carved on the trees thereon the dates
1769, 1770, 1779, 1783 ; which was pretty substantial
proof of earlier visits thereto.
Of course, since the island was bridged hundreds of
thousands have visited it, so that any early dates now
readable on trees thereon may have been carved by
visitors of much more recent years.
ITS PROPOSED USES.
Many are the uses to which the ingenuity of man
has, during the past ninety years, desired to turn the
island.
It was desired originally for a sheep pen.
1 06
The State Legislature designed to use it fora State
prison or a State arsenal, and because of such pro-
posed uses declined to allow it to be sold, when
application for its purchase was first made.
Lafayette, as well as many others, would have
liked to have it for a residence park.
P. T. Barnum wanted to buy it for a circus ground.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sr., tried to buy it for use as a
pleasure ground in connection with his railroads.
Jim Fiske wanted it for use as a picnic ground and
as a terminal of the Erie Railroad.
And among the many propositions which were made
between 1850 and 1880, all of which were promptly
declined, to its owners for its use were, as the site of a
mammoth hotel, as a race track, as a botanical garden,
as a rifle range, and as a site for a collection of manu-
factories to be located along the shores of the island
and the power to be furnished by running tall piers
out into the river and thus collecting the waters; and,
again, by cutting a canal through the center of the
island from east to west and locating the factories
along its banks.
DeWitt Clinton, in 1810, noted its value for hy-
draulic works, and that use was suggested oftener
than any other until the establishment of the State
Reservation in 1885. And even since then plans
have been urged with this object in view ; some men
seeming to be unable to realize (when they think they
see a dollar for themselves) that the State's purchase
was for the sole purpose of forever retaining the
natural scenery which private owners had happily
preserved.
107
ITS OWNERS.
The ownership of the islands maybe summarized as
follows :
The Aborigines, — 1600
The Neuters, 1600-1651
The Senecas, 1651-1764
Sir William Johnson, 1764
The English Crown, 1764-1783
State of New York, 1783-1816
The Porters, 1816-1885
State of New York, 1885-1901
THE INDIANS ADORED IT.
To the Indians, the Senecas, as well as to the
Neuters and the Aborigines, Goat Island was a sacred
spot. To them it was the abode of the Great Spirit of
Niagara. In the spray they saw the manifestation of
their Deity, in the thunder of the cataract they heard
His voice —
"And the poor Indian whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind "
believed that he could sometimes even see, in the
ever-shifting clouds of mist, the outlined figure of
Him whom he worshiped. The island's use to the
Aborigines appears to have been as a burial ground,
and tradition says that in its soil rest the remains of
many an Indian warrior, interred there hundreds of
years ago ; over whose mounds to-day stand trees
of great age. Here, says the same untraceable
108
tradition, was interred the body, when recovered, of the
"fairest maiden of the tribe," who was annually sent
over the Fall, in a white canoe decked with flowers,
as the noblest possible sacrifice to the Great Spirit.
There is no record of any Indian burial taking
place on the island. Hennepin makes no mention of
this use of it, as he would in all probability have done
had the Senecas, or even had their immediate pre-
decessors, the Neuters, buried their warriors here. But
he says " the island is inaccessible." Hence we can
only assume that these graves long antedate his visit,
and are the graves of Aborigines.
Tradition tells us that the Indians of long ago
made annual pilgrimages to Niagara, often coming
great distances, to offer to the Great Spirit sacrifices
of the spoils of the chase, of war, and of the crops.
Further, the chiefs and warriors, invoking blessings
for the future, used to cast into its waters offerings of
their weapons and adornments. We must assume
that at least these offerings were made from Goat
Island, as no " brave " would have been considered
worthy of the name who could not reach the insular
abode of the Great Spirit, from thence to offer up
his invocation.
In 1834, the skeleton of a young female, that had
been dug up on Goat Island shortly before, was in the
museum of the Boston Medical College ; and many
years ago, when a fish pond was dug, not far above
the bridge, a large collection of human bones were
found in one spot. Most of the Indian graves, how-
ever, are on the western half of the island, where
the soil is deeper.
109
IMPROVEMENT ON NATURE.
In regard to all of Nature's handiwork, there are
always men who think that certain parts of it would
have been more effectively and better done if they
could only have been consulted about it, and even the
case of Niagara and Goat Island is no exception.
Perhaps one of the least objectionably worded of
such criticisms on Goat Island, which is conceded
to be one of the loveliest and grandest spots on earth,
was written less than forty years ago, in these words :
" It would be considered rather presumptuous in any
one to think of improving upon Niagara, but I cannot
help thinking that the effect would be increased
immensely if the island which divides the cataract
into the Horseshoe and the American Falls and the
rock which juts up in the latter and subdivides it un-
equally, were moved or did not exist ; then the river,
in one grand front of over 1,000 yards, would make
the leap en masse."
Fortunately, the idea is now impracticable, and
Goat Island exists because such is the will of the
Creator.
POETIC PROSE.
Goat Island and Niagara, for they are synonymous
terms, once seen can never be forgotten, nor will the
influences derived from a leisurely visit to them ever
be entirely lost.
Their impression on an appreciative mind was
beautifully expressed many years ago, by J. B. Orton,
in the following poetic prose :
no
" Niagara, when once we become acquainted with
it, is capable of exercising a strange power of fascina-
tion over the mind ; and the imaginative individual
should not be surprised if he find mere water, earth,
and air changing in its conceptions into a creature
of life. No wonder that the savages adored it, and
peopled it with invisible beings, and imagined it the
abode of the Great Spirit. With me it will always
remain a vision of beauty, closely associated with that
glory with which, in my notion, I shadow and imagine
the Supreme. I loved it as a fellow ; I left it with
regret. Its form still lingers before my eyes, its rush-
ing voices still hymn in my ears. And often still,
sleeping or waking, am I, in heart, among the cedars
of Iris Island,"
ON THE MAIN SHORE.
Returning to Green Island and across to the main
shore, you will find special delight in going up the
river bank. The New York State Reservation extends
up stream for over half a mile, far beyond the com-
mencement of the rapids, where the water runs
swiftly, but comparatively placidly. The varied
views of the American Rapids close at hand, of the
wooded shore and upper end of Goat Island, of the
commencement of the Canadian Rapids and the
Canadian shore in the distance, of the broad river
above, with the wooded shores of Navy Island and
Grand Island far away, will amply repay you for the
time spent.
Tradition says that about the middle of the last
century the French, who then controlled all this sec-
tion, impressed by the magnitude of the water power
at Niagara, built a sawmill on this shore at a point
opposite Goat Island. About 1760 the British, who
had just supplanted the French in control here, are
said to have erected another sawmill near the same
spot, that was used in preparing timbers for their for-
tifications along the river. About 1775, Stedman is
said to have erected a new mill on the same site, and
early in this century the Porters erected, at the foot
of what is called Willow Island (now a part of the
State Reservation), still another sawmill, and near it
the first gristmill built on this frontier.
TO THE CANADA SIDE.
On your return to the vicinity of Goat Island Bridge,
we are ready to show you scenic Niagara from the
Canada side : first the Falls, then the Dufferin Islands,
and then to show you the entire gorge, the Whirlpool
Rapids, the Whirlpool and the Lower Rapids — this
latter trip in an electric car, a ride of fourteen miles,
without leaving the car, and landing you at your
exact starting point.
At the Soldiers' Monument board an electric car,
which will take you to and over the upper steel arch
bridge to Canada.
We advise you to buy a so-called belt line electric
railroad ticket, which cost $i each. For this you
will be carried from the monument to and across the
bridge to Canada, up to the Horseshoe Fall, one
mile, and from there back to the bridge and to
Queenston, seven miles below, back across the
113
gorge, over the Lewiston Suspension Bridge, to the
New York shore, and over an electric road, close to
the water's edge almost all the way, back to the
monument, a ride of sixteen miles. This trip can be
taken without leaving the car ; but, of course, the
visitor ought to spend some time at the Horseshoe
Fall. This ticket, moreover, gives you the right of
stop-off at any and all stations on the entire trip, re-
suming and completing the journey as desired, with-
out any extra expense.
STEEL ARCH BRIDGE.
This bridge is the third one erected on this site.
The first one was built in 1869, and was of the sus-
pension type, the cables having been carried across
the gorge- on an ice bridge. In 1889, a tremendous
gale of wind lifted the roadway, which was almost
exactly a quarter of a mile long, some six feet into
the air, and when it dropped back to its former
position it tore away all the bolts and nuts that were
attached to the wire ropes by which it was suspended
from the heavy cables, and the entire floorway, 1,300
feet long, dropped into the gorge below. It was at
once rebuilt, and in 1895 was replaced by the present
steel arch structure.
JUMPERS.
Some years ago a man performed the perilous feat,
on two occasions, of dropping from the edge of the
roadway of the bridge into the waters below. Fast-
ened to the side of the bridge was a freely-revolving
drum around which was coiled some three -hundred
feet of medium-sized wire. The end of this wire was
attached to a hook in a leather band that was strapped
around his chest, the hook being located between his
shoulders. The end of the wire having been securely
fastened into this ring, the man stepped to the top of
the railing of the old bridge, lowered himself until he
hung by his hands from the edge of the floor directly
beneath the drum, then loosening his hold, he de-
scended with lightning-like rapidity; the wire as, it
uncoiled from the drum merely serving to keep his
body in a perpendicular position.
In 1878, a man named Peer, after duly advertising
his intention, hung by his hands from the edge of the
roadway of the bridge and, unaided by any mechan-
ical appliance, dropped into the river below unhurt.
At the center of the bridge the water in the gorge is
200 feet below us
In 1873, a rope was stretched across the gorge
above the bridge, from Hennepin's View on the State
Reservation to a point opposite.
. A man, Bellini by name, walked out to the center
of this rope, where a rubber cord, twelve feet long,
and an inch and a quarter in diameter, was securely
fastened, its other end being attached to the middle
of a short handle bar. Seizing this handle bar, and
with the rubber cord taut but not stretched, he
leaped from the rope, and, kept in a perpendicular
position by the stretching rubber cord, safely struck
the water, the soles of his feet being protected by
sloping lead sandals, and sank out of sight. He arose
to the surface, and a day or two after successfully
repeated the feat. A third time he tried it, but this
time the cord parted at its juncture with the main
rope, and freed from its restraining pull, he sank to a
great depth below the surface. The twelve feet of
rubber cord wound itself about his legs and prevented
any attempt at swimming below water. After a lapse
NIAGARA FROM THE WATER'S EDGE BELOW THE BRIDGE.
of time, which no doubt seemed to him an eternity,
and which to the spectators seemed to insure death,
he rose to the surface alive, but utterly exhausted.
Needless to say, he never made the leap again.
VICTORIA PARK.
Reaching the farther end of the bridge, we are in
the Victoria Park, and obtain a new view of Niagara,
for from here the American Fall is seen from nearly in
front. The car, turning to the left, starts toward the
Horseshoe Fall, of which we now get a splendid
distant view. As we reach the road that comes down
the hill on our right we are at the point from which
was taken the first known picture of Niagara. Father
Hennepin first saw the Falls in December, 1678; but
his picture, drawn probably from memory, was not
published until 1697. From here, too, is taken the
117
view of the rarest of all Niagara pictures, engraved
by Leclercq about 1700. It is based on Hennepin's
view, though considerably changed, and the suppo-
sition is that this artist, desiring to unite in one plate
the greatest natural wonder on earth and the greatest
honor ever vouchsafed by the Almighty to mortal man,
added in one corner the view of Elijah and his chariot.
It is reproduced in our art section.
The Victoria Park is a model, so far as good roads,
foot paths, and accommodations for visitors are con-
cerned. Opposite the American Fall is a rustic arbor,
called Inspiration Point, whence one gets a direct
front view of this Fall and can watch the little steamer,
" Maid of the Mist," as she makes this unique water
trip from below the American Fall and up into the
vortex of foam, until the power of the water over-
comes the force of her engines and she turns her prow
down stream for the return trip.
OVER THE FALLS ALIVE.
No human being has ever gone over the Falls alive.
But there are three authenticated cases in which a cat
and two dogs, respectively, each thrown into the
rapids from the bridge to Green Island, have taken
the plunge over the American Fall and lived. The
following solution of how such a thing is possible
may be studied from where we now are, on the
Canada shore, directly opposite the American Fall.
On a bright day, if one looks steadily at the bottom
of this Fall where the descending sheet falls into the
water, he may see, as the spray is occasionally blown
119
aside, a beautiful exhibition of water cones, apparently
eight or ten 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 cannot run off fast enough, and piles
up in these cones as though it were in a state of
violent ebullition. These cones are constantly form-
ing and breaking, and it is supposed that the animals
above referred to struck, in each instance, on the top
of one of these cones just when it broke, and the
receding water, acting as a cushion, so modified the
force of the descent that the animal slid safely into
the current below, aided by the repulsion of the water
from the rocks in the swift channel through which it
passed. In this way it is possible, though improbable,
that a strong man might go over Niagara Falls and
not be killed.
OLD TABLE ROCK.
The car takes us along, past Goat Island, whose
rocky cliff in the gorge is seen in front view opposite,
and on until we gaze across at the Terrapin Rocks
and the Goat Island end of the Horseshoe Fall. Here
is an elevator down the bank, but it is not of enough
importance to cause us to stop.
Just before we reach the edge of the Horseshoe
Fall, let us alight from the car and step to the edge
of the bluff. Right at this point was old Table Rock,
simply a ledge of rock projecting some fifty feet over
the gorge, the softer rocky substratum having been
gradually worn away by the action of the elements.
121
It was a splendid point of observation in the early
days. The last part of it, some fifty feet wide and
nearly 100 feet in greatest length, fell with a crash in
1853. Luckily, no visitors were on it at the time,
though a party of a dozen had left it but a few
moments before. Part of its rocky remains may be
noted on the slope near the water in the gorge below.
It was on Table Rock that Mrs. Sigourney composed
her famous "Apostrophe to Niagara." It was here,
also, that Chataubriand so nearly lost his life, as he
tells in the following words : " On my arrival I
TABLE ROCK IN 1850.
repaired to the Fall, having the bridle of my horse
twisted round my arm. While I was stooping to look
down, a rattlesnake stirred among the neighboring
bushes ; the horse was startled, reared, and ran back
toward the abyss. I could not disengage my arm
from the bridle, and the horse, more and more fright-
ened, dragged me after him. His forelegs were all
but off the ground, and, squatting on the brink of the
precipice, he was upheld merely by the bridle. I
gave myself up for lost, when the animal, himself
astonished at this new danger, made a fresh effort,
threw himself forward with a pirouette, and sprang
to a distance of ten feet from the edge of the abyss."
123
It was on Table Rock that Dickens, in 1842, penned
his famed pen picture of Niagara, quoted elsewhere.
It was of his sensation while standing on Table Rock
Captain Basil Hall wrote: " I may mention one curious
effect ; it seemed to the imagination not impossible
that the fall might swell up and grasp us in its vortex
The actual presence of any very powerful moving ob-
ject is often more or less remotely connected with a
feeling that its direction may be changed ; and when
the slightest variation would prove fatal, a feeling of
awe is easily excited. At all events, as I gazed upon
the cataract, it more than once appeared to increase
in volume and to be accelerated in its velocity."
It was probably from Table Rock that the Indians,
of hundreds of years ago, gazed on the Fall and no
doubt worshiped the Great Spirit of Niagara, whose
abode they believed to be on Goat Island. Red
Jacket expressed the wish that his portraits should
be painted as standing on Table Rock, as it was
there, in close association with Niagara, that he pre-
tended to believe his spirit would forever linger after
death.
From near the edge of the Horseshoe, in the after-
noon when the sun is shining brightly and you stand
between it and the column of spray, you can see a
beautiful rainbow effect. Now walk along the edge
of the cliff until you reach the platform, protected by
an iron railing, and enjoy the counterpart of the view
you had when you stood on the Terrapin Rock.
That view and the one before you are, in the
order named, the most impressive views of the gran-
deur of Niagara.
124
FIRST WHITE VISITOR.
Tradition says that the first white man who ever
saw the Falls, a Frenchman and a priest, was led to
this spot, from up stream, by a chief, and in the words
of an early chronicle —
" From a jutting shelf of stone
Saw Ni-ah-gah-ra, then unknown,
Save to the Red Man's race alone."
And added, which is as true now as it was then, fully
300 years ago :
" Ne'er has the scene which 'neath them lay,
Been chronicled aright ;
For no man, in a fitting way,
By pen nor pencil, can portray
The grandeur of the sight."
THE HEART OF NIAGARA.
After satisfying your delight at the scene before
you, if the height of the water permits, and it usually
does, go to what is the most interesting spot on the
Canadian shore. Passing around the stone building .
which is the pumping station for the waterworks of the
adjacent village, step out upon the rocks close to the
edge of the Canadian Fall, where the water runs rapidly,
though placidly, at our feet, a small quantity run-
ning over the edge on our left, just enough to let
us feel that we are standing on the very brink of
Niagara. To the right, gradually increasing in depth
from the shore, pours over the precipice the bulk of
the waters of the Niagara River. Gaze down at the
sheet of water and at the surface of the river in the
125
gorge below you, forever white with foam. Fol-
low along with your eye until you reach the point
where the falling column of water strikes the water
level below. From here follow up with your gaze the
ever-ascending cloud of spray and mist which has
been rising unceasingly from the bottom of the Falls
since thousands of years before man appeared upon
this continent. Raise your eyes until you reach the
brink of the Fall and you are gazing at the very center
of the cataract," The Heart of Niagara," as some artists
have been pleased to call it. Watch it as the falling
waters catch this spray and hurl it into fantastic
shapes crowned by all of the colors of the rainbow,
and you can probably see the unique feature of the
darting lines of spray which have been so wonderfully
caught by the camera, during a visit made to this
exact spot in August, 1900.
THE DARTING LINES OF SPRAY.
These darting lines of spray are caused by the
force of the expansion of the air that is continuously
carried, by the falling water, below the surface and
there condensed.
Let me quote Basil Hall, who was here in 1827, and
who gave the first explanation of the beautiful phe-
nomenon, and wrote learnedly and entertainingly
about Niagara in many of its other scientific aspects.
He went behind the sheet of water at the Canadian
end of the Horseshoe Fall, where the barometer stood
at 29° 72'. Of this experience he wrote: " This enor-
mous cataract, like every other cascade, carries along
127
with it a quantity of air, which it forces far below the
surface of the water — an experiment which any one
may try on a small scale by pouring water into a tum-
bler from a height. The quantity of air thus carried
down by so vast a river as Niagara, must be great,
and the depth to which it is driven, in all probability,
considerable. It may also be much condensed by
the pressure ; and it will rise with proportionate vio-
lence both on the outside of the cascade, and within
the shell or curtain which forms the cataract.
" It had long been a subject of controversy, I was
told, whether the air in the cave behind the Fall was
condensed or rarified ; and it was amusing to listen to
the conflicting arguments on the subject. All par-
ties agreed that there was considerable difficulty in
breathing ; but while some ascribed this to a want of
air, others asserted that it arose from the quantity
being too great. The truth, however, obviously is
that we have too much water, not too much air."
[These lines were written seven years before access
was had to the Cave of the Winds, but are specially
applicable to it, as that is the only sensible and
feasible place to go behind the sheet of water at
Niagara, whether for a scenic or a scientific purpose.]
" I remarked another singular phenomenon, which
I have not happened to hear mentioned before,
but which is evidently connected with this branch of
the subject. A number of small, sharp-pointed cones
of water are projected upwards from the pool on the
outside of the Fall, sometimes to the height of a
hundred and twenty feet. They resemble in form
some cornets of which I have seen drawings. Their
128
point, or apex, which is always turned upward, is
quite sharp, and not larger, I should say, than a man's
fingers and thumb brought as nearly to a point as
possible.
*' The conical tails which stream from these watery
meteors may vary from one or two yards to ten or
twelve, and are spread out on all sides in a very curi-
ous manner. The lower part of the Fall is constantly
hidden from the view by a thick rolling cloud of
spray, and I do not believe it is ever seen. Out of
this cloud, which waves backwards and forwards, and
rises at times to the height of many hundred feet
above the Fall, these singular cones, or cornets, are
seen at all times jumping up. The altitude to which
they are projected, I estimated, at about thirty feet
from the top. The whole height being 160 feet, the
perpendicular elevation to which these jets of water
are thrown cannot, therefore, be less than no or 120
feet above the surface of the pool."
ABOVE THE FALLS.
From here, too, gaze up the river and you will see
the foaming, tumbling waters pouring down toward
you, and you will then, perhaps, realize the force of
the expression, " A mile of madly rushing, tumbling
waters, threatening to engulf you."
Retrace your steps to the electric railway and
board a car going up stream. Buy a ticket to the
Dufferin Islands and return, price fifteen cents each.
The car now takes you along the water's edge to and
along the whole length of Cedar Island and again to
129
the main land. A short way farther on you come to
a crib work, filled with stone, placed so as to prevent
the erosion of the land. A little way out in the
stream is a flat black rock ; and, gazing over that,
you see a little-known, but most wonderful, exhibition
of the power of Niagara. Before you, and pouring
towards you, come the tumbling rapids, and it is
from this identical spot that the late Duke of Argyle
described one of the ideal views of Niagara, a point
but little known, but deserving of being visited by
every lover of nature. As you read the following
lines, glance up occasionally at the prospect before
you, and you will appreciate the beauty and the force
and the power of Niagara as perhaps they have never
been described before.
A SHORELESS SEA.
" The river Niagara above the Falls runs in a chan-
nel very broad and very little depressed below the
level of the country. But there is a deep declivity in
the bed of the stream for a considerable distance above
the precipice, and this constitutes what are called the
Rapids. The consequence is, that when we stand at
any point near the edge of the Falls and look up the
course of the stream the foaming waters of the Rapids
constitute the sky line. No indication of land is
visible ; nothing to express the fact that we are look-
ing at a river. The crests of the breakers, the leaping
and the rushing of the waters are still seen against
the clouds, as they are seen on the ocean when the
ship from which we look is in the trough of the sea.
131
It is impossible to resist the effect on the imagination.
It is as if the fountains of the great deep were being-
broken up, and that a new deluge were coming on
the world. The impression is rather increased than
diminished by the perspective of the low wooded
banks on either shore, running down to a vanishing
point, and seeming to be lost in the advancing waters.
An apparently shoreless sea tumbling towards one is
a very grand and a very awful sight. Forgetting,
then, what one knows, and giving oneself to what one
only sees, I do not know that there is anything in
nature more majestic than the view of the Rapids
above the Falls of Niagara."
THE DUFFERIN ISLANDS.
Following the bank of the river, the car reaches the
Dufferin Islands, where a bend in the rapid current
sweeping around these low-lying spots, produces one
of the most beautiful sylvan retreats, filled with a
number of so-called lovers' walks, and affording
beautiful scenic effects and views of the tumbling
rapids. Crossing over the second bridge, we reach
the so-called Burning Spring, which is simply the out-
pouring of a small amount of natural gas, which filters
through the veins of the rock, from the not very far
distant gas fields, which when lighted burns with a
small bluish flame. It is not worth visiting, nor the
payment of the admission fee. Do not let us continue
our journey for scenic Niagara beyond this spot; but
let us recall that on the banks of the river, not so very
far above, was fought the Battle of Chippawa, July
133
u
s
£1
25, 1814; and at the mouth of the little creek, a mile
above where we stand, stood the British Fort Chip-
pawa, built in 1790, to protect the upper end of the
Canadian Portage, whose lower end was at Lewiston,
eight miles below.
POINTS OF "INTEREST.
After viewing the beauties of the Dufferin Islands,
the forest beauty on them and the scenic beauties of
the rapids from them, get on the electric car again
for the return trip to the Horseshoe Fall. On the top
of the high bluff on our left is a gray stone building
surmounted by a holy cross. This is the Loretto
Convent, dedicated to " Our Lady of the Cataract,"
to which was granted the privilege of pilgrimage by
Pope Pius IX.
Reaching the Horseshoe Fall, we again resume oui
trip, on the electric car, on the $i belt line ticket,
bought when we started from the American shore.
On our left about a mile back from the gorge is the
battlefield of Lundy's Lane, July 5, 1814, referred to in
our historical section. And opposite the Biddle Stairs
on the American side, if you climb to the top of the
bluff on our left, you will get the splendid view illus-
trated on page 136. On our right, at the edge of the
cliff, is the site of the "Old Indian Ladder," which
was simply a tall cedar, its limbs lopped off about a
foot from the main trunk and fastened perpendicu-
larly to the face of the cliff, by means of which the
Indians of long ago used to descend to the water's
edge below, in order to fish. As late as 100 years
ago, a similar ladder, or tree, was placed for, and used
by, white visitors and Indians on the American shore,
just below the steel arch bridge.
Later, on our right, we come to the road that winds
down the bank to the old ferry landing, where the
steamer " Maid of the Mist " touches, and up which,
in the old days, the noted visitors to Niagara have
climbed. Down it, June 24, 1883, walked Captain
Matthew Webb to take the little row boat from which,
nearly two miles below, he leaped into the river above
the Whirlpool Rapids, with a "good bye, boys," to
the boatmen, the last words of his ever heard by man.
The top of the inclined railway down the bank is in
the little building just beyond, on our right; and from
below this, one has the best view of the steel arch
bridge, over which we recently came.
Just below the bridge, on the Canadian shore, on
our right, is the site of Simcoe's ladder, a similar,
but improved, ladder of the Indian-ladder type men-
tioned above, erected in 1792, in order that the wife
of the first Governor-General of Upper Canada might
descend into the gorge.
THE TUNNEL OUTLET.
On the American shore, close below the pier of the
bridge, a rushing current pours into the river at and
below its surface. This is the outlet of the great
tunnel, and the water pouring from it has developed
50,000 horse-power in the power house, one and a
fourth miles above (which we shall visit later on), and,
having there done its work, has come through the
i37
tunnel, which is 150 feet underground, twenty-four
feet high and nineteen feet wide, on a grade of seven
feet to the hundred, to rejoin its original source.
The large manufacturing plants of the Hydraulic
Company, the earlier though not the larger of the two
great companies whose development of water power
has made Niagara so famous commercially, are directly
across the gorge, the water from the surface canal,
after having developed the power on the face of the
cliff, falling in many graceful streams into the gorge.
BLONDIN'S FEAT.
The car ascends a slight elevation, and not far
beyond its crest is the site of the Canadian end of the
rope stretched in 1859 across the gorge ; on which
rope, on several occasions, Blondin crossed and
recrossed, performing many feats in midair — such as
taking a small cook stove in a wheelbarrow to the
rope's center, and there cooking and eating his dinner;
lowering a rope to the steamer " Maid of the Mist,"
and drawing up and drinking the contents of a bottle
of wine; crossing with empty baskets fastened to his
feet (this dangerous feat being performed in honor of
the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII. of Great
Britain, who sat on the Canadian shore at this point
and greeted Blondin, as he reached the bank after the
trip from the American shore); and, finally, carrying
his manager, Harry Colcord (who is still living), across
the gorge, sitting in a specially-prepared leather har-
ness on his back, a ride such as no other man ever
took, and he probably never wanted to take again.
139
Blondin, the pioneer
and greatest of all rope-
walkers, preserved his
equilibrium on the rope
by means of a long bal-
ance pole, some three
inches in diameter at
the center and about an
inch and a half at the
ends, and some twenty-
four feet in length.
RAILROAD
BRIDGES.
Next comes into view
the cantilever bridge,
built in 1882, and close
below it the steel arch
railroad bridge. This
latter was built in 1848
as a suspension bridge,
the first railroad suspen-
sion bridge in this country, by John A. Roebling. It
was remodeled in steel, as a suspension bridge, in 1880,
and rebuilt as an arch bridge in 1897. It is worthy of
note that the cables of the first bridge were carried
across the gorge through the instrumentality of a kite.
The contractor for the bridge offered a prize of $5 to
any boy who would carry a string across by landing his
kite on the opposite shore. Three days later a strong
wind blew from the Canada shore. A large number
140
A ROPEWALKER.
of boys from the American side took their kites,
crossed the river at the ferry just below the Falls and
walked down to the site of this bridge. Here they
joined a number of Canadian boys, already at work
for that $5. Finally, an American boy (now the
Rev. Warren Walsh) landed his kite on the American
shore and won the prize. By means of this kite
string successive cords and ropes, each thicker and
heavier than its predecessor, were drawn across, until,
finally, a hempen rope of sufficient strength to pull
one of the huge wire cables across spanned the gorge.
Below this bridge, in the gorge, begin the famous
Whirlpool Rapids, of which, and of their navigation
and accidents, we shall refer at length as we ride
alongside of them at the water's edge on the American
shore, on the return trip.
ROPEWALKERS.
Just below these bridges another rope was stretched
across the gorge, over which two or three persons
made the trip from shore to shore, one of them being
a woman. Luckily, yet strange to say, of all the
daring persons who have had the nerve to attempt to
cross the river's gorge on a suspended cable not one
has fallen from his rope, nor has any fatality occurred
to any of them ; though one man, at least, after start-
ing on his journey, and getting about thirty feet from
shore, repented of his rashness and turned around and
scrambling back to land, abandoned the attempt. On
this rope, also, one man rode across on a bicycle,
whose wheels were grooved to fit the rope.
141
THE WHIRLPOOL.
The car soon reaches the top of the bluff, rounds
the bend, and we gaze down into the Whirlpool, that
phenomenal spot, which if there was one place on the
earth's surface that man would like to see without its
covering of water, and its eddying whirlpools, it is its
bed. Let us note that the inlet to the Whirlpool by
the so-called Whirlpool Rapids is at right angles to
the outlet and that the water reaches this outlet
largely by an undercurrent which runs under and
directly across the path of the swirling inlet. In the
Whirlpool may often be seen large masses of debris,
among them often huge logs, which are caught in the
eddies, then pointed upwards and sucked beneath the
waves with apparently as little effort as one would
handle a feather. Here, too, are often rescued the
bodies of those unfortunates who by accident or by
suicide take their last look on life at Niagara ; and
sometimes a body will float round and round the
Whirlpool, in its eddying currents, beyond the reach
of man, for days at a time before it falls into the
right current and in its course is brought near enough
to the shore to be recovered.
PRE-GLACIAL CHANNEL.
A little farther on and the car runs on a long high
trestle, and stops about the middle to enable you to
gaze at the chasm and the forest below you. You
are directly over what was thousands of years ago
the old pre-glacial bed of Niagara River, which fol-
lowed the course of the present river, though on the
143
surface, approximately to the Whirlpool, and then, in-
stead of following its present channel to Lake Ontario,
cut its way westward through this old gorge to old
Lake Ontario at St. David's, some three miles to the
west of Queenston Heights. The outlet and inlet
of this old channel alone remain unfilled (with "drift"
and soil) to prove this most interesting geologic fact
connected with the course of the old river before the
coming of the Ice Age.
Following the curve of the bluff that skirts the
lower side of the Whirlpool, we reach the crest over
the outlet, and just beyond this spot, looking back,
one gets a glorious view, over the edge, showing the
inlet and the outlet of the Whirlpool.
BROCK'S MONUMENT.
The car speeds along, at times near the edge, at
times away from it, for three miles. Looking down
from the edge of the cliff, on our right, the suspension
bridge, over which we shall soon pass, appears far be-
low us, and on the heights, on our left, rises the grace-
ful Doric shaft called Brock's Monument, erected by
a grateful country to his memory. It stands on
Queenston Heights, and from its summit is to be ob-
tained a wonderful panoramic view. The remains of
the earthworks of old Fort Drummond, of the War of'
1812, are just behind it. The first Brock's Monument
stood on the same site, but was a much less architec-
turally beautiful structure than this one. A miscreant
named Lett, incited thereto by his sympathy with the
patriots and instigated by his hatred of Britain, blew
it up with gunpowder in 1840. Intending evil, he
wrought good, for the present far handsomer shaft
replaced the one he destroyed.
BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS.
We are on historic ground. On top of this hill,
on its northern slope, and on the steep bank of the
river, was fought the battle of Queenston Heights,
October 12, 1812, which resulted in a victory for
the British. Let us right here pay tribute to the
farsightedness of the Canadian officials of long
ago, who reserved in all their sales of land a strip
along the river bank, one chain in width, for Govern-
ment purposes.
As the car turns and begins to descend the hill,
look at the glorious panorama spread out around you.
These heights were, in ages long gone by, the shore
of Lake Ontario, before it receded to its present level.
A little way down the heights, on the riverside, was
the redan battery (British), captured by the Ameri-
cans, recaptured by the British, and the Americans in
it literally pushed over the bluff. At the outlet of
the gorge, 300 feet below you, the river, after its
tumultuous rush of four miles from the Whirlpool,
emerges from its narrow path, broadens out, and
winds its way peacefully to Lake Ontario, seven miles
away.
BROCK'S CENOTAPH.
Half way down the hill the car turns and soon, on
our left, near the car, appears a stone monument sur-
BROCK'S MONUMENT.
rounded by an iron chain fence. It marks the spot
where General Brock fell, and was set in place, with
appropriate ceremonies, in 1861, by the Prince of
Wales (now King Edward VII.).
HISTORIC SPOTS.
Farther along, on our right, note the ruined stone
house. In it, in 1792, was printed the first newspaper
published in Upper Canada, and to it the mortally
wounded General Brock was carried for shelter.
The car turns again and passes along a road on the
face of the cliff, and in a moment we are on the sus-
pension bridge. On this site was built, in 1856, the
first bridge across the gorge here. The neglect to re-
place the stay cables to the shores — removed one win-
ter so that the ice jam might not injure them — left
the bridge unprotected against a gale which blew
down the gorge, in 1866, and demolished the road-
way. The cables hung uselessly till 1.899, when the
present structure was built.
In the left foreground, in front of us, are the so-
called " Three Mountains," described by Father Hen-
nepin, to make which he included the bank from the
river to the level of the mainland below the mountain,
the plateau half-way up the heights, and the top of the
heights themselves. It was up these mountains that
the anchors, rigging and cannon, for the " Griffon " were
toilfully carried.
From the bridge look upstream at the river, with
the waves piled up in the center, rushing in the last
expiring throes of its madness.
149
On the heights, at the crest, on the American shore
above, stood old Fort Gray in the War of 1812 ; while
down the cliff, in former days, from the crest above to
the water's edge, ran the first railroad built on this
continent ; constructed in 1764 by the British.
THE OLD INCLINE.
During French rule, and after the British defeated
and drove the French from this section, until 1763,
all the provisions and munitions of war for the western
posts, as well as the merchandise of the traders going
west and their furs coming east, were carried up and
down these heights on the American shore on men's
backs, much of the work being done by Indians. Then,
and even up to 1825, when the Erie Canal was com-
pleted, on the American shore, just below the bridge,
was the head of lake navigation. So great was the
amount of provisions and munitions of war needed
for and destined to be sent to her newly-acquired
Western territory, that the British built this tramway
up the bank here to facilitate and cheapen transporta-
tion. Rough in construction, it was of enormous
strength. On crude piers up the bank from the wharf
to the summit were laid two sets of parallel logs, in
straight lines, for the timbers did not conform to the
surface of the ascent. On these ran two rude cars,
connected by a rope, which passed around a drum on
top of the cliff. As one car went up, the other came
down.
Properly loaded, one with goods going up, the
other with furs to come down, the work at the wind-
•'•
X .» '
i)
1*
It
» -.
lasses was not so great, and Indian braves, who other-
wise would scorn manual labor, used to toil thereat
all day, their pay being a pint of whiskey and a plug
of tobacco (luxuries otherwise unobtainable by them)
per day. Over this tramway, from 1764 to 1796,
passed all the commerce, as well as boats, cannon,
and military stores, the trade of half a continent.
To-day, not even a trace of one of its piers can be
found.
It is a not uninteresting fact that to-day, at Niagara,
after a lapse of over 135 years, the same general
engineering plan, used for lowering visitors to and
raising them from the slope below, is still in use.
HENNEPIN'S LANDING.
Looking down stream, you see the village of Lewis-
ton, on the American shore, eighty years ago a place
of great importance as the head of navigation, now
merely a quiet, delightful historic town. Between
that place and the bridge, on the American shore, is
a ravine, famed as the spot where, in 1678, Father
Hennepin and the crew drew up their little bark, so as
to be out of the reach of the ice ; and just below this
ravine is the site of the old Indian village Onguiaarha,
the largest of the four Neuter villages on the eastern
side of the river.
THROUGH THE GORGE.
Reaching the American shore, the car runs a few
rods to the left, and there runs on to the track of
another electric road, and starts upstream, on the
155
return trip, to the Soldiers' Monument. This most
remarkable electric road was constructed under engi-
neering difficulties, and has furnished an entirely new
view of the lower Niagara Rapids. Its roadbed runs
for five miles not far above the waters of the rapids,
opening up views that were unobtainable until its con-
struction. The interesting story of the geology of
Niagara is fully told in our geological section. The
glorious views of the scenery need not, indeed cannot,
be described, but form a continuous and wonderful
panorama, as the car passes along upstream against
the current.
All along its course, from Lewiston Heights to its
present position, the form of the Fall was probably
that of a horseshoe ; for this is merely the expression
of the greater depth, and, consequently, greater exca-
vating power of the center of the river, so says Prof.
Tyndall.
THE DEVIL'S HOLE.
Some three miles up from the bridge is a chasm,
high up on our left, called the Devil's Hole. The
story of the ambush and massacre of the British by
the Indians, on the cliff above, in 1763, at this point, is
told in our historic section. Up in the chasm is a
cave called " The Cave of the Evil Spirit," and the
early Indians foretold subsequent disaster to any one
who dared to enter it. La Salle, in 1679, in spite of the
Indians' warning, entered it, and to this trip the
Indians attributed his subsequent misfortunes and
murder, all within two years.
157
FOSTER'S FLATS.
Next we come to the narrowest point of the whole
river. The low land across the stream is known as
Foster's Flats. Geologists have claimed that these
flats are simply the debris left by the cataract when it
was at this point, ages ago. It is claimed that here
an island, similar in location to Goat Island, once
existed.
Before the Falls had reached this point, the water,
of course, flowed many feet above the level of the high
banks of the gorge here and extended in width all over
the high bank beyond these flats. When the Falls had
receded to this point the lower end of this island was
a sheer cliff higher than the face of Goat Island
to-day. After the Falls had cut their way past this
island it remained merely an isolated rocky column,
presumably some 250 feet high and presumably some
200 yards across, with a rushing torrent below the
Falls on each side of it. Its softer under strata was
gradually undermined by the elements until there
came a time when it fell to the westward, thus block-
ing up the channel of the rapids on that side and
forming these flats.
This story, of course, belongs properly in our geo-
logical section, as does the hypothesis that there were
once three falls, one above the other, in the river,
between this point and the heights below.
THE WHIRLPOOL.
Soon we reach the outlet of the Whirlpool, where
the speed of the current, as well as the speed of the
Whirlpool Rapids above, is estimated at over twenty-
eight miles an hour. Next, we look on the Whirlpool
from its level shore, and appreciate the force and the
height of the waves. Look across the pool itself at
this point and see the ravine, already referred to as
the pre-glacial outlet of the old Niagara River
at the Whirlpool. Rounding the bend and starting
upstream, we see what is to many the most beautiful
sight at Niagara, the Whirlpool Rapids. Here the
waters are piled up in the center of the channel high
above the level at the edges, the crests of the waves
being often forty feet above it.
This short stretch of wildly-tumbling rapids is the
scene of some of the most thrilling incidents and acci-
dents at Niagara.
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE.
In 1 86 1, the little steamer " Maid of the Mist " was
an unsuccessful venture, and her owners had an offer
for her, if they would deliver her on Lake Ontario.
Joel Robinson, the hero of Niagara, undertook to
pilot her from the Falls to the lake. According to
his promise, he started at i o'clock in the afternoon,
June 6, 1861. The steamer lay at her wharf, on the
American shore, just above the railroad suspension
bridge. The shores above and the bridge were black
with people. Two men, the engineer and fireman,
had agreed to accompany Robinson on this fearful
trip. At the hour named, Robinson took his place at
the wheel and the lines were cast off. He rang the
bell and the boat started toward the Fall. Running
161
up the river a short distance, he turned the boat's head
sharply clown stream, and like an arrow she shot
under the bridge and into the rapids. At the first great
curling wave she received a terrible buffeting, first on
one side and then on the other, her smokestack being
knocked over. She righted herself, and sped on,
faster than any boat had ever traveled before. The
current ran thirty miles an hour, and, with her engines
and impetus, she must have reached a speed of nearly
forty miles an hour. The engineer, who stood at the
cabin door, was knocked to the deck. Robinson
abandoned the wheel, over which he said he had not
the slightest imaginable control, threw his arms around
one of the cabin posts and held on for life. The
fireman, imprisoned beneath, fell on his knees, and
clinging to the stair railing prayed as he had never
prayed before. He afterwards said he believed it was
to this prayer that the three men on the boat owed
their salvation. The steamer passed unharmed into the
Whirlpool and rode on an even keel. Robinson again
seized the tiller and pointed the boat's head for the
outlet. She obeyed her helm and plunged once more
into the rapids and, steered mainly by the current,
dashed along through all those four miles of rapids,
past which we have just come, until she at last glided
on to the quiet surface of the river, and Robinson
guided her to the dock at Queenston on the Canadian
side. During the 100 years of Queenston's existence
as a port of entry, she was the first boat that ever
came to the dock from upstream. The collector of
the port of Queenston at that time was a Scotchman,
and not given to sentiment. He rushed down to the
162
wharf and insisted that Robinson take out entrance
and clearance papers. He did so, and the collector
was not out his fees, though the manifest shows that
the steamer carried " no passengers and no freight."
The boat was taken to Lake Ontario and sold, and
ran for many years afterwards. When Robinson
returned to his home he looked twenty years older
than when he started on that trip. Thereafter he was
a changed and subdued man. He had passed safely
through an ordeal of an unknown kind. He had
stood face to face with eternity. He had been saved
from a power against which man's strength and inge-
nuity was absolutely powerless. He grew aged and
reverend in that trip of fifteen minutes. He said that
his sensations were what he imagined might be those
of a large bird, with outspread wings, sailing swiftly
onward and downward through space.
CAPTAIN WEBB'S LAST SWIM.
Through these same rapids, in 1883, swam Captain
Matthew Webb, entering the water from a boat just
above the cantilever bridge, the banks and bridges
being thronged with people to witness his daring feat.
Rapidly he passed under the bridges, swimming high
out of water; when he struck the point where the two
waves from either shore meet, he bravely dived under
the high crest of the meeting point and came up
safely below it. Opposite to the little house, at the
foot of the cliff, on the Canada side, about one-third
of the distance to the Whirlpool, he was plainly seen,
bravely swimming. Then he disappeared from view
163
and was seen no more alive. His body was found
some days later in the river at Lewiston, a long cut
on the head indicating that he had been hit by the
edge of some rock as he swept by, thus being rendered
unconscious and drowned. He is buried in Oakwood
Cemetery at Niagara.
It had been the commonly accepted belief that the
river in these rapids, while very much shallower than
where the surface is broader and placid nearer to
the Falls, was yet of an unobstructed depth of many
feet. But the fact that Captain Webb, who swam in
the middle of the swiftest current, no doubt struck
against the edge of a sharp rock (as proved by the cut,
some three inches long, found on his head, and made,
as physicians who saw it declared,
before death), led to the belief
that the bowlders in the channel,
beneath the rushing waves of
these whirlpool rapids are very
much nearer the surface than
had been supposed. Indeed, the
claim has been made, and pho-
tographs shown in testimony
thereof, that at exceptionally low
water the tops of rocks have
been clearly seen right in the
middle of these rapids.
There have also passed suc-
cessfully through these rapids,
the so-called Whirlpool naviga-
tors, who, in an extra strong, tall,
narrow, well-padded within, oak
164
barrel, with lower end weighted, consigned them-
selves to the current and reached the Whirlpool in
safety. Graham did it. So did Hazlett and Potts ;
and later, Potts and Sadie Allen made the trip to-
gether, the latter the only woman who ever took the risk.
In 1882, one Kendall, a Boston policeman, wearing
as an aid only a cork life-preserver, is said, and be-
lieved, to have been the only man who ever swam
these rapids and lived.
After passing under the two railroad bridges — both
marvels of engineering skill — and noting their mas-
sive foundations, turn around and look down stream,
viewing the bridges themselves above and the stretch
of the rapids, which we have just passed, below.
ON THE FACE OF THE CLIFF.
From this point, on a gradual but steady rise, ex-
tending for about a mile, the electric car runs on a
sort of rocky shelf on the face of the cliff, and from
this position are obtained unsurpassed views of the
wooded shores of the gorge and of the river below the
Falls as it runs on its quiet course to the Whirlpool
Rapids. Let us also note that the first steamer,
"The Maid of the Mist," extended her trips down to
a landing located on the American shore, not very far
above the cantilever bridge, and the passengers de-
scended to this lower landing by means of a roadway
down the bank, which we cross in the electric car.
It was from this very dock that the steamer " Maid
of the Mist " started on her perilous but successful
trip, just described, to Lake Ontario.
165
It was at a point near the center of the river, and
but a few rods above the cantilever or upper railroad
bridge, that Captain Webb sprang into the water from
a rowboat to begin his fatal attempt to swim the
Whirlpool Rapids.
For the convenience of passengers, and we are in-
clined to think also for their security, and especially
their peace of mind, the trips of the present steamer
end very much farther up from the rapids. The car,
after reaching the top of the cliff, runs through the
city of Niagara Falls and lands us at the Soldiers'
Monument, which was the point at which we boarded
it when starting on our trip to Canada.
NIAGARA FROM BELOW.
From the monument walk down the board walk to
the one-story stone building near Prospect Point. De-
scend the slope either by the stairs or by the inclined
railway. Passing out of the shelter building to the
left, you are near the foot of the American Fall. If
the wind is blowing up the river, make your way along
dry paths and over dry rocks close to the edge, where
you will hear but little of the roar even then. Glance
upward and you will begin to appreciate, as you have
not done on any part of our trip, what is the real
meaning of the height of Niagara. In the spray at
your feet, so runs the legend, dwells the " Maiden of
the Mist," ever disporting herself and eagerly waiting
for the spirits of those unfortunates who, either by
accident or suicide, lose their lives over this Fall.
Over the pile of moss-covered rocks, in front of and
167
THE MAIDEN OK THE MIST.
Copyright.
at the base of this Fall, each winter forms an ice
mound — in severe weather many feet in depth, as the
spray, ever falling and ever freezing, slowly, but surely,
adds both to the size and height of this milk-white
mound.
THE ICE BRIDGE.
In the river, opposite the incline, forms almost each
winter a jam of ice from shore to shore, and extending
from the mouth of the tunnel upstream, sometimes
covering the entire river up past the American Fall,
so that it has often been possible to walk from where
you are standing on the ice in front of the Ameri-
can and Luna Island Falls, and thus to reach and
climb the Biddle Stairs up to Goat Island. Two ex-
cellent views of such an ice bridge, showing the
wonderful inequalities of its surface, are given here-
with. It is called an ice bridge simply because it is
possible to cross on it from shore to shore.
THE MAID OF THE MIST.
Down stream from the shelter house, at the foot of
the incline, is the landing spot of the steamer " Maid
of the Mist." At this spot, in the old days before the
first steamer plied here, was the end of the ferry,
where for many years people were conveyed to and
from the Canada shore in large row boats; and
from 1 86 1, when the little steamer was taken through
the rapids to Lake Ontario, as told above, till the
present steamer was built in 1887, row boats were
used and patronized rather for the novelty of the
169
^
BELOW PROSPECT POINT, WINTER.
trip, as for most of that time the suspension bridge
furnished an easier trip across the gorge.
The trip on the " Maid of the Mist," described as
the most wonderful water-trip in the world, should
not be omitted under any circumstances. Board the
little steamer. Leaving our wraps in the cabin we slip
on a waterproof or oilskin hood and cloak, which so dis-
guises one that their best friend would hardly recog-
nize them when they reach the deck of the steamer.
Starting from her dock the steamer coasts up directly
in front of the American Fall, and we appreciate the
height and beauty of this FaM, as seen from this point,
as it is impossible to get it in any other way. The
water seems as if pouring from the clouds.
Beyond this Fall and out in front of the little Fall,
of which a most beautiful reproduction is given in the
frontispiece of this volume, we observe figures clad
in uncouth garments walking along the temporary
bridges. These people are "doing" the Cave of the
Winds, even as, if you have followed our itinerary,
you have already done.
The geology of Niagara is nowhere better seen,
nor can it be studied to greater advantage, than as
one gazes from the deck of this steamer at the strata
of rock along the Goat Island base, for here there are
less trees to obstruct and impair the sight than prob-
ably at any other place. Beyond the Goat Island
Cliff are the few threads of water at the eastern end
of the Canadian or Horseshoe Fall, and at the point
where we see the iron railing stood the Terrapin Tower.
From the steamer you appreciate more than ever that
those rocks are the center of Niagara.
As the boat forces its way against the current, we
enter upon that " Sea of White " formed by the ever
restless waves dashed into foam, and gazing up, it
seems as though the water poured from the heavens.
No pen-picture can do justice to this scene, though
the reproductions that the camera has obtained are
equaled only by the view itself. Farther and farther
over these white waves the boat pushes its way along ;
its passengers, though protected by their oilskin coats
from serious harm, aretn the midst of a cloud of spray,
which is so complete as almost to shut out the view of
the Falls themselves. It is a sensation which is
equaled nowhere else. We are approaching, as it
were, the " Fountains of the Great Deep," and when
the boat has been propelled forward to a point where
the force of the current prevents her further progress,
because it equals the power of her engines, she grace-
fully turns her prow in a circle and floats rapidly down
stream, emerging once more into a recognizable
position on the waters of the mighty gorge. From
here, following the line of the Canadian current, she
passes down stream again past the American Fall,
stops at her Canadian dock and then turning her prow
toward the American shore moors again at the dock
from which she started. Divesting ourselves of our
oilskin clothing we start forth again, looking like
rational human beings. Rumor says that after the
summer travel of 1901 is over, history will repeat it-
self, after a lapse of forty years ; and that the steamer
" Maid of the Mist," number two, which will not then
be required at this point, as one boat in her half-hourly
trips can carry all those who will want to go, she will
177
imitate her predecessor and make the trip through
the Whirlpool Rapids, the Whirlpool and lower Niag-
ara Rapids to Lake Ontario, never to return.
THE POWER HOUSE.
Ascending the slope, walk to the Soldiers' Monu-
ment, and there board that electric car, which will
take you to the power house of the Niagara Falls
Power Co., the center of the greatest electrical devel-
opment of power on earth; a large, massive, but not
architecturally beautiful, granite structure, 450 feet
long, sixty feet high, with a plain slate roof. Over the
entrance, carved in stone, is the single bit of ornamen-
tation on the building, the seal of the company.
On entering the power room (whether in the narrow
gallery which crosses it or on the floor) you are at
one end of a huge apartment, which occupies the
entire main building from wall to wall and from floor
to roof. On the right, extending in a straight line
almost the entire length of the room, are ten huge
dynamos, each producing 5,000 electrical horse power,
their mushroom-shaped iron tops revolving at a speed
of two miles per minute. To the left of the center
of the building, equidistant from the ends of the room,
are two elevated platforms, where, day and night, in-
spectors keep watch of the records of the power gen-
erated by the dynamos. Beneath these platforms,
carefully enclosed, are innumerable wires and devices,
by means of which this wonderful force, which we call
electricity, is made to record its own story of the
amount of power produced.
179
"Touch not, handle not ! " is the only absolutely
safe rule for the visitor to observe toward everything
in this marvelous room.
High up, not far below the lower edges of the roof,
supported at either end by, and traveling on, ledges on
the inner sides of the two side walls, is the electric
crane, capable of handling fifty tons, which moving
lengthwise on the walls and sideways on its steel
traveling beams is enabled to reach any portion of
the building.
Beneath the floor is the pit, in which are set the
wheels and penstocks, and the shafts, whose lower
ends are connected directly with the turbines, and
whose upper ends terminate in the dynamos them-
selves. This pit is cut out of the solid rock, is 420
feet long by 21 feet wide, and 180 feet deep.
Down the pit, to near the bottom, extend the ten
iron tubes or penstocks, each seven and one-half feet
in diameter, by means of which the water is taken
from the surface canal to just below each turbine, and
then, by an upward curve of the penstock, is delivered
to the turbine through its lower surface. By this
means the weight of each column of water, estimated
at 400,000 pounds, serves to support the weight of the
corresponding turbine and shaft and dynamo, thus
lessening the friction. The turbines are set vertically,
transmitting the power of revolution direct to the
dynamo above without the intervention of any
gearing.
Below these turbines, this pit extends downward
some forty feet and into this space pours the water,
after having done its work on the turbines. One end
181
of the bottom of this pit is connected with the main
tunnel by a lateral tunnel, and thus through the great
tunnel, which is merely a tail race, the water finds its
way back to the river, in the gorge below the Falls.
On the other bank of the inlet canal a duplicate of
this power house, with its underlying pit and machin-
ery, is in process of construction, and is nearing com-
pletion. This will develop another 50,000 horse
power, and when all of this shall have been developed
nearly the full capacity of the main tunnel will have
been utilized.
The small stone building across the inlet canal from
the first power house is the " Transformer House." In
this the current direct from the dynamos is raised or
lowered to the different voltages required for the use
of the various consumers, especially the current sent
to Buffalo, which for long transmission must be raised
or " stepped up " to a high voltage, to be again low-
ered or " stepped down " at the other end to the
required potential.
SEAL OK NIAGARA P<>\VKK COMPANY.
183
HISTORIC NIAGARA.
THE NAME NIAGARA.
The word Niagara is a household word the world
over, and is the synonym for the typical waterfall. It
is of Indian origin, for, of course,- the Indians once
inhabited all this section, and much of the nomencla-
ture of Western New York is directly traceable to
their occupancy thereof or to their language.
It comes to us from the Iroquois, who derived it
from the Neuters, whom they annihilated as a tribe,
the few survivors being adopted by the Senecas. It
is not improbable that the Neuters, in turn, derived it
from some prior tribe of the aborigines, so that its
origin is lost in the dim past of Indian lore.
Over fifty known variations of the name are known,
though for over 200 years the present spelling has
been in general, and for the past 150 years in almost
universal, use. Older forms, found in books of the
seventeenth century, are : Onguiaarha, Ongiara, Och-
niagara, lagara, and Ni-ah-gah-ra, the latter accented
sometimes on the second syllable.
The Neuter Nation, farther back than whom we
cannot trace the etymology of the word, would seem
to have* pronounced it Ny-ah-ga-rah, their language
having no labial sound, and all their words being
spoken without closing the lips. The Senecas pro-
nounced it with the accent on the third syllable, and
the French adopted it from them as nearly as the
184
idiom of their language would allow. The pronunci-
ation, Nee-ah-ga-ra, occasionally heard nowadays,
was also probably in common use later on, while in
more modern Indian dialect the sound of every vowel
being always given in full, Ni-ah-gah-rah (accent on
the third syllable) seems to have been the accepted
pronunciation, and is, no doubt, the really correct ac-
centuation. The modern word, Ni-a-ga-ra, with the
accent on the second syllable, is the now invariably-
used form of the word ; but it is of more recent
origin and devoid of the beautiful flowing articulation
which was one of the greatest beauties of the Indian
language, as exemplified by the very few survivors
(and these of a great age, far beyond the Psalmist's
three-score-and-ten years) of a rapidly-passing race.
As to the meaning of the word, there is great doubt,
and eminent philologists differ materially as to its sig-
nificance. The commonly-accepted interpretation,
"The Thunderer of the Waters," is the most poetic.
A more prosaic meaning is said to be " Neck," typi-
fying the river as being a connecting link between
the two lakes. A recent suggestion translates one of
the forms of spelling (Ochniagara) as " bisecting the
flats," this referring to that part of the river between
Lewiston and Lake Ontario. The level land between
the heights at Lewiston and Lake Ontario (which
was at one time a part of the bed of this lake) being
the " flats," " bisected " by the river, whose surface in
this portion is some forty feet below the level of the
land, and could not, therefore, have been seen by the
migrating or traveling Indians until they reached its
very banks.
185
Niagara appears to have been the name of a tribe,
given by Drake as " Nicaragas," with the added note,
" once about Machilimakinak, joined the Iroquois
about 1723." This statement would seem to show that
these Nicaragas were a portion of the Neuters (who
were conquered by the Senecas in 1651); this remnant
then escaping to the Northwest, and that seventy years
later their descendants returned and joined the Iro-
quois, among whom, in 1651, the other survivors of the
Neuters had been absorbed.
It was the Indian custom to name their tribes and
the smaller subdivisions thereof from the most im-
portant natural feature of the country they inhabited,
or to give their natal name to such feature. In sup-
port of this, witness the well-known names of these
lakes and rivers : Huron, Michigan, Cayuga, Seneca,
Erie, Oneida, Onondaga, and Mohawk, named for
the tribes that dwelt along their borders. So the
deduction is that the subdivision of the Neuters who
dwelt along the Niagara River took their name from
it and its famed cataract. Certainly, these were the
chief natural features of the territory, and their prin-
cipal village, situated just below the end of the lower
rapids, and under the heights, bore the same name,
for it was called Onguiaahra. The Neuters are re-
ferred to by Father L'Allement, in the " Jesuit Rela-
tion " of 1641, published in 1642, as "the Neuter Na-
tion, Onguiaahra, having the same name as the river."
THE NIAGARA RIVER.
The Niagara, one of the world's shortest, but also
one of its most famous, rivers, is thirty-six miles long,
1 86
twenty-two miles from Lake Erie to the Falls, and
fourteen miles from the Falls to Lake Ontario.
Its sources are the basins of the four great upper
lakes, whose watershed is over 150,000 square miles.
The size and depth of these lakes are :
Superior, . . 365 miles long, 160 miles wide, 1,030 feet deep.
Huron, . . 200 " " 100 " " 1,000 " "
Michigan, . 320 " " 70 " " 1,000 " "
Erie, . . . 290 " " 65 " " 84 "
The river's depth, of course, varies. The deepest
channel from Lake Erie to the Falls, along the center
of which runs the boundary line between the United
States and Canada — as determined under the treaty
of Ghent, which ended the war of 1812 — lies to the
west of Grand Island and to the east and south of
Navy Island, with an average depth of twenty feet of
water. Below the Falls, and extending down to near
the cantilever bridge, the depth is 200 feet, as deter-
mined by United States Government surveys. Under
the railroad bridges the depth is only about ninety
feet. In the Whirlpool Rapids, as calculated, it is
only forty feet. The depth of the Whirlpool is esti-
mated at 400 feet. From there to Lewiston, it is
estimated at sixty feet ; and from Lewiston to Lake
Ontario at over 100 feet. It is unlike any other river.
It is a full-grown stream at the first moment of its
existence, and is no larger at its mouth than at its
source.
Its width varies. It is a little less than one-half of
a mile wide at its source, one mile just above the
Falls, one-eighth of a mile above and at the outlet of
187
the Whirlpool, and only about one-sixteenth at its
narrowest point, at Foster's Flats in the gorge.
It is but one link in the chain by which the waters
of the great inland seas of fresh water are carried to
the ocean. From the outlet of Lake Ontario to the
ocean, the river is called the St. Lawrence ; which
name, by the way, one hundred years ago, was com-
monly given to what we now call the Niagara River.
One hundred smaller lakes and many rivers and
countless springs contribute their waters to these four
lakes, and thus to the volume of the Niagara River,
whose farthest springs are perhaps 1,500 miles distant.
The descent of the Niagara River, from lake to
lake, is 336 feet, of which 216 feet are in the rapids
above the Falls and in the Falls themselves ; distrib-
uted as follows :
Feet.
From Lake Erie to the commencement of the rapids
(twenty-one and a half miles), the descent is, . . 15
In the half mile of rapids above the Falls, 55
In the Falls themselves, 161
From the Falls to Levviston (seven miles), 98
From Levviston to Lake Ontario (seven miles), ... 7
336
It is stated that back in the " forties," during a
heavy southern gale, the water rose to an estimated
increase of six feet in the depth of the water at the
brink of the Falls.
Below the Falls there is said to be an undercurrent
of far greater velocity than the surface current, and
to this is attributed the fact that bodies going over
the Horseshoe Fall are not usually seen until they
reach the Whirlpool.
1 88
The river is one of comparatively changeless vol-
ume ; it is not intermittent. Neither summer's drouth
nor winter's cold seriously impairs its flow ; though,
on unusual occasions, when, for brief periods, the
water is high, a rise of one foot in the river above the
Falls means a rise of sixteen feet in the river directly
below — caused by the abrupt turn of the river's chan-
nel at the Falls and the lessening of the width from
about a mile at the beginning of the rapids above to
about a quarter of a mile at the base of the Horse-
shoe or Canadian Fall.
. There is also a rumor (unaccounted for, but in gen-
eral terms verified by the poorly-kept records of the
last sixty years) that there is a flux and reflux of the
waters of the Great Lakes, and, therefore, of the
Niagara River, which reach the maximum every
fourteen years, and the minimum in the correspond-
ing middle periods.
THE FALLS THEMSELVES.
" Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tour-
ists travel to see — at least of all those which I have
seen — I am inclined to give the palm to the Falls of
Niagara. In the catalogue of such sights I intend to
include all buildings, pictures, statues and wonders of
art made by men's hands, and also all beauties of
nature prepared by the Creator for the delight of His
creatures. This is a long word ; but as far as my
taste and judgment go it is justified. I know no
other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, so pow-
erful."— A nthony Trollope.
189
Niagara, the ideal waterfall of and the grandest
natural sight in the universe, is also the greatest in
immensity and in the amount of water that pours over
its brink ; although there are waterfalls in our own
and in foreign lands that are higher.
Niagara is deceptive in its height. Viewed from
above, either on the American or Canadian shore, or
on Goat Island, one does not appreciate its altitude ;
but viewed from below, at any point near the falling
sheet, one begins to comprehend its immensity.
Edmund Burke never saw Niagara. Had he seen
it, he would have modified his famous statement — " I
am apt to imagine that height is less grand than
depth, and that we are more struck at looking down
from a precipice than looking up at an object of equal
height ; but of that I am not very sure " — by making
an exception in favor of Niagara Falls. The approach
to most falls is from below, and we get an idea of
them as of rivers pitching down to the plains from the
brow of a hill or mountain ; but at Niagara the first
view is always from the level of the upper river, or
from a point above it. The Falls are in latitude 43°
6' west, longitude 2° 5' west from Washington ; or
longitude 79° 5' west from Greenwich.
The height of the Canadian Fall, over which flows
about seven-eighths of the entire volume of water, is
159 feet.
The height of the American Fall is 165 feet, or
about six feet higher than the Horseshoe Fall, the
difference in levels being caused by the greater de-
clivity in the bed of the river in the Canadian
channel.
190
The Canadian Fall is about 3,000 feet in width along
the brink ; the American Fall about 1,100 feet ; and
the Goat Island cliff along the gorge is about 1,200
feet long.
The estimated volume of the Falls in horse power
is about 3,000,000 ; in tons, 5,000,000 weight per
hour, or about one cubic mile of water per week.
Estimates thereof in barrels and in cubic feet have
been given in the description of the Terrapin Rocks
on Goat Island.
The rapids above the American Fall descend forty
feet in half a mile. The rapids above the Horseshoe
Fall descend nearly fifty-five feet in three quarters of
a mile.
The top of the column of spray, that is ever rising
from the gorge, can be seen on a clear day for many
miles. It is said it has been so seen at a distance
of fifty miles — that is, from Toronto, Canada — but
this may well be doubted.
The roar of the Falls, it is claimed, has been heard
for many, many miles — these claims have usually
been made years ago by travelers. It must be borne in
mind that the roar could doubtless be heard a much
longer distance if the wind was blowing from the Falls
toward the listener ; and, again, imagination or a de-
sire to think one hears such a sound might add many
miles to the actual distance. Again, let us remember
that four score years ago this section was compara-
tively free from commercial noises. There were then
no sounds from factories, nor the hum of city life ;
there were no steam whistles nor locomotives, nor
trolleys, nor telephone and telegraph wires ; all of which
191
to-day are constantly hereabout emitting sounds and
noises. So, doubtless, when this section was a com-
paratively unbroken wilderness, eighty years ago, the
roar of Niagara could have been heard by the simple
ears many miles farther than it can be heard to-day.
In connection with the roar of the Falls, it is inter-
esting to relate that, in 1897, a huge telephone trans-
mitter was placed at the entrance to the Cave of the
Winds (the other end of the American Fall was tried,
but the results obtained were not as satisfactory), and
each evening, between 7 and 10 o'clock, for a period
of a month, the wire connecting this receiver with the
local telephone office was put in direct connection,
over the wires of the Telephone Company, with New
York City, and hundreds of people paid a small fee
each to listen to the roar of Niagara, 450 miles away ;
and at the same time power was nightly transmitted
from the Niagara Power House over an ordinary tele-
graph wire to the same room in New York City, and
there illuminated electric lamps and furnished current
(less than half a horse power) to operate a miniature
model of the power house itself and the ad jacent territory.
A loud roaring of the Falls is locally said to indi-
cate coming rain. This is true, as the rains here-
abouts come from the southwest, and a southwest
wind, which naturally brings the sound of the Falls
over the city of Niagara Falls, is the prevailing wind.
The recession of the Falls is told of in the geological
section, but we should note that the apex of the Horse-
shoe Fall, which is the point of the cataract's great-
est erosion, has within the memory of men now living
receded much more than 100 feet.
192
Hennepin speaks of, and his picture of Niagara
(the first one known), published in 1697, shows, a third
fall, at Table Rock. It seems to be true, as gathered
from records, that at that time a large rock, situated
near the western edge of the Canadian Fall, created a
third fall as the water coursed around it ; but this
rock has long, long since disappeared, disintegrated
by the elements and its fragments washed away by
the stream.
Indian tradition has told that the Spirit of Niagara
has demanded, and always would demand, a yearly
sacrifice of at least two human lives. It would seem
that in the old days the Neuters estimated that at least
one of these two lives would be furnished by accident,
as they used to choose and give but one, the fairest
maiden of the tribe, each year ; but as a fact, on an
average, more than two lives are annually lost at, and
by reason of, Niagara. Of the many deaths that have
occurred in the waters at Niagara — some by accident,
some by suicide, some by murder — it is to be noted
that of the bodies that go over the Horseshoe Fall
the most of them are subsequently recovered ;
while bodies carried over the American Fall are
seldom found, as they are caught and lodge among
the line of rocks that lie at the base of that Fall, and
are gradually dismembered by the force of the torrent.
But while human lives were thus sacrificed, and
while bloody inter-tribal wars have raged on its banks,
and later on, as late as in the War of 1812, descend-
ants of the same stock have met within sight of the
Falls in bloody international battles ; in antithesis,
let it be recalled that, in 1861, Bishop Lynch of
Toronto consecrated the Falls of Niagara to the
Blessed Virgin of Peace.
Charles MacKay thoroughly comprehended the
Falls when he wrote: " To one, Niagara teaches
turbulence and unrest ; to another, it whispers peace
and hope. To one, it speaks of time ; to another, of
eternity. To the geologist, it speaks of the vista of
millions of years. But to me, if I can epitomize my
feelings in four words, Niagara spoke joy, peace, order,
eternity."
The most commonly asked question in regard to
the Falls is, "Did they answer your expectations?"
One of the best answers ever made to this question
was the reply of a gentleman who had just been at
Niagara, "they infinitely exceeded them." And in
reply to the further question, " Do you think I shall
be disappointed in them?" he answered, "Why, no,
not unless you expect to witness the sea coming down
from the moon."
Hartman and Mansfield, respectively, voiced the
judgments of mankind when they said, "It is impos-
sible for any description to exaggerate the glory and
loveliness of Niagara. Nay, more, the longer you
stay the greater must be your admiration"; and " In
all the world there is but one Niagara, and all the
world should see it."
THE FALLS FIRST SEEN BY WHITE MEN.
It would be most interesting if we could know the
name and nationality of the first white man who ever
gazed upon Niagara and the exact date of his visit.
194
In all likelihood he was a Frenchman, but there is no
human probability that we shall ever know his identity.
Some student has advanced the idea that Samuel
de Champlain, the founder of Quebec, and the first
Governor-General of New France, who in his " Des
Sauvages," published in 1603, made the earliest known
reference to Niagara, was the first white man who ever
saw them. Champlain, in his 1603 voyage, certainly
did not get as far west as Niagara. While he was on
Lake Ontario, years after, the universal concensus
of opinion is that he never saw the Falls. Some
one of the early French " Coureurs de Bois," or fur
traders, may have been the man ; but, in the words of
a noted local historian, " there is no name with which
we can conjure with more probability of being correct,
as having been the first paleface to gaze upon the
great cataract, than that of Etienne Brule."
Brule was Champlairfs Indian interpeter and con-
fidant. He was on Lake Ontario in 1615, making, at
Champlain's direction, " the long detour " to the
Indians in what is now southern New York, and this
journey may have been around the western end of
Lake Ontario. No doubt he knew of the cataract, of
which his master had heard and referred to in his
book twelve years before. If he was in the neigh-
borhood, it is not improbable that he asked his Indian
guides to lead him to this wondrous fall.
According to a legend, the first white man to behold
the Falls was a French priest, who was led one moon-
light night by an Indian chief to Table Rock.
When the chief pointed to Goat Island and said it
was the abode of the Great Spirit, and that no one
except warriors could reach it alive, the priest
denounced the statement as false. The chief offered
to test this priest's belief by taking him at once to the
island, and the priest agreed. The chief led him up-
stream to a point above the head of the rapids, where
they embarked in a canoe and soon reached the
island, on which the priest stepped, and after worship-
ing his Maker, demanded the fulfillment of the chief-
tain's promise to become a follower of God if the priest
trod the isle alive. The chief demanded a further
proof, namely, that he would leave the priest on the
island alive, and if when he returned the next noon
he found him alive he would believe in his God. The
priest agreed, only asking that he wait twenty-four
hours, and that the next day, at sunset, he and his
tribe should go to Table Rock. At that time he (the
priest) would stand on the island's shore at the end
of the big fall. When they saw that he was alive, if
they would become followers of God, they should
kneel, and across the gorge he would bless them. The
chief paddled his bark canoe swiftly upstream.
The next evening, at sunset, the priest went to the
edge of the Fall, and the Indians, who were on Table
Rock, seeing that he still lived, knelt down and the
priest —
" Spake the word,
Though it was not heard,
And raised his hands,
As God commands,
And lifted his eyes to Heaven.
Thus in the way the church decrees,
To supplicants, tho' afar, on their knees,
Was the Benediction given."
196
Then the priest, so runs the legend, in imagina-
tion again stood in a holy church, for —
" It was three long years since he
Had stept within a sacristy,
A wondrous church it was indeed,
By Nature's changeless laws decreed,
Tho' man reared not the structure fair,
All churchly attributes were there !
The gorge was the glorified nave,
Whose floor was the emerald wave,
The mighty fall was the reredos tall,
The altar, the pure white foam,
The azure sky, so clear and high,
Was simply the vaulted dome.
The column of spray
On its upward way,
Was the smoke of incense burned,
And the cataract's roar,
Now less, now more,
As it rose and fell,
Like an organ's swell,
Into sacred music turned.
While, like a baldachin o'erhead,
The spray cloud in its glory spread,
Its crest, by the setting sun illumed,
The form of a holy cross assumed."
Father de la Roche Dallion is the first white man
known to have been on the Niagara River. He
crossed it near the site of Lewiston, in 1626. But
though we have no record of any prior visit of a white
man, it is more than probable that such had been
made.
197
INDIAN OCCUPATION OF THIS TERRI-
TORY.
We do not know the name of the particular tribe
that inhabited all this section of country prior to 1600.
Soon after that date Champlain speaks of the Neuter
Nation as living hereabouts. How long they had
then existed as a nation, or how long they had
then dwelt here, is unknown. So, before that date,
whether the Indians who claimed the occupancy of
these lands were a section of the Neuters (a section
perhaps then, pretty certainly three or four decades
later, known as the Nicaragas), or the predecessors of
the Neuters, we can only refer to them by the broad,
comprehensive term, "aborigines."
From about 1600-1650 the Neuters claimed, and in
Indian mode of life occupied, all the lands on the north
of Lake Erie from the Detroit River to the Niagara, and
in this territory they had twenty-six villages. Their
lands also extended for some twenty miles directly
east of the Niagara River, and in this latter territory
were four more of their villages, the most easterly
being near the site of the present City of Lockport,
N. Y., near which Indian mounds, a charnel pit full of
human bones, and old forts or fortifications have been
discovered and implements found. The most famous
and probably the largest of their villages in the terri-
tory adjacent to the Niagara River, on both sides,
was named Onguiaahra, and was located very near
the river bank, where the village of Lewiston now
stands. The land in and close about Lewiston is re-
plete with evidences of Indian occupation, in the
198
nature of mounds and graves ; and many stone im-
plements and ornaments have been unearthed there,
although, as yet, the locality has not been thoroughly
studied nor systematically searched.
On the south shore of Lake Erie, at its eastern end
( their lands then probably adjoining the lands of the
Neuters that lie east of the Niagara River on the
north ), was the territory of the Eries, who were prob-
ably the same tribe called both the Kah-Kwas and
Cat Nation.
The Neuters derived their name from the fact that,
although a warlike tribe, and often engaged in battle
with other tribes, they lived at peace with the dreaded
Iroquois, who dwelt east of them, and also with the
fierce Hurons, who dwelt on and beyond their western
boundaries.
These two latter confederacies were deadly enemies,
yet Indian custom (which was Indian law) decreed
that the warriors of these two nations, meeting in the
wigwam, or even on the territory of the Neuters, must
meet, and they did meet, in peace. The Neuters
were also called by these two tribes " Attouander-
onks," which means a people speaking a little differ-
ent language. Their dialect was different from that of
any other neighboring tribe, though understood by
all of them.
But neutrality, as between two hostile Indian tribes,
was no more a tenable position than it has often
proved itself to be as between inimical nations of
civilized white men.
In 1651, the Senecas, the westernmost as well as the
fiercest tribe of the famous Iroquois Confederacy,
199
on some slight pretext, suddenly declared a war of
extermination against the Neuters, invaded their terri-
tory, attacked and demolished their villages, killed
most of the warriors, and annihilated the Neuters as a
nation, the few survivors being incorporated among
and adopted into the Senecas.
By this conquest the Senecas claimed title to the
lands of the Neuters, although it does not appear that
they ever exercised much, if any, actual ownership
( unless by granting treaty rights ) over any of the
lands which lay west of the Niagara River,which was by
far the largest, in fact almost the whole, of the Neuter's
territory. This claim on the part of the Senecas, of
ownership by conquest, more especially of that part
of the Neuters' land lying east of the Niagara River,
seems to have been acquiesced in by the other Indian
tribes ; and over this land, lying in what is now West-
ern New York, the Senecas continuously and jeal-
ously exercised all the rights of ownership ; although
it was fully a hundred years before they actually
occupied any part of it, save as camp sites for fish-
ing and hunting, for they continued to occupy their
original territory in the Genesee Valley.
La Salle, in 1678, dared not start to erect a fort or
storehouse on the site of Fort Niagara, at the mouth
of the Niagara River, nor construct his vessel, the
"Griffon," above the Falls, until he had obtained the
official consent of the Seneca chiefs.
De Nonville, in 1687, built his fort on the site
of Fort Niagara ; but his army, which had just defeated
( but not conquered ) the Senecas in the Genesee
Valley, was taken to the spot to erect it ; and no
200
sooner had that army left than the Senecas besieged
the fort, and held its occupants imprisoned within its
walls for months, until almost the entire garrison had
died. And when a fort, under the guise of a store-
house, was built by the French at Lewiston, in 1719,
it was only after twenty years continued preparation
and intrigue therefor, that the consent was obtained
from the Senecas, and then only through the great
influence of Joncaire, a Frenchman, but an adopted
child of the Senecas, and for his personal use and
profit, so that he personally had to reside in it and
conduct it as a trading house.
In 1764, the Senecas' title to all this section was offi-
cially recognized by Great Britain ; for at the great
treaty held at Fort Niagara, by Sir William Johnson,
the Senecas ceded to her a strip of land four
miles wide, that is, two miles on each side of the
Niagara River, and extending from Lake Erie to Lake
Ontario; and at the same time they gave to Sir William
Johnson personally all the islands in the Niagara River.
Even until after the Revolution the Senecas held an
undisputed basic title to all the land on the eastern
shore of the Niagara River, and, in 1780, granted two
square miles to the Tuscaroras, a tribe driven by war
from their original sites in North Carolina ; and in
the sale of the vast tract of land in Western New
York by Massachusetts to Phelps & Gorham, in 1788,
it was on the condition that the Indian ( that is, Seneca)
title be first extinguished.
It is not necessary to discuss the rights, how given
and by what tribe, to the Mississagas (who once oc-
cupied the land on the western bank of this river from
201
Queenston Heights to Lake Ontario); nor those to the
Chippawas, who removed from their ancient seats in
Virginia to the western bank of the Niagara just
above the Falls, where to-day stands a small village
bearing their tribal name. Both of these small tribes
have gone, and none of their descendants remain
about their ancient abodes.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FRONTIER.
The Niagara Frontier, as the territory lying on both
banks of Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake On-
tario is known, is a wondrous section. It is wondrous
in many aspects ; wondrous in its geology ; wondrous
in its scenery ; wondrous in its botany : wondrous in
its hydraulic and electrical developments ; wondrous
in its engineering successes ; wondrous in its litera-
ture ; and famous, if not wondrous, in its history.
The ownership of this section may be given as
follows :
The Aborigines, -1600
The Neuters, 1600-1651
The Senecas, 1651-1679
Seneca ownership, French influence predomi-
nating, 1679-1725
Seneca ownership, French occupation 1725-1759
Seneca ownership, British occupation, .... 1759-1764
British ownership and occupation, 1764-1783
Eastern Bank, American ownership, British occupa-
tion, the Hold-Over Period ; Western Bank,
Canadian ownership and occupation, .... 1783-1796
Eastern Bank, American ownership and occupation;
Western Bank, Canadian ownership and oc-
cupation, 1796-1901
The historical associations connected with the ter-
ritory along this famous river are numberless.
From the date of the first white man's entrance
upon the scene, during the next fifty years visited by
a few daring priests in their fruitless efforts to spread
the Gospel among the Neuters ; later, the advent of
the French, first officially in peace by La Salle, later by
their hostile armies ; the steadily increasing influences
and control of the French ; the incessant, but, for
many years, futile efforts of the British to drive out
their hated rival ; the swift and phenomenally success-
ful campaign by the British in 1759, which suddenly
made them the masters in place of the French ; the
loss, twenty-four years later, at the close of the Revolu-
tion, by the British of all her territory lying east of
the river ; the stirring scenes during the International
War of 1812, and the Canadian internal Patriot and
Fenian rebellions, make a list of noted events, mostly
martial, to which (as well as to many peaceful, but
equally important events) we can refer in but the
briefest way.
Father Dallion, who was on the lower Niagara
River in 1626, presumably then said the first mass in
this historic region.
The White Man's history of this section may be
said to begin with La Salle's first visit here in 1669,
when he heard the roar of the Falls from Lake Ontario,
and probably visited them. In December, 1678, he
sent a vessel, on which was Father Hennepin, from the
eastern end of Lake Ontario to the Niagara River,
and a month later followed them himself. Five
miles above the Falls he built the " Griffon," the first
203
vessel, other than a Indian canoe, that ever floated on
any of the upper lakes. He also then built, at the
mouth of the river, the wooden Fort Conti, the first
white man's fortification hereabouts, which was ac-
cidentally destroyed by fire the same year.
In 1687, De Nonville, after defeating the Senecas in
the Genesee Valley, came with his army to the mouth
of the river, and built there the fort named after him-
self, "of poles with four bastions." He left 100 men
in it, and as soon as the army had gone, the Senecas
besieged it. After eight months of continued siege
only twelve of the garrison were left. The next year,
on the demand of the Senecas, abetted by England,
the French were compelled to dismantle and abandon
this coveted fort.
In 1719, Joncaire, a Frenchman, but an adopted
child of the Senecas, of whom it is recorded that " he
spoke with all the good sense of a Frenchman and
with all the eloquence of an Iroquois," at the instance
of France, obtained the consent of the Senecas to
erect a cabin for himself on the river. He located it
on the site of Lewiston, soon enlarged it into a
"trading house"; made it the center of a vast terri-
tory for trade in furs, guns and brandy, and in due
time made of it a fort, two stories high, forty feet long
by thirty feet wide, built of logs, musket proof and
palisaded, of which he was the commandant. As a
fort it controlled the portage, which ran from it to the
river, two miles above the Falls, over which passed
practically all the fur trade of the great west.
In 1725, the Senecas consented to the erection of a
stone house on the site of the present Fort Niagara.
204
Tradition says, when the materials were ready, all
the Indians of the vicinity were asked to join in a
hunt. On their return, after three days, the stone
walls of the house had been raised to a height of over
six feet, and thus the fort which France had so long
desired at this point was an accomplished fact.
Joncaire's trading house, having served its purpose
as a means of erecting a permanent fort, was allowed
to go to decay, and the first and the most important
" trading fort " ever built on this frontier became
merely a memory.
From 1725 on, additions, both in houses and in
fortifications, were constantly made to Fort Niagara.
Great Britain, who had unsuccessfully opposed the
erection of the "trading fort," became annually more
and more anxious for the possession of the existing
fort, and, between 1753 and 1758, planned four
expeditions for its forcible capture, but none of them
ever reached it.
About 1745, France erected a storehouse and a stone
blockhouse at the upper end of the portage, and, in
1750, extended the end of this portage half a mile up
stream and erected there a permanent fortification,
called Fort Little Niagara, it being a dependency of
that strong and important fort.
Under the guidance of Pitt, Britain's 1759 campaign
in North America completely overthrew French power
on this continent. General Prideaux commanded the
expedition against Fort Niagara, and besieged it.
France had fortified, strengthened and enlarged it,
until it was a formidable fortress, garrisoned by over
700 men, and embracing within its earthworks (the
205
earthworks of to-day are the remodeled works on the
lines of those of 1759) some eight acres.
The seige parallels were built by the British on the
lake shore, east of the fort, and are easily located, if
not tracable, to-day. Sir Wm. Johnson succeeded to
the command when Prideaux was killed by the
bursting of one of his own coehorns.
Under orders from Pouchot, Fort Niagara's com-
mander, on the arrival of the British army, Fort Little
Niagara, on the upper river had been abandoned and
burnt, and its garrison added to that of Fort Niagara.
Pouchot also sent to the western French posts for aid.
A large force hastened from the west to save Fort
Niagara, France's most important fort west of the
outlet of Lake Ontario. Pouchot had directed that
this relieving force land on the western shore and
march down to Lake Ontario, and then cross the river
to Fort Niagara. Instead, it landed at Fort Little
Niagara, then in ruins, and hastened over the portage
on the eastern shore. Sir Wm. Johnson, apprised of
its approach, met it in battle, a mile south of Fort
Niagara, and quickly routed it. The defeated French
fled back over the portage, reembarked in their boats
and hastened westward, having first set fire to two
vessels, that were in nearly finished construction, at
Navy Island, above the Falls, in order to prevent their
falling into the hands of the victorious British. From
this circumstance the place where these vessels lay at
anchor is still known as Burnt Ship Bay. This victory
compelled the surrender of Fort Niagara, and Great
Britain at last had a fort at the long-coveted spot.
The surrender of Quebec soon followed, and French
206
power in North America was actually at an end.
After the treaty of peace had been signed, France did
not possess a foot of land in Eastern North America,
where, at least in its northern and western parts, she
had held supreme sway for over half a century.
The British were now absolute masters of the
Niagara frontier and took steps to secure the alle-
giance of those Indian tribes who had been allied with
the French interest.
Fort Schlosser was built at the upper end of the
portage, to replace the burnt Fort Little Niagara, in
1760 ; for a fort there, a dependency of Fort Niagara,
was a necessity, to protect the portage and the goods
in transit over it and awaiting shipment at its upper
end.
Up to 1760 the transportation of all goods, furs,
military stores, etc , over this portage, seven miles in
length, from the head of navigation on Lake Ontario,
that is, from Lewiston, to the river above the Falls,
had been done by the Seneca Indians. Just prior to
1759 over 200 Senecas were employed by the French
in this way. Of course, each man's burden was small,
about 100 pounds in weight. When the British became
the masters, they planned cheaper transportation, by
using wagons, thus permitting the heavy freight to be
put up in very much larger packages. This, of course,
largely superseded the employment as carriers of the
Senecas, who, as a result of their employment, had
been the firm friends of the French. Thus embit-
tered against the British, they readily listened to the.
advances of Pontiac, when he planned his widely-
extended conspiracy against them.
207
A contract had been made with John Stedman by
the British to widen the portage and smooth its road-
way for the use of the wagons. After two years'
arduous labor this work was completed in 1763. The
first wagon train from Fort Niagara to Fort Schlosser,
escorted by about TOO soldiers and led by John Sted-
man, passed over it on September 13, 1763. The next
day it returned, probably laden with furs. When the
point now called the Devil's Hole, where the road
runs close to the precipice, was reached, the Indian
war whoop was heard, and from the forest on the higher
land on their right came volleys of musketry, fol-
lowed by an onslaught of Senecas, tomahawk in hand.
The horses and oxen that drew the wagons were
seized and led away by the Indians. The soldiers,
who were not killed at the first fire, were tomahawked
and scalped, and their dead bodies, together with the
wagons, were tumbled over the cliff into the huge
cavity. Only three of the 100 escaped. One man
jumped over the cliff, and landing in the branches of
a tree beneath concealed himself there. A drummer
boy escaped in like manner. An Indian seized the
bridle of the horse that Stedman rode. With his
hunting knife, Stedman severed the bridle and, spur-
ring his horse to full speed, dashed back up the road
to Fort Schlosser, escaping unharmed from the shower
of bullets aimed at him.
The British had maintained a small fort at the lower
end of the portage. On hearing the sounds of mus-
ketry the entire garrison thereof, consisting of two
companies, hastened up the hill and along the road,
rightly guessing the cause thereof, by reason of their
208
knowledge of Indian nature. But the Senecas, ex-
pecting this action, had halted a little way north and
ambushed and attacked this relieving force with such
success that only eight men escaped. These fled to
Fort Niagara, whose commandant, with a large force,
hastened to the scene. But the Senecas had gone,
and nearly a hundred mangled, bloody and scalped
corpses, some on the portage and the balance in the
Devil's Hole chasm, told the story of this fearful
tragedy, planned by Indian cunning and unerringly
executed with Indian ferocity.
Britain's first systematic attempt to better and to
cheapen transportation had cost her 100 lives.
Stedman, who escaped from the massacre, claimed
that the Senecas marveled so at his good luck, attrib-
uting it to the special protection of the Great Spirit,
that they gave him all the land bounded by the Ni-
agara River and the line of his flight from the Devil's
Hole to Fort Schlosser. Stedman subsequently seems
to have cleared and occupied a small portion of this
vast grant (which embraced 5,000 acres), including in
his cultivation a portion of Goat Island ; but when his
heirs set up the claim as against the State of New
York they could produce no proof of the grant. They
claimed the deed had been left with Sir William John-
son, and was burnt when his residence was destroyed
by fire. The Senecas do not seem to have acknowl-
edged the grant, for right after the time when Sted-
man claimed it was made they deeded all that land,
beside much more, to Great Britain. Stedman's heirs
contested New York's title to this land, but were
beaten and finally ejected.
209
Knowing full well the just retribution that would
be meted out to them by Britain for this massacre,
the Seneca chiefs laid the blame on the younger war-
riors, and in the fall sent a large deputation to Sir
William Johnson to sue for forgiveness.
Britain had the control of this section, but she
wanted more than that. She wanted the submission
and the friendship of the Senecas and the undisputed
title to the land where the portage was. Here was
her opportunity, and Sir William Johnson improved it.
He was too good a diplomat to demand a life for a
life, and agreed to forgive the Senecas for the mas-
sacre on condition that a strip of land fourteen miles
in length and four miles in breadth, lying along and
on both banks of the Niagara River from Lake
Ontario to above Niagara Falls (thus including the
whole length of the portage) be given to the British
crown. The Senecas had no alternative but to con-
sent, and they agreed to complete the transaction the
next spring at Fort Niagara.
Sir William Johnson now invited the Indian tribes
of practically all of North America to meet him at
Fort Niagara the next summer, and preparations were
made to send a British army to the WTest to awe the
Indians of that section and to conquer all who did not
by treaty accept British sovereignty. Partly the hope
of reward, partly the fear of punishment, induced the
presence of representatives of all the tribes ; and
when, in June, 1764, Bradstreet's army landed at Fort
Niagara, Sir William Johnson accompanied it. He
found there the greatest gathering of Indians from
all over North America that had ever assembled. The
210
Senecas, alone, to Britain the most important tribe of
all, were not represented. They had not meant to keep
their promise when they made it. A message was
sent to them at their homes on the Genesee River,
that unless they at once came and ratified their agree-
ment Bradstreet's army would march against them and
annihilate them.
General Bradstreet, forewarned by the " Devil's
Hole Massacre," had made preparations to fortify the
Niagara portage before his army crossed it. Captain
John Montresor had reached Niagara some time be-
fore and by the time the army arrived had constructed
along the portage eleven redoubts, or blockhouses,
some 1,100 yards apart, between the brow of the
mountain at the head of navigation and Fort Schlos-
ser, and these had all been garrisoned and equipped
with a cannon each. Bradstreet had also asked Sir
William Johnson to obtain the Indians consent to the
erection and maintenance of a depot of provisions,
in other words a fort, at the source of the Niagara
River, as a base of supplies for his army on its west
ward march.
Montresor was ordered to build it, and selected a
site on the western (now Canadian) shore of Lake
Erie. Sir William then obtained the assent of the In-
dian tribes at the treaty gathering to its erection.
Backed by the army, it mattered little to him whether
the Senecas, who were not then present, but who were
the owners of the land, assented or not. In a month,
Montresor reported that Fort Erie was " defensible."
Meantime the Senecas, awed by the threat of
annihilation, appeared at the gathering, and on Sir
211
William's formally asking their consent to the erection
of Fort Erie, they, of course, consented. Sir William
asked even more. He asked that now their deed of land
to Great Britain, as promised the preceding fall, be en-
larged to include a strip two miles wide, on each bank
of the river from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, thus
more than doubling the size of the grant. The
Senecas were obliged to consent, and thus paid to
Great Britain, for her forgiveness for the Devil's Hole
massacre, nearly 100,000 acres of land, located at
what was then to Britain the most important point in
America.
As the Senecas had scalped about 100 British at the
Devil's Hole, they paid 1,000 acres for each scalp.
For them it was cheaply-bought forgiveness. The
Senecas also at this time gave to Sir William Johnson
personally, " as a proof of their regard, and in re-
membrance of the trouble they had given him," all
the islands in the Niagara River, covering some
20,000 acres. Fearing a loss of influence with them
if he refused, he accepted the gift ; but, as the military
law of that period forbade the acceptance by officers
of gifts, he at once transferred them to the British
crown. Then Goat Island, probably to-day the most
noted piece of land in the Western Hemisphere, passed
directly to the British crown, and that not by con-
quest nor by treaty, but by gift, practically " hush
money."
Besides the erection of these twelve forts, one large
and eleven small, Montresor at the time built, on
designs furnished by some other engineer, the so-called
" Old Lewiston Incline," the first railroad constructed
212
in America. It ran from the wharf which he built at
the water's edge, at the head of the navigation of Lake
Ontario, straight up the cliff to the top ; was pro-
tected by a blockhouse above and by a small fort at
its foot. Over it, during the period 1764-1796,
passed substantially all the vast amount of freightage,
both military and commercial, between the Atlantic
seaboard and the Great West.
No other event of military importance marked
British rule on this frontier until the Revolution.
Fort Niagara controlled all the country east and north
for some 200 miles, south for over a hundred miles,
and west to the Mississippi.
The War of the Revolution, in actual hostilities,
never reached the Niagara frontier, but Fort Niagara
was a plague spot to the Colonists. Here John Butler
and his son Warren (the latter of infamous memory)
and Joseph Brant made their headquarters. Opposite
the fort, on the Canadian shore, were quartered the
famous marauders, Butler's Rangers, and their bar-
racks are still standing.
At Fort Niagara were planned, and from it started
out, all those murderous and devastating expeditions
that ravaged Western and Central New York and
Northern Pennsylvania during the Revolution, and to
it these .savage parties, both whites and Indians,
returned from these expeditions, with their prisoners,
scalps and booty, to exult and to carouse.
Among the expeditions planned at, and executed
from, Fort Niagara were those that devastated Cherry
Valley and Wyoming, the latter perpetuated in poetry
by Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming."
213
So unbearable had these assaults become that, in
1779, General Washington sent General Sullivan to
conquer the Senecas and to capture Fort Niagara.
He defeated, but did not conquer, the Senecas in the
Genesee Valley, and they fled to the protecting guns
of Fort Niagara. Had Sullivan obeyed his orders he
would have easily captured this fort, for he would
have found it feebly garrisoned and surrounded by a
cowed and famished throng (some 5,000 in number)
of Indians ; and the Revolution might have been
shortened. But, assigning lack of boats for trans-
portation and lack of provisions for his troops as
reasons, he did not attempt to reach the objective
point of his expedition, and returned East. Fort
Niagara remained in British hands, a place of intrigue,
imprisonment and moral degradation, till the end of
the Revolution.
At the close of that war, Great Britain retained five
posts on what, by the treaty, was American soil, as a
guaranty for the fulfillment of certain rights pledged
by the Colonies to those residents who had sided with
Britain, known as the U. E. or United Empire Loyal-
ists. Niagara and Oswego were two of these posts,
the others being in the West.
When the treaty was signed it was anticipated that
they would be so held but a short time. In fact, they
were held for thirteen years, a period known in history
as "The Hold Over Period." One route by which
these U. E. Loyalists emigrated from the United
States led by Fort Niagara, and fully 10,000 people
went to Canada between 1783 and 1790 across this
frontier.
214
After repeated requests for the evacuation of these
five posts, to which no atttention was paid, Jay's
Treaty with Great Britain, in 1794, stipulated for
their evacuation by June, 1796. Fort Niagara was
evacuated by the British on August n, 1796, and part
of her garrison crossed the Niagara River to Fort
George, which had been built, but only as a small
fort, directly opposite Fort Niagara.
A portage around the Falls, on the Canadian side,
between Queenston and Chippawa, was also finished
this year, to replace for British use the portage on the
American side, which now passed from their control.
This Canadian portage was never extensively used, as
Canada's western posts were never of great impor-
tance. A blockhouse at its upper end, named Fort
Chippawa, was built at the same time and garrisoned.
In 1792, General John Graves Simcoe was appointed
the first Governor-General of Upper Canada. Believing
and hoping that the American Colonies would soon be
reconquered by the British, and that Fort Niagara
would never be surrendered, he located his capital at
Niagara, at the mouth of the river opposite to and
controlled by the guns of Fort Niagara. Here he
made his residence, and here it still stands, though not
on the original site, a long, low, one-story wooden
building called Navy Hall. Here, in 1792, he opened
the first session of the Parliament of Upper Canada,
one of whose acts was to declare against the existence
of slavery in that province. When it was certain that
Fort Niagara was to be evacuated, Simcoe removed
his capital from its frontier location, across the lake,
to York, now Toronto.
215
The dispute between Massachusetts and New York
in regard to the ownership of what is now Western
New York was settled by the former taking the title
and the latter the jurisdiction thereof ; but on the
American Niagara Frontier a strip of land known as
the " Mile Strip," being one mile in width back from
the river, and extending from Lake Ontario to Lake
Erie, was exempted from the sale made by Massachu-
setts to Phelps and Gorham in 1 788 ; the most of which
land later passed to Robert Morris, and later to the
Holland Land Company. Lots in the mile strip were
offered for sale by New York in 1804, and settlement
along this frontier began at once.
Fort Niagara was continually garrisoned by the
Americans ; and Fort Erie, which had been rebuilt
on a near-by site about 1781, and on still another
site about 1807, was likewise garrisoned by the
British.
For the struggle known as the War of 1812, in
which the differences between the United States and
Great Britain were bound sooner or later to terminate,
some advance preparations were made on both sides
of this frontier. As noted, the Canadians, in 1807,
rebuilt Fort Erie with stone buildings and the
customary earthworks ; but they built only the part
facing the river, leaving it practically unprotected on
the land side. About 1804, Fort George, at the mouth
of the river, had been enlarged as to buildings and
surrounded with earthworks ; and about 1809, General
Brock doubled its capacity and strength, by the erec-
tion, on its south side, of extensive earthworks and
structures.
216
The Niagara Frontier felt not only the first but
the continued effects of the War of 1812. On the
declaration of war in that year the British were the
better prepared on this frontier. The Americans
hurried troops and munitions here, and General Van
Rensselaer established his camp at Lewiston. The
British built Fort Drummond, an earthwork on
Queenston Heights, and strengthened Fort Erie ; and
the Americans built a like structure, Fort Gray, on
Lewiston Heights, and also a battery, named Fort
Tompkins, on the river shore in Buffalo.
The Americans, in October, 1812, crossed the river,
invaded Canada and captured Queenston Heights and
Fort Drummond. General Brock sent reinforcements
from Fort George and hurried to the heights in person.
In one of the charges, to retake the heights, he fell
mortally wounded.
The British reinforcements recaptured Queenston
Heights, killing many Americans, and in their fury
bayoneted and hurled them down the steep, partly
wooded, face of the cliff. A large body of American
Volunteers, who were in camp at Lewiston, looked on
and basely refused to cross the river to aid their
countrymen, and the disastrous battle of Queenston
Heights ended in a decided victory for the British.
During the battle, Fort George and Fort Niagara
bombarded each other, and the following month
another lengthy exchange of shots occurred. The
river front, on both sides, was also fortified ; in fact,
on the American shore for a mile south of Fort
Niagara and on the Canadian side for about a mile
north of Fort George, there was an almost continuous
217
line of batteries, and there were several batteries on
both shores between Queenston Heights and these
forts. A cannonade between two forts, three-fourths of
a mile apart, lasting a whole day, during which 4,000
shots were fired, but in which few men were killed
or wounded and neither fort very seriously damaged,
shows the inefficiency of the artillery of that date.
In May, 1813, transports having been built and the
American fleet having arrived, an attack from the lake
was made by the American troops, under cover of the
guns of Fort Niagara and of the fleet. The British
batteries at and beyond the mouth of the river were
carried, and inside of an hour Fort George and all its
dependent batteries were in the Americans' control.
They held it till December of that year, when, on the
approach of a strong British force, the incompetent
McClure decided to abandon it. He sent the garrison
over to Fort Niagara, and gave the people of the
village of Newark ( around Fort George ) twenty-four
hours to move out. Then he set fire to that village
and it was destroyed, the inhabitants suffering bitterly
from the cold. The act was unnecessary, particularly
as McClure left the buildings and fortifications of Fort
George intact, and failed to remove a large number
of tents and provisions.
On entering Fort George and seeing the ruined
village of Newark, Colonel Murray said to his com-
mander, General Drummond, " Let us retaliate by fire
and sword." "Do so, swiftly and thoroughly," was
the reply.
General McClure went to safe headquarters at
Buffalo, leaving Captain Leonard in command at Fort
218
Niagara. Under the circumstances, an attack on that
fort might have been expected at any time. Yet a
week later, when the British by night crossed the river,
five miles above, and silently marched to the fort, car-
rying all the paraphernalia for an assault, they found
the gates open and unguarded. Its commander, Leon-
ard, was at his own home, four miles away.
The sentinels were seized, and such little resistance
as could be offered by men rushing from their beds
was quickly overcome. Few shots were fired. The
bayonet was the weapon, revenge the watchword.
Little, if any, attempt was made to curb the British
soldiers' ferocity, and many of the garrison, especially
those in the hospital, were bayoneted after all resist-
ance had ceased. About twenty Americans escaped,
eighty were killed, fourteen wounded (this figure
tells the story of revenge), and 240 made prisoners.
Once in control of the fort, the British fired a
cannon as a signal, and Riall ( a fit leader for blood-
thirsty whites and Indians), who was in waiting,
crossed to Lewiston and commenced the work of
devastation.
In turn, Lewiston, Youngstown, Manchester (now
Niagara Falls) and Schlosser were reduced to ashes,
and, on December 3ist, the village of Buffalo was
burnt. The American frontier was in ruins and the
inhabitants fled for their lives.
The year 1814 was to witness more carnage. In
July the Americans appeared before Fort Erie and
demanded its surrender, and its commander surren-
dered it and 140 prisoners without opposition, to British
disgust.
219
So here, at the source of the river, on British soil,
the Americans held a British fort ; while thirty-six
miles away, at its mouth, on American soil, the British
held the American fort Niagara, a stronger fortification.
Two miles above the Falls, on the Canadian side, on
July 5, 1814, was fought the battle of Chippawa ; and
on July 25, 1814, was fought the battle of Lundy's
Lane, opposite to and a mile back from the Falls.
The battle of Lundy's Lane is historic ; commenced
at sundown, it was waged, with alternate reverses, in
hand-to-hand conflict, till after midnight. In sight of
the Falls of Niagara, with its roar mingled with the
din of battle, in the glory of the light of a full moon,
this battle, so fearful in its death list, continued for
six hours. The central point was a hill where the
British had a battery. General Scott asked Colonel
Miller if he could capture it. " I'll try, sir," was his
historic response. He did capture it, and for the rest
of the battle the Americans held it against repeated
attacks by the British.
At last the British attack ceased and they withdrew.
Scott had been wounded. Brown was in command.
He ordered the Americans to withdraw from the field,
actually leaving the cannon, that had cost so many
lives to capture and to hold, on the hill. Other
officers protested; but the order was given and obeyed.
At daybreak the British returned and, unopposed,
occupied the hill. On that account they claimed, and
even until to-day claim, a victory; and on each recur-
ring anniversary of the battle they celebrate on the
battlefield a great victory, whch in the opinion of
their American cousins they did not win.
220
On the battlefield stands a beautiful monument,
erected recently by the Canadians in honor of their
heroes in that battle. In the soil around it lie the
bones of many an American hero. The consent of
the local Provincial and Dominion authorities would
doubtless be granted if asked ; therefore, should not
a fitting monument be erected on that field to the
American heroes who fell in that battle ? Thus the de-
scendants of those heroeson bothsides would be equally
honored by their respective descendants, who to-day
live not only as neighbors but in the bonds of affection.
The Americans after the battle of Lundy's Lane
(Bridgewater or Niagara, as it is often called) retired
to Fort Erie, and were there besieged by the British.
The Americans enlarged the fort by the addition of
two bastions on the land side, connected together, and
also with the respective sides of the old fort by cur-
tains of earthwork. They also built a long abattis
from the fort to a point on the lake shore, some hun-
dreds of yards away. Their camp lay between this
abattis and the river, so that Fort Erie, as added to
by these fortifications, now faced inland.
The British built siege batteries, and in one of their
night assaults on the fort they captured the northwest
bastion. When filled with their advancing troops a
terrific explosion, with terrible loss of life among the
British, occurred. Whether the magazine at this
point was ignited by accident or design is unknown,
but the explosion saved the fort from a probable cap-
ture by the British, and ended the assault.
Later on, General Peter B. Porter planned a sortie
from the fort, and General Brown, who was in
221
command, at last consented, asking General Porter to
lead it. The sortie was made at night by a detour
through the woods. After a short but sharp struggle
the British were defeated and driven away and their
siege batteries and entrenchments destroyed.
Fort Erie was thus saved. Lord Napier says it is
the only instance in history of a besieging army being
entirely defeated and routed by a single sortie. The
fort, of no real use to the Americans, was mined and
blown up in November, 1814. Its ruins stand to-day,
an object of interest and veneration to both Ameri-
cans and Canadians ; the bastions and curtains are
perfectly traceable, and parts of the stone barracks
remain.
There were no further hostilities along this frontier,
and the next year, 1815, the Treaty of Ghent put an
end to the war. The British evacuated Fort Niagara
in 1815, and peace has since prevailed between the
inhabitants of the banks of the Niagara.
In 1825 the Erie Canal was completed, and at Buf-
falo, with due ceremonies, the waters of Lake Erie
were let into its completed waterway.
In 1825, Mordacai M. Noah of New York City
formed a plan to erect on Grand Island, in the Niagara
River, an ideal community of wealth and industry for
the Hebrew race. As the High Priest of the project,
he even went so far as to lay the corner stone of this
New Jerusalem, not on the site of his future city, but
on the altar of a Christian church in the City of
Buffalo. In this ceremony he was clad in sacerdotal
robes, and was attended in procession by military and
civic authorities, local societies, and a great concourse
of people. The Patriarch of Jerusalem refused his
consent to the project, money did not pour in to its
support, and it was abandoned.
Next year, William Morgan of Batavia threatened to
disclose the secrets of Masonry in print. He was
arrested on a trivial charge, taken by night in a car-
riage through Lewiston to Fort Niagara, and impris-
oned in the old French Magazine That fort was not
then garrisoned, and was in charge of a caretaker.
Several people, mostly Masons, visited Morgan, and
all sorts of stories are told as to his death. The ac-
cepted one is, that he was taken by night in a boat
out on the lake and thrown overboard, his body being
heavily weighted. Certainly, he disappeared, having
been last seen alive at Fort Niagara. Several persons
were arrested and tried in consequence, but no actual
proof of Morgan's death could be produced.
A survey, the first regular and systematic one, for
that long projected, as yet unfulfilled, but probable
future certainty, ship canal around Niagara Falls
was made in 1826.
In 1837 occurred the Patriot Rebellion in Canada.
One event in connection therewith is of special interest,
as it nearly embroiled the United States and Great
Britain in war. The Patriots had a camp on Navy
Island above the Falls. An American steamer made
daily trips between Buffalo and that island. The
British claimed she carried supplies and recruits to the
Patriots. Her owners said she carried excursionists
only. On the night of December 29, 1837, she lay
moored at Schlosser Dock, on the American shore,
two miles above the Falls. After midnight, six boat-
223
loads of British soldiers from Chippawa noiselessly
approached, boarded her, turned off all on board, cut
her cables, towed her nearly across the river to the
deepest channel, set her on fire and let her drift over
the Falls. During the attack on the boat one man,
Amos Dufee, an American, was killed. The British
Government assumed full responsibility for the out-
rage. One man, a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was
later arrested on American soil and tried for the
murder, but was acquitted. International feeling ran
high, but, finally, the British Government tendered an
apology and war was averted.
POINTS OF HISTORIC INTEREST ALONG
THE NIAGARA RIVER.
ON THE AMERICAN SIDE.
Buffalo, at the source of the river, is the eighth city
of the Union in point of population, which in 1900
was 355,000. It is famous as the western terminus of
the Erie Canal, and also as the chief eastern port of
lake navigation. It is situated twenty-two miles from
the Falls. It was a village in 1813, when it was
burned by the British, only one or two houses being
left standing.
Black Rock, formerly a village, now a part of Buf-
falo, was famous in the War of 1812. Inside of the
present limits of Buffalo, along the river shore, some
seven or eight so-called forts or batteries were located ;
as was also a blockhouse, built about 1810, at the
mouth of the creek. In Black Rock, General Smythe
of Virginia collected 5,000 men, who responded to
224
his bombastic circular asking all to retrieve the
Nation's honor and share in the glory of an invasion
of Canada. There was no invasion of Canada at that
time, though there was much righting, and two inva-
sions at other periods during the war.
Grand Island is noted as the proposed site, in 1825,
of Major M. M. Noah's " New Jerusalem," or the in-
dustrial center for the Jews of the new world. Beyond
the laying of the corner stone, with due ceremonies,
on the altar of a Christian church, in Buffalo, the
project never made any advancement.
Tonawanda, eleven miles above the Falls, is famous
as a lumber market, holding the second place in
America, or next to Chicago, in the amount of lumber
handled.
The village of La Salle, five miles above the Falls,
close to the mouth of Cayuga Creek, was named after
the famous explorer La Salle, who at this very point, in
1679, built his vessel the "Griffon," the first craft,
other than an Indian canoe, that ever floated on the
upper lakes. Here, too, about 1800, the United States
Government established a navy yard.
Burnt Ship Bay, at the lower end of Grand Island,
derives its name from the fact that there the defeated
French (who hastened from the West to aid in the de-
fense of Fort Niagara, in 1759), in their flight, burnt
and sunk two small vessels, in order to prevent their
falling into the hands of the victorious British.
At Schlosser Dock, on the night of December 29,
1837, occurred the " Burning of the Caroline." She
was an American boat and was thought to be ren-
dering aid to the Patriots on Navy Island. Six
•225
boatloads of British soldiers crossed from Chippawa,
seized her, towed her far out into the stream, set her
on fire and let her drift over the Falls. The incident
came very near to involving the United States and
Great Britain in a war.
Below Schlosser dock, and midway between it and
the old stone chimney, was located Fort Schlosser,
built by the English in 1761, and named after its
builder. Just below this was located Fort de Portage,
or, Fort Little Niagara, built by the French about
1750. This was burned by Joncaire in 1759. He was
in command, and demolished the fort, retreating to
Chippawa, and from there going with the garrison to
aid in the defense of Fort Niagara. The sites of each
of these two forts are in the midst of the manufactur-
ing district, and have been practically obliterated by
the erection of mills or by the filling in of the low-
water beyond the former river banks. A strip along
the shore at this point, covering approximately 150
acres, having been filled in with the rock taken out in
the excavation of the great tunnel. Just below here
stands an isolated stone chimney, the oldest remain-
ing bit of perfect masonry on the frontier, if not in
all Western New York. It was attached to the bar-
racks which the French built for Fort Little Niagara,
and was also attached to the mess house which the
English built in connection with Fort Schlosser.
The road running back into the country, which does
not now extend down to the chimney (but formerly
did), is still called the Portage Road, and was the old
road over which, from the middle of the last century,
was carried all the vast freight going to and coming
227
from the West. Less than half a mile up this road
from the river are still to be plainly seen the earth-
work outlines of a blockhouse built by Captain Mon-
tresor in 1764. This was one of eleven built by him
that year to protect the portage between Fort Schlos-
ser and the top of the mountain above Lewiston.
The Niagara Falls Power Company's power house,
the greatest power-producing plant in the world, is on
the river bank a short distance below. This is fully
described at the end of the scenic section of this
book.
Below the next mill the river runs in close to the
road, and the spot is still known as Frenchman's
Landing. This was the upper end of the earliest
French portage from Lewiston to the upper river ; was
in use from about 1700 in a small way, and from 1720
to 1750 as a much-used highway of commerce.
Here, in 1745, the French built a stone blockhouse
and a storehouse, known as the first Fort Little
Niagara.
Next come the Niagara Rapids and Falls, and the
Reservations, fully described heretofore.
The small settlements at Schlosser and Manchester
(now the City of Niagara Falls) were burnt by the
British in 1813.
No point of immediate historic interest occurs until
we reach the Devil's Hole, a spot famed as the site of
the " Massacre " of the British by the Senecas, in
1763, one of the most noted historic incidents on the
frontier, and more fully told in the sketch thereof.
The Tuscarora Reservation, containing some 6,000
acres, lies above the mountain, some three miles east.
228
The Tuscaroras were the first settlers along this
frontier, in 1780 and have always been the firm
friends of the United States.
The bluff on top of the mountain, six miles from the
Falls, is, geologists tell us, the old shore of Lake On-
tario, a fact which seems to be undisputed, and for fur-
ther information of which we refer to our geological
section. On this bluff, in 1678, and at this point, stood
Father Hennepin and La Salle, having climbed up the
steep ascent from the plain below, which, from its
three plateaus, Hennepin calls the "three mountains."
Here, in 1764, was built the first of the eleven block-
houses above referred to. Here, also, was located the
upper end of the first railroad ever built in America.
It was built of logs laid on crude piers and ran, in a
presumably straight line, from this spot on the cliff
directly down the edge of the bluff to the water.
True, it was of wood, but cars ran on it. It was op-
erated partly by hand power which the Indians sup-
plied ; for an Indian brave, who would scorn any
other manual labor, was content in those days to work
at the windlass for a whole day, receiving in payment
about one pint of whiskey and a plug of tobacco,
luxuries unobtainable in any other way.
Over this incline, which was built by Captain Mon-
tresor, and which continued in active operation for
over thirty years, was carried the entire freight going
westward ; not only the boats, cannon and military
stores for all the western English posts, but also the
vast amount of freight of every description and the
boats and goods of that large force of men who were
known in history as fur traders.
229
At this point on top of the mountain, also, was
located Fort Gray in the War of 1812.
The village at the foot of the mountain is Lewiston,
named for the Governor, Morgan Lewis, of New
York, and was once a place of importance as the head
of the navigation on Lake Ontario. It is an historic
old place, though often referred to as a back-number
town, and was a famous point in history. On its site
is believed to have stood the important village On-
guiaahra, of the Neuters.
At the foot of the bluff above the village ended the
incline railway already spoken of, and close to it were
the rude wharves to which came the light-draft, old-
fashioned and clumsy vessels of various descriptions
that brought, mainly from Oswego, all the stores,
both military and commercial, destined for the Far
West.
On the first plateau above the river overlooking
these wharves stood the storehouses in daily use for
all this merchandise during the last half of the eight-
eenth century, and here was located, for their defense,
the English fort from which the ill-fated two compa-
nies started for the Devil's Hole. Near here, too, in
1678, Father Hennepin landed and built a little cabin
of palisades, and said one of the early masses cele-
brated on the river. It could not have been the first,
for we know that Father Dallion was on this river as
a missionary in 1626, and to him, therefore, no doubt
belongs the honor of being the first celebrant on this
frontier.
In 1719 was built the first trading house on the
Niagara. Erected under peculiar circumstances, it was
231
destined to be a point of vast historic importance.
From 1688, when England compelled the destruction
of Fort De Nonville, which stood where Fort Niagara
now stands, both she, the victor, and France, the van-
quished, desired the reerection of a fort at this loca-
tion. Chabert Joncaire, a Frenchman by birth, a
Seneca by adoption, and a power among the Indian
tribes, and whom Charlesvoix describes as ''speaking
with all the good sense of a Frenchman and with all
of the eloquence of an Iroquois," was so beloved by
the Senecas that they wanted him to make his dwell-
ing place amongst them, offering him the location of a
site wherever he chose, and to locate one of their vil-
lages around him.
Pursuant to French instructions, he located his
cabin on the river bank at Lewiston. It was called
" Magazin Royal," and was ostensibly a trading house,
but in reality it was a fort. Over it floated the flag
bearing the lilies of France. Its attendants were all
French soldiers, and ere a year had passed it was de-
scribed as a heavily-built log house, forty feet long
by thirty feet wide, two stories high, musket proof,
with many portholes in its upper story, and surrounded
with palisades. It was possible to locate the fort on
this plea at this point, because Lewiston was the head
of navigation on the river, and Fort Niagara, where
the fort was really desired, was seven miles away,
and a fort could not be built there with the same
pretense. Joncaire's house stood for about six years,
and then the French obtained the consent of the
Senecas to build a dwelling where Fort Niagara now
stands.
233
Two miles below Lewiston are the five-mile mead-
ows, where, in December, 1813, the British crossed the
river for their night attack on Fort Niagara.
Fort Niagara, one of the most historic spots in
North America, stands to-day practically defenseless,
but bearing within its walls the relics of almost two
and a half centuries. On this point of land, in 1669,
La Salle built the first structure, other than an Indian
wigwam, ever erected on this frontier. On this site,
in 1678, La Salle again built a structure which he
called Fort Conti. On its ruins, in 1687, De Nonville
built the ill-fated fort that bore his name, which was
besieged by the Senecas as soon as the army departed,
and which was destroyed the following year, on the
demand of the Senecas, acting under British instiga-
tion.
In 1725, the French erected, by consent of the
Senecas, a stone structure on the present site of the
Castle, whose foundations are to-day no doubt the
oldest existing masonry west of Albany. This fort
was gradually strengthened and enlarged by the
French until, at the time of its attack by the British
in 1759, it was as strongly fortified and protected as
the science of that day, with such material as could be
gathered at so far-off a point, could possibly make it.
The history of that siege, including the three parallels
built by the British along the lake shore, the death of
General Prideaux, and the subsequent defeat of the
French relieving force from the West by Sir William
Johnson, thus acquiring for England that spot which
for over half a century she had desired to own, and
where for at least a score of years previously her hated
235
rival, France, had maintained a center of military and
commercial activity, are matters of history that cannot
be told in the limits of this book ; but, of the build-
ings that stand in Fort Niagara to-day, the lower part
of the stone walls date back to 1832, and the upper
part of these walls to about 1861. The earthworks
were constructed at least one hundred and fifty years
ago, while their brick facings date only from about
1861. The large building, the Castle, or mess house,
dates from 1725. Its foundation is the oldest
masonry on the frontier. The first and second stories
of stone date back prior to 1759, while the timbered
roof dates from just prior to the American Revolution.
OLD FRENCH BARRACKS, FORT NIAGARA.
It was the center of the history of the middle part of
North America for over one hundred years, and during
the eighteenth century its commandant, whether
English or French, was the most important man west
of New York. The two stone blockhouses, the best
extant specimens of their kind in America, were built
in 1770 and 1771 by the British. The old bakehouse,
built in 1762, replaced the earlier structure.
237
The
hot-shot furnace, first built prior to 1812, was rebuilt
some fifty years ago.
The long, low stone barracks were constructed by
the French about 1750, and about that same time they
built the square magazine which stands to the right
of the entrance gate. The roof of this magazine is a
huge, thick stone arch, the modern shingle roof having
been erected over that.
In 1826 this building acquired a national fame, for
to it was taken by night William Morgan of anti-
Masonic fame. Here, tradition says, he was confined
for three days, and within its walls he was last seen
alive ; and from it by night, according to popular
tradition and belief, he was taken into a boat, rowed
out into the lake, weights were attached to his body,
and he was pushed overboard.
Between the fort and the village of Youngstown,
along the river shore, a line of batteries extended
during the War of 1812.
" Niagara is without exception the most important
post in America and secures a greater number of
communications, through a more extensive country,
than perhaps any other pass in the world." So wrote
Major Wynne in 1770. His opinion was probably
correct, for no one spot of land in North America has
played a more important part in the control, growth
and settlement of the Great West than the few acres
embraced within its fortifications. Its cemetery is the
oldest consecrated ground west of Albany. The
capture of this fort by the British, in 1759, was
the death knell of French rule in western North
America.
239
ON THE CANADIAN SIDE.
At the source of Niagara River stand the ruins,
part of stone, part of earthwork, of Fort Erie, famed
in the War of 1812. The first fort built near this site
was in 1764, as a depot of supplies for General Brad-
street's army. The waves of the lake undermined and
battered the foundations, so that, about 1781, a new
location, nearer the source of the river and on the
bluff out of the reach of the waves, was selected, and
a second fort was built. In 1807 this was abandoned
and part of the earthworks on their present location
were constructed. It was enlarged by the British, in
1812, by the addition of the stone buildings which face
the river ; and still further enlarged, in 1814, by the
Americans, when in possession of the fort for the
second time during that war, by the addition of two
large bastions and connecting works in the rear and
on the side. In 1814, the Americans, after the battle
of Lundy's Lane, established themselves in this fort,
and here soon afterwards they were besieged by
General Drummond.
A little way down the river, and extending inland,
the British established a line of siege works and two
batteries, and in the northwest bastion, during one
of the British attacks on the fort, occurred one of the
most tremendous losses of life, due partly to hand-to-
hand conflict and partly to the explosion of the
magazine, that has ever occurred in any war in so
small a space.
From Fort Erie, on September 17, 1814, the Ameri-
cans made that famous sortie planned and led by
241
General Peter B. Porter, which, in the words of Sir Wm.
Napier, " is the only instance in history of a besieging
army being utterly routed in a single sortie," and
which event ended the "War of 1812."
No other site of historical importance occurs on the
river bank until we reach Navy Island. Though back
of Fort Erie, some five miles, is the scene of the Bat-
tle of Ridgeway, fought between the Canadians and
the Fenians in 1866.
Navy Island, containing 340 acres, belongs to
Canada. It is the only island of any size that fell to
her lot in determining the boundary line between the
United States and Canada, which line runs through
the deepest channel of the river. Navy Island is famed
mainly as the headquarters of the patriots during the
War of 1837.
On the main shore, just east of the village of Chip-
pawa, are the large fields where, on July 5th, 1814,
was fought the Battle of Chippawa. On both sides of
the mouth of Chippawa Creek were located batteries
during the War of 1812. On the western bank of
this creek, from 1794 until after 1800, stood one of the
ordinary pattern of blockhouses, built for the protec-
tion of the portage around the Falls on the Canada
side, and dignified by the name of Fort Chippawa.
One mile west of the Falls on the highest point of
land, on July 25th, 1814, was fought the famous bat-
tle of Lundy's Lane. Commenced late in the after-
noon, this battle, largely a hand-to-hand conflict, was
continued beneath the glorious light of a summer
moon until long after midnight ; while the cease-
less roar of Niagara thundered the dirge of the
243
many that fell on both sides. The central point
of the battlefield was a battery located on the
hill where the village cemetery and a monu-
ment in honor of the British who fell in that
battle now stand. This hill was captured by the
Americans and held against repeated assaults, only,
after the bloody victory had been gained by the Amer-
icans, to have General Brown, their commander, order
the. army back toward Chippawa, leaving the cannon,
for whose capture so many lives had been lost, un-
spiked and alone on the hill, which early the next
morning the British, without opposition, reoccupied.
It is one of the most famous battles in history — re-
markable that even now, nearly a hundred years after-
wards, the Americans still claim the victory, and the
Canadians, going still further, annually celebrate on
the battlefield, with pomp and ceremony, a famous vic-
tory which in the opinion of their American cousins
they did not win.
The village of Drummondville, one-half a mile west
of the Falls, was named in honor of General Drum-
mond of the War of 1812.
Queenstown Heights, where was fought the battle
of October 12, 1812, is marked by the noble monu-
ment to General Brock. The remains of the earth-
works of Fort Drummond are easily traceable.
A cenotaph at the foot of the heights marks the
spot where General Brock fell, mortally wounded.
Qtieenston, a small village below the heights, was
so called in honor of Queen Charlotte.
The village of Niagara, near the mouth of the
river, called also, at various times, Newark and Butlers-
245
bury, is older than any settlement on the eastern
bank. In 1792 it became the residence of the
Lieutenant-Governor of Canada, and here was held
the first session of the Parliament of Upper Canada.
Fort George, whose vast earthworks are plainly
discernible to-day, was commenced in 1796, to provide
a habitation for the British garrison, which, soon after
in that year, evacuated Fort Niagara under Jay's
Treaty.
It was enlarged prior to the war of 1812, and
doubled in size, in the immediate preparation of that
war, and was, of course, the military center of the
Canadian lower Niagara during that period. From
here General Brock, who was in command, started to
take part in the battle of Queenston Heights, and
when he returned it was in his coffin, to be buried in
the Cavilier Bastion of the Fort, from whence his
remains were subsequently removed to their present
tomb in Brock's monument. Here, in 1813, the
Americans, attacking from the lake side, captured the
village and the fort, which they held until December
of that year, when General McClure, the American
general, on a day's notice, without provocation, set
fire to and burned the village, thus turning the inhab-
itants out into the cold. His destruction of the
buildings in the fort and of the tents and other
military stores (which he left unharmed) would have
done far more good for the American cause and have
left far less benefits for the advancing British than
they found when they entered the fort. This act so
aroused the British soldiery that it resulted in the
retaliation and the utterly unnecessary attack and
247
massacre at Fort Niagara and the burning of the
Niagara frontier.
Fort Mississaga, a stone blockhouse, surrounded by
high earthworks, stands to-day a perfect specimen of
the early nineteenth century fort. It was built by the
British in 1814, when they held control of Fort
Niagara ; for without their occupation of that fort,
being directly covered by the guns thereof, it could
not have been built. Neither during the War of 1812
nor during any subsequent period has it played any
important part. During the war of 1812 the water
front for a mile up from the mouth of the river was
a line of batteries.
Navy Hall, the residence of Governor Simcoe, the
first Governor-General of Upper Canada, is still
standing, a long, low, one-story wooden building
(where, in 1792, met the first Parliament of Upper
Canada), though not on its original site.
About a mile back from the river are still seen the
wooden barracks occupied during the Revolution by
that noted band of white, but savage, warriors known
as "Butler's Rangers."
249
GEOLOGIC NIAGARA.
During the last seventy-five years geologists
have written a great deal about Niagara, and from it
speculatists have deduced theories as to the antiquity
of the earth, trying to prove
" That He who made it, and revealed its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age."
In early geological days this entire section was cov-
ered by the salt waters of the Silurian seas, which is
proved by the shells of the Conularia Niagarensis,
found in the shale underlying Goat Island and along
the gorge ; this shale having once been the muddy
bottom of these seas, and this shell being found only
in salt water.
At a later geological period, on top of what is now
this shale, at the bottom of a warm ocean, still cover-
ing all this land, grew a vast, thick and solid bed of
coral, of which ancient life the Niagara limestone of
to-day is a monument.
Subsequently, these two ancient and contiguous sea
bottoms, then solid stone, were uplifted, and by the
configuration of the earth hereabouts the original
Niagara River was formed. In general terms its
course was similar to that of the present river (though
its volume was not as great) as far north as the Whirl-
pool, from whence it ran, in a broadening channel, to
St. David's, westerly from its present outlet ; and prior
250
to the coming of the ice age it had cut this channel
back to the Whirlpool and perhaps even farther south.
Next came the glacial period, when this part of the
country was enveloped with a covering of ice (work-
ing down from the northeast) similar to that now cov-
ering Greenland, though having a depth of hundreds
of feet. This ice age, as approximately determined,
lasted 50,000 years, and closed about 200,000 years ago.
This ice sheet, as it moved forward and southward,
broke off all the projecting points of rock, and scraped
all the rocks themselves bare. Its presence and power
are attested by the scratchings and markings on the
smoothed surfaces of the top layer of rock wherever
it is laid bare, as far south as the Ohio River, and is
apparent on Goat Island and along the frontier. This
ice sheet brought down in its course not only boulders
from the far north and northeast, but its own vast ac-
cumulations and scrapings and ebrasions, which we
call "drift," and with this drift it filled up (and with
its enormous weight pressed compactly) all valleys,
gorges and indentations of the earth in its course,
among them the old outlet or bed of the Niagara
River from St. David's to the Whirlpool.
The sectional view of Goat Island's rocky substrata
shows what enormous grinding force must have been
exerted on the top rock above the present western end
of Goat Island (for, of course, there was no gorge west
of the island then), so much of the limestone having
been gouged out by the ice. In this excavated cavity
drift was deposited by the ice. Many of the boulders
brought here in the ice age, carried perhaps hundreds
of miles, have been collected in this section and used
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in the construction of the handsome stone bridges
that have been built on the Reservation, on the main
shore, opposite Goat Island.
On the recession of the ice sheet a second Niagara
River came into existence.
The weight of this vast ice sheet had canted or
tilted the land to the northeast, so that at its reces-
sion the waters of the present three great northern
lakes flowed east by the Ottawa and later, as the land
rose, by the Trent Valley. As this second Niagara
River drained only the Lake Erie basin, and as Lake
Erie was very much smaller than at present, it worked
in a small channel, was of small volume, and had but
small rock-cutting power to take up the erosive pro-
cess of the earlier Niagara River, which had drained
only this same Lake Erie basin.
This is the period, again referred to, when the pres-
ent channel to the south and west of Goat Island (the
Canadian channel) was made.
It should be noted that the land to the northeast is
even yet rising, or slowly regaining its former level.
This bears on our subject in that in time, in the upper
lake region, the present slight slope to the southeast
will be entirely overcome, and then the waters of the
three great upper lakes will find their discharge to the
westward, and the Niagara River will again drain only
the Lake Erie basin, and, as a result, will enormously
decrease in volume.
If when this time comes the two Falls shall have
eaten their way back past Goat Island they will have
left it an elevated and isolated island, or more prob-
ably a promontory, whose little forest will be perched
253
on a rocky base over 200 feet above the rapids below
the Falls. The island itself will be narrower than at
present on account of the action of the elements.
If, however, when that time shall come the Ameri-
can Fall shall not have receded far (and, judging from
its recession during the last 200 years, it is improbable
that it will have), its channel, by the great lessening
of the flow of the river, will become dry, and Goat
Island and the American channel between it and the
main shore will become once more a part of the Amer-
ican mainland, and there will be but one small fall in
the Canadian channel.
The second Niagara River gradually merged itself
into a vast fresh-water lake, formed by the melting
ice and heavy rainfalls, and covering all the Lake
Erie basin, and gradually rose in level until it stood fully
100 feet above the present rocky bed of Goat Island.
Its northern boundary was the escarpment or ridge
whose lowest point was just above the present village
of Lewiston, which point is thirty-two feet above the
present level of Lake Erie. Here the rising waters first
broke over the dam, and here Niagara Falls were born.
From here they cut their way back to the Whirl-
pool, for the waters found it easier to cut a new chan-
nel back through the soft rock from this point in the
embankment than to scour out the old drift-filled
channel (which was at the very bottom of the lake)
from the Whirlpool to" St. David's.
The flow of the lake set towards the Falls and
brought down from the Erie basin fluvial deposits in
large amounts during the succeeding years, deposit-
ing them all along the bottom of the lake. It is of
254
these fluvial deposits, consisting of sand and loam
(excepting a comparatively small layer of drift next to
the top rock), that the soil of Goat Island is formed,
and that the soil covering the rocky substrata along
the gorge is formed.
This Goat Island soil, more than any surface in
this section, is the geologists' paradise. While some
lands and forests near here may not have been culti-
vated by man, the western end of Goat Island is an
absolutely unique piece of virgin forest.
Most of the time it has been, in general terms, in-
accessible to man ; and since accessible by bridges, no
cutting of the trees, no clearing of the land nor culti-
vation thereof, no pasturing of cattle, in fact, no dis-
turbance of the soil, has been permitted.
Here, then, is the orignal drift, with the subsequent
overlying alluvial deposits and accumulations, undis-
turbed by man. And when, as in this case, in this
undisturbed fluvial deposit are found fresh-water
shells, it proves that the Niagara River to-day flows
through what was once the bottom of a vast fresh-
water lake that covered all this section.
As the Falls cut their way backward, so their
height gradually diminished, and the level of this fresh-
water lake fell until, finally, there came a time when
the land of what is now Goat Island rose above the
waters. That this lake existed at a comparatively
recent geological period is proven by the fact that
these shells now found on Goat Island are identical in
species with those found inhabiting the Niagara River
and Lake Ontario to-day. According to the most
accurate calculation, the concensus of geological
255
256
opinion is that 35,000 years have elapsed since the
Falls were at Lewiston, which is seven miles away ;
and that the fluvial deposits on the island began as
soon as the river rose over the moraine at the foot of
Lake Erie can scarcely be doubted.
That in 35,000 years there is no specific difference
between the ancient shells found in the soil of Goat
Island and their existing representatives and progeny
in this locality is wonderful indeed.
Sir Charles Lyell's sectional view of the rocky
strata, as shown along the sides of the gorge, ex-
plains at a glance how and why the Falls have gradu-
ally diminished in height as they have cut their way
back from Lewiston Heights, where they were at their
greatest altitude. At present their height, 158 feet
at the Horseshoe Fall, is the least that it has ever
been in all the centuries of their existence.
During the next half mile in their recession, until
they shall have reached the head of the rapids, their
height will increase.
When they shall have reached the head of the
rapids they will be about fifty feet higher than they
are now, or over 200 feet in height, less whatever the
upward slope of the bed of the river below the Fall
may diminish that total, and it cannot be by many
feet. The average dip of the rocky strata to the south
is twenty-five feet to the mile, and the average slope
of the river channel in the opposite direction is fifteen
feet to the mile.
When the Falls shall have receded yet another half
mile, or a total distance of one mile from their present
location, by the wearing away of the strata, which
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dips rapidly downward, and by the continued, but
gradual, elevation of the bed of the river, and there-
fore of the surface of the water below them, they will
have decreased in height to about TOO feet. And
when they shall have receded still another mile, their
height will be only about sixty feet. Still referring
to Sir Charles Lyell's sectional views of the strata, I
give his explanation of how, between Lewiston Heights
and the Whirlpool, there were three falls.
The upper limestone and shale (8 and 7) having
first been worn away, a second fall would in time be
caused over the edge of the strata 6, 5, 4 and 3, and
finally a third cascade sprang into existence over the
edge of strata 2 and i. Three falls, one above the
other, similar in their geological and geographical
position to those seen to-day on the Genesee River at
Rochester, N. Y., would thus be formed.
The recession of the upper fall must have been
gradually retarded, as it cut its way back, by the
thickening of strata No. 8. Thus the second fall,
which would not suffer the same retardation, might
overtake it, and the two united would then be retarded
by the large quantity of rock to be removed, until the
lowest fall would come up to them, and then the
whole would be united into one.
When they were about a mile south of Queenston
Heights, the total altitude of the three falls must have
been about 400 feet ; hence, in their recession of seven
miles, the Falls have lost some 240 feet in height, an
average of thirty-five feet to the mile.
As geologists differ by thousands of years as to how
long it took the Falls to cut their way from Lewiston
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ridge to their present location it would be impossible
to say when in the history of this section the waters
had so far drained off that the muddy deposits over-
lying the rocky bed of what is now Goat Island first
appeared above the slowly-receding waters of the
lake, unless we adopt some length of time for this work
as a basis.
But it is not so difficult, by noting the elevation of
the land, the trend of the rocks and the depth of the
overlying "drift," to locate approximately where the
Falls were when this occurred. At that time, judging
from the present levels of the land, the Falls must
have been at a point nearly a mile north of the
present location of the Horseshoe Fall. And if
we accept, as above, one foot a year as a fair
average estimate of the recession of Niagara from
Lewiston Heights in the more recent geological time,
it must have been between four and five thousand
years ago that the soil of Goat Island, then a part
of the mainland, first appeared ; and probably it is
nearly as long since it became an island.
In speaking of the recession of Niagara, I refer to
the recession of the Horseshoe Fall, for it recedes
several hundred times as fast as the American Fall; for
in the time that the Horseshoe Fall has receded from
Prospect Point, at the lower or northern edge of the
American Fall, across the width of the American Fall
and across the width of Goat Island to its present posi-
tion, the American Fall has receded but a very few feet.
Hence, on these deductions, Goat Island has existed
as an island from about the time of the Flood, or from
about 2,300 B. C.
261
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This proves the statement that "in a scientific
sense the island is of trifling antiquity, in fact, it would
be difficult to point out in the western world any
considerable tract of land more recent in its origin."
As the Canadian Fall is lower in level than the
American Fall, and as the main body of water and
deepest channel appertain to this Canadian Fall, it is
certain that the channel of the second Niagara River,
which, of course, after the lake was drained off, was at
the lowest level of this old lake bed, was practically
identical with the Canadian channel of the river just
above the Falls to-day ; that is, to the south and west
of Goat Island.
Then Goat Island was a part of the American
mainland, and the rocky bed of the river between the
island and the shore, where to-day are the American
Rapids, was also part of the mainland and covered
with soil like that on Goat Island.
Then came a time, perhaps some hundreds of
years afterwards, when, in the steady rerising of the
land at the northeast towards the elevation that it had
before it was depressed by the ice, the outlet of the
three upper lakes to the east was cut off ; and the
waters, seeking a new outlet, found it by what is now
the St. Clair River into Lake Erie.
By this means the volume of the Niagara River was
suddenly and enormously increased. This perma-
nently raised the level of the river, and part of this
increased volume of water poured over the lowest
point of the mainland near where Goat Island is
to-day, this point being in the present channel of the
American Rapids and along the American shore up-
263
stream; and this rush of waters cut and swept away
the soil down to the rock, leaving and thus forming
Goat Island.
Probably at the same time and in the same manner
were cut off and formed the small islands that now lie
on both sides of Goat Island, though they were at the
first larger and, being joined together, fewer in
number than at present.
Certainly, up to the time of the cutting of the
channel of the American Fall, the river shore of
what is now Goat Island extended very much farther
upstream, and probably after the island itself was
formed its upper end extended much farther eastward ;
for at its eastern end, now called " the parting of the
waters," a sandy bar extends some hundreds of yards
upstream. On this bar and south of it the depth of
water is to-day less than three feet, and in the winter
its whole length is covered with ice that lodges there.
This entire bar was no doubt at one time covered with
soil and was a part of Goat Island, the land being
gradually washed away by the water, aided in its
work by frost and ice.
One author says, " One of the early chronicles states
that the island contained 250 acres of land," but I
have been unable to find that chronicle.
Niagara has been called the "sun clock of the
ages," and the stratification of the rocks through
which it has cut its way may be studied at many
points, especially at the "Whirlpool Rapids," above
the Whirlpool, where both shores of the gorge are
little covered with foliage, and again on the Goat
Island cliff.
264
BOTANIC NIAGARA.
"The groves were God's first temples."
It is a difficult task to treat of the botany of any
region within the space allotted to it in a guide of
this nature ; and especially difficult to treat of it in a
manner suitable to such a work, for this must be done
in a superficial way and without employing many
scientific terms.
For the study of its botany, the Niagara frontier
may properly be divided into four sections. The first,
from Lake Erie to the rapids above the Falls ; the sec-
ond, the mile of territory beginning at the head of
these rapids and extending to the bridge below the
Falls ; the third, from this bridge down the gorge to
Queenston Heights ; and the fourth, from these
heights to Lake Ontario.
The botanic nature of the first section is largely
that which one would expect to find along a river's
bank in this latitude, and under its existing condi-
tions in reference to the Great Lakes. The second
embraces a section almost unique in northern lati-
tudes, by reason of the ever present moisture of the
spray. The third section contains the remarkable
gorge. While the fourth section differs from the first
mainly in that it lies much lower, and, being more
protected, is some weeks earlier in production.
No doubt all along the river many of the seeds
which started the first foliage and forest, as well as
265
many succeeding species, were planted by the river
(or by the vast lake that preceded it) at its inception
and in subsequent decreasing levels, and this is speci-
ally true of Goat Island.
The botanist will, no doubt, find the most prolific
field for study in section two, the one immediately adja-
cent to the Falls themselves ; and, next to that, in
section three, where the base of the cliff and the slope
below it, on both sides of the river, present unusual
and remarkable features.
The late David F. Day of Buffalo, some few years
ago, at the request of the Commissioners of the New
York State Reservation at Niagara, prepared a list of
the flora to be found on and near the Reservation.
Goat Island, in that report, naturally receives special
mention. Of it he says :
" A calcareous soil enriched with an abundance of
organic matter like that of Goat Island would neces-
sarily be one of great fertility. For the growth and
sustentation of a forest and of such plants as prefer
the woods to the openings it would far excel the deep
and exhaustless alluvians of the prairie States.
" It would be difficult to find within another terri-
tory so restricted in its limits so great a diversity of
trees and shrubs and still more difficult to find in so
small an area such examples of arboreal symmetry
and perfection as the island has to exhibit.
" The island received its flora from the mainland ;
in fact, the botanist is unable to point out a single
instance of tree, shrub or herb now growing upon the
island not also to be found upon the mainland. But
the distinguishing characteristic of its flora is not the
266
possession of any plant elsewhere unknown, but the
abundance of individuals and species which the island
displays. There are to be found in Western New
York about 170 species of trees and shrubs. Goat
Island and the immediate vicinity of the river near
the Falls can show of these no less than 140. There
are represented on the island four maples, three species
of thorn, two species of ash, and six species, distrib-
uted in five genera, of the cone-bearing family. The
one species of basswood belonging to the vicinity is
also there."
His catalogue of plants gives 909 species of plants
to be found on the Reservation, of which 758 are
native and 151 are foreign. These 909 species em-
brace 410 genera.
Again he says :
" The flora of Goat Island presents few plants which
may be called uncommon in Western New York.
" For the rarer plants, other localities must be
visited, but Goat Island is very rich in the number of
its species.
" Its vernal beauty is attributable, not merely to its
variety of plants, conspicuous in flower, but also to
the extraordinary abundance in which they are
produced. Yet it seems likely that there was a time,
probably not long ago, when other species of plants
of great beauty were common upon the island, but
which are not now to be found there. It is hardly
possible that several orchidaceous plants and our
three native lilies did not once embellish its woods
and grassy places. Within a little while the harebell
has gone and the grass of Parnassus is fast going.
267
This is undoubtedly due to careless flower gatherers,
who have plucked and pulled without stint or reason.
The same fate awaits others that do so much to
beautify the island, unless the wholesale spoliation is
soon arrested."
He then suggests that pains be taken to reestablish
on the island the attractive plants which it has lost,
stating that the success of the effort would be entirely
certain and thereby the pleasure of a visit to the
island would be greatly enhanced to many visitors.
And he rightly adds : " It would surely be a step, and
not an unimportant one, in restoring the island to the
state in which nature left it."
Sir Joseph Hooker, the noted English botanist, has
said that he found on Goat Island a greater variety of
vegetation within a given space than he had found
elsewhere in Europe or east of the Sierras in America ;
and Dr. Asa Gray, the greatest of American botanists,
confirms that statement.
Some of the rarest plants of Western New York and
Ontario grow in the neighborhood of the Niagara
River, but not within the boundaries of either the
New York State Reservation or the Queen Victoria
Park.
In section four, although Queenston Heights, which
are its commencement, present a northerly exposure,
among the plants growing upon the talus and on
the plain below, are a number which belong rather to
the south and southwest, and are much more abun-
dant in Ohio than in Western New York. This may be
explained by the fact that the annual temperature
here and northward to Lake Ontario is higher than
268
that prevailing at the Falls and immediately south of
them.
In the woods, on the high bank just east of the
Whirlpool, around DeVeaux College, are to be found
several species not found at the Falls. Queenston
Heights furnish some species scarcely seen elsewhere
in this vicinity.
Spring seems to visit Foster's Flats, lying below the
high western bank of the gorge, some weeks earlier
than it does the table-land above, and these flats pro-
duce several rare plants.
The Devil's Hole was once a paradise of ferns, and
the plateau of rock which overlooks the ravine at this
point produces some specimens uncommon elsewhere
in this region. Between the mountain and the village
of Lewiston are to be found plants that are rare in
Western New York.
The low land near Clifton, on the Canada Shore, and
the woods near the Whirlpool on the same side of the
river, produce plants uncommon, if not unique, in this
locality.
Frederick Law Olmstead wrote : " I have followed
the Appalachian Chain almost from end to end, and
traveled on horseback, * in search of the picturesque,'
over 4,000 miles of the most promising parts of the
continent without finding elsewhere the same quality
of forest beauty which was once abundant about the
Falls, and which is still to be observed on those parts
of Goat Island where the original growth of trees and
shrubs has not been disturbed, and where from caving
banks trees are not now exposed to excessive dryness
at the root.
269
" All these distinctive qualities, the great variety of
the indigenous perennials and annuals, the rare beauty
of the old woods, and the exceeding loveliness of the
rock foliage I believe to be a direct effect of the Falls,
and as much a part of its majesty as the mist cloud and
the rainbow. They are all, as it appears to me, to be
explained by the circumstance that at two periods of
the year, when the Northern American forest else-
where is liable to suffer actual constitutional depres-
sion, that of Niagara is assured against ills, and thus
retains youthful luxuriance to an unusual age.
" First, the masses of ice which every winter are
piled to a great height below the Falls and the great
rushing body of ice-cold water coming from the north-
ern lakes in the spring, prevent at Niagara the hard-
ship under which trees elsewhere often suffer through
sudden checks to premature growth. And, second,
when droughts elsewhere occur, as they do every few
years, of such severity that trees in full foliage droop
and dwindle, and even sometimes cast their leaves, the
atmosphere at Niagara is more or less moistened by
the constantly evaporating spray of the Falls, and in
certain situations bathed by drifting clouds of spray."
For the enthusiastic botanist, the Niagara Frontier
is a glorious playground, where study and recreation
go hand in hand.
270
HYDRAULIC AND ELECTRIC
NIAGARA.
We must treat of these two subjects practically as
one, for while Niagara has been recognized for years
as a power-producing locality, and while the water
power of the rapids had been utilized to a small
extent as early as 1750, by the French in the erection
of mills on the American shore ; and while DeWitt
Clinton, in 1810, makes reference to the possibilities
of power here, it was not until 1853 that the first
development thereof on a large scale was undertaken,
and not until 1890 that operations on the great tun-
nel, which was to convert water power into electricity
on the grandest scale on earth, were actually com-
menced. The State of Massachusetts, about 1788,
when practically all of Western New York was
sold to Phelps and Gorham, had reserved what is
known as the mile strip ; that is, a strip of land
one mile in width along the river bank from Lake
Erie to Lake Ontario. This mile strip was offered for
sale by the State of New York, then its owner, about
1806, and in the surveyor-general's field notes regard-
ing the lots immediately adjacent to the Great Fall,
he noted their value for water power, and the pur-
chasers of these lots bore this especially in mind in
selecting and securing this very land ; and though, in
1825, the owners of these lots in a printed circular
called attention to and invited the enlistment of
271
capital for the development of the power, it was not
until sixty years later that a number of men, among
them the descendants of the very men who issued the
circular, developed a plan, formulated by Thomas
Evershed of Rochester, for the production of water
power here on a vast scale, which has since been
carried to such a wonderfully successful conclusion
by the capitalists who formed the Niagara Falls Power
Company.
In 1853 the first attempt on a large scale to develop
Niagara power was formed by a company of Boston
capitalists ; the company later, and soon after, was
reorganized, the necessary land was acquired, and in
spite of many difficulties the first hydraulic canal
(which is still in operation) was constructed. This
corporation, The Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and
Manufacturing Company, has largely increased the
development of its power, and has been the means of
building up not only its own enterprises, but those
of other capitalists that now derive the power from
this company, which to-day is producing in the
neighborhood of 15,000 horse power, and has great
possibilities for the enormous increase of even this
production.
This canal is a surface canal, starting about three-
quarters of a mile above the American Fall, and
conducting the water on the surface to a point a
quarter of a mile below the American Fall, where the
overflow is into the gorge, which at this point is some
200 feet lower in level. Not only is this power thus used
by a number of manufacturers located along the basin
at the outlet of the canal and situated on the edge of
272
the bluff, but, by a secondary use of the water after it
has passed out from the wheels at the bottom of the
first head, is made to do twofold duty by furnishing
the power to a second wheel. In some cases these
secondary wheels are located in excavations in the
face of the gorge itself, and in others are utilized
under this high head on wheels situated under build-
ings erected close to the water's edge below.
In 1885 was formed the project of the so-called
tunnel. At first it was designed to have the outlet
of the tunnel located under the base of Goat Island,
and the tunnel itself was to extend upstream under
the said island and under the bed of the river for over
a mile. The factories which were to be located on
the present site of the upper manufacturing district
were to be connected with this main tunnel by lateral
tunnels. The initial steps for the establishment of
the State Reservation at Niagara, taken in 1879,
precluded the possibility of adopting this route and
compelled its projectors to change the line of the
tunnel to its present location, which is directly under
the City of Niagara Falls.
As first projected, there were to be twelve surface
canals extending from the river a long distance inland
and beyond the line of the tunnel. Beneath these
surface canals were to be twenty-four lateral tunnels,
twelve sloping respectively from either side toward
the main tunnel. Further investigation proved this
to be too expensive a method and requiring too much
rock cutting, and the project was so modified that
instead of having twelve canals capable of carrying
enough water (for this vast tunnel is simply a tail race
273
that carries away the water after it has developed the
power on the wheels) to develop 120,000 horse power
through twenty-four lateral tunnels each delivering the
waste water from 5,000 horse power into the main
tunnel, it was suggested that three V-shaped canals
be excavated, each capable of furnishing water for
40,000 horse power, and which were to be connected
with the tunnel by three penstocks.
The capitalists who were engaged in developing
this vast enterprise still felt that, for the protection of
the stockholders, it was necessary that they should
secure the best and latest ideas in all the world, so
that they might not in the future be confronted with
the fact that at the time they were expending all these
millions there existed, somewhere, engineering talent
capable of benefiting the scheme, and which they had
not secured. So they formed an International Com-
mission, composed of one representative each from
England, France, Switzerland, Germany and the
United States, with headquarters in London, to whom
was to be submitted the plans of all engineers who
cared to compete not only in the hydraulic develop-
ment, but in the production of the wheels, penstocks
and various designs in connection with the great
project ; and during a period of six months the
Power Company agreed to pay the expenses of a
representative of any firm to Niagara and return from
any part of the world, only stipulating that some
design must be submitted.
The result of this commission, of which Sir Wil-
liam Thompson, better known as Lord Kelvin, was
president, was a decision, in the interest of economy,
274
to abandon the three surface canals of 40,000 horse
power, and to substitute one canal capable of fur-
nishing water to the full capacity of the tunnel,
namely, 120,000 horse power. This idea was adopted
and the canal has been so constructed.
The tunnel itself is 7,200 feet long, and is a brick-
lined passage twenty-nine feet in height, eighteen
feet in breadth, egg shaped, and in its construction
twenty million bricks were used for the lining.
The power house of this company is a vast granite
building, 425 feet long by 60 feet wide, wherein are
now produced 50,000 horse power by ten dynamos of
5,000 horse power each. These dynamos are fitted to
the top of the shafts, which extend down into the pit
130 feet, and there connect directly with the wheels,
which by a Swiss invention are not at the bottom of
the penstock direct, but alongside of them ; for these
penstocks, each carrying a column of water six feet
in diameter and 140 feet high, and capable of produc-
ing a continuous 5,000 horse power, turn upwards at
their lower end, so that the weight of this column of
water by its uplifting force reduces the weight of, and,
therefore, the friction of, the wheel.
On the other side of the canal is now in process
of construction a second pit and the erection of a sec-
ond power house capable of producing, by a like
means, 50,000 horse power more. As the tunnel and
the canal were built in their entirety, it is only neces-
sary to connect this new pit with the main tunnel by
a short additional piece of tunnel.
When this tunnel was projected electricity was in
its infancy, and it is worthy of note that the first pros-
275
pectus issued by the incorporators of this company
referred to the possibilities of electrical uses of this
power in about three lines. Hydraulic or water power
was its avowed object. As the years went by, and as
electrical science increased and developed, the water-
power feature of the Tunnel Company has been almost
entirely eliminated, so far as furnishing hydraulic
power to manufacturers is concerned ; and in its stead
to-day almost the entire capacity of the tunnel now
in use, and the entire capacity of the present and also
of the projected power house, is devoted to the trans-
formation of the water power into electrical units.
From this power house are delivered to all the
factories which have been brought to its domain, elec-
trical power for the various processes. From it is
lighted the City of Niagara Falls and a large portion
of the City of Buffalo. Here is generated the power
that runs all the trolley lines in the City of Buffalo, the
line twenty-two miles long between Buffalo and Niagara
Falls, and the line of the same length between Buffalo
and the City of Lockport ; and many of the manufac-
tories in various branches of commerce in Buffalo have
adopted this new Niagara power in place of the steam
power of former years. Power is also developed and
delivered for the Gorge Railroad, and for the trolley
line to Fort Niagara, from the Hydraulic Canal Com-
pany's plant. It is this wonderful transmission of a
small portion of the enormous water power of Niagara
turned into electricity that is now developing this sec-
tion in such a wonderful way. What the limits in dis-
tance of the transmission of electricity at a commercial
profit will be no one now dares to say, and perhaps
276
the guide book of twenty years hence may ridicule
the fact that at the opening of the twentieth century,
Niagara, the power house of North America, was
limited in the distance it was sending its power by a
score of miles ; for what has been done on a small
scale will no doubt be done on a very much larger
one, and it is but five years ago, by means of the tele-
phone wire, the roar of Niagara, caught in a huge re-
ceiver placed at the base of the Cave of the Winds
Fall, was nightly for a period of thirty days transmit-
ted to and heard by thousands of people in the City
of New York. It is a probability that the advance in
electrical science will enable cities, even as far from
Niagara as New York, in the course of a comparatively
few years, to receive their manufacturing and lighting
power from the energy of the Great Cataract.
277
NIAGARA IN LITERATURE.
"All the descriptions you may read of Niagara can
only produce in your mind the faint glimmer of the
glowworm compared with the overpowering beauty
and glory of the meridian sun," truthfully wrote J. J.
Audubon.
EARLIEST REFERENCES.
The first reference to Niagara in literature (that of
France) antedated its first portrayal in art (also
French) by over four score and ten years. In 1603,
Samuel de Champlain, the first Governor-General of
New France, and the most picturesque figure in all
Canadian history, in his " Des Sauvages " says : " At
the end of this lake (meaning Ontario) they pass a
fall, somewhat high and with but little water flowing
over." Champlain, who never saw Niagara, heard
this from the Indians on the coast.
In his 1613 map, Champlain locates the Falls quite
accurately, and in his 1632 map they are located and
referred to in a note as a " waterfall, very high, where
many kinds of fish are stunned in the descent."
In 1648, Father Rageneau, in the "Jesuit Rela-
tions," speaks of " Lake Erie, which discharges itself
into a third lake, called Ontario, over a cataract of
fearful height."
In 1669, Father Gallinee, in his journal, tells of
being at the mouth of the Niagara River, which " has
278
from ten to twelve leagues above its embrochure into
Lake Ontario one of the finest falls of water in the
world, for all the Indians of whom I have enquired
about it say that the river falls at that place from a rock
higher than the tallest pines, that is, about 300 feet.
In fact, we heard it from where we were."
There is but one way to tell of Niagara in literature,
both prose and poetry, and that is to quote from the
productions of the master minds who have tried to
describe it or who have recorded their impressions of it,
and in every case these quotations must be brief.
DESCRIPTIVE PROSE.
Father Hennepin, who gave the first real descrip-
tion of Niagara, was also the first to use that spelling of
the name. He saw them in 1678, and in his "Louis-
iana," 1683, describes them, which description he am-
plified in his " New Discovery," 1697, in these words :
" Betwixt the lakes Ontario and Erie there is a vast and
prodigious cadence'of water which falls down after a
surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the
universe does not afford its parallel," which is as true
to-day as it was over two centuries ago. He, however,
gave the height of the Falls as 600 feet, and said he
discovered "a spot of ground (under Table Rock)
which lay under the fall of water, which is to the east
(the third fall which flowed over Table Rock), big
enough for foux coaches to drive abreast without being
wet."
I have already in the scenic section quoted expres-
sions by J. B. Orton, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dudley
279
Warner, the Duke of Argyle, Margaret Fuller Ossoli,
David Gray, George William Curtis, Charles Mackay,
Rev. F. A. P. Greenwood, William Russell, L. W.
Mansfield, and Captain Basil Hall — a noble com-
pany in themselves. Let me add the prose expres-
sions of some others.
An unnamed author wrote : " One might almost
fancy that Niagara was designedly placed by the
Creator in the temperate zone, that it might not
always wear the same livery of loveliness, but that
the peculiar excellencies of each of the three
great regions of the earth might, in turn, enrich,
beautify and adorn this favorite and glorious work of
His power. That in summer it might have the warmth
and luxuriance of the tropics ; in autumn, the vivid
hues and varying dyes of the middle regions ; and in
winter, the icy splendor and starry lustre of the frozen
zone. All that is rich, all that is striking, all that is
gorgeous in nature, thus centers here in one holy
spot, beautifying sublimity, adorning immensity, and
making the awful attractive. Men come from all
ends of the earth to see Niagara, and well they
may."
Where the waters pitch all is agitation and foam !
Beyond they spread themselves like a rippling sea of
liquid alabaster. The last feature is perfectly unique,
and you would think nothing could add to its loveli-
ness ; but there lies on it, as if made for each other,
"heaven's own bow of promise." The world knows
nothing like these Fails. It is better to see Niagara
than a thousand ordinary sights. They may revive
sleeping emotions, but this creates new emotion,
280
and raises the mind a step higher in its conception
of the power and eternity of God. — Rev. Andrew
Reed.
Niagara is not simply the crowning glory of New
York State, but it is the highest distinction of the
nation and of the continent of America. No other
like gift of Nature equally holds the interest of the
world, or operates as an inducement for men to cross
the sea. — Commissioners' Report on the Preservation of
the Scenery of Niagara, 1880.
It is the combined appeal to every sense and every
faculty, exalting the soul into a higher sphere of con-
templation which distinguishes this spot above all
others in this world. Niagara is an awful symbol of
Infinite power — a vision of Infinite beauty — a shrine,
a temple erected by the hand of the Almighty for all
the children of men. — James C. Carter; Oration at
Free Niagara, July 15, 1885.
The days when one's eyes rest on Niagara are epochs
in the life of any man. He gazes on a scene of sub-
limity and splendor far greater than the unaided fancy
of poet or painter ever pictured. He receives im-
pressions which time cannot diminish and death alone
efface. — Major Thomas Hamilton.
What a wonderful thing water can become ! One
feels, in looking at Niagara, as if one had never seen
that element before. Perhaps the most peculiar and
transcendent attitude of this matchless cataract is its
almost endless variety. — Lady Stuart Worthy.
The beauty of Niagara seems to me more impres-
sive than its grandeur. One's imagination may heap
up almost any degree of grandeur, but the subtle col-
281
oring of this scene — the Horseshoe Fall — refining
upon the softness of driven snow, and dimming all the
gems of the mind is wholly inconceivable. — Harriet
Martineau.
Beauty is not absent from the Horseshoe Fall, but
majesty is its chief attribute. The plunge of the
water is not wild, but deliberate, vast and fascinating.
— Professor Tyndall.
There is one thing about Niagara that impresses.
It can have no rival. Its deep, thundering voice of
power will be heard in its solemn intensity. The
ceaseless sermon of its majesty — the omnipotence of
God — will be preached while the waters flow. — L.
W. Mansfield.
The great Fall faces you, enshrined in the surging
incense of its own resounding mists. Already you
see the world-famous green, baffling painter, baffling
poets, clear and lucid on the lip of the precipice, the
more so, of course, for the clouds of silver and snow
into which it drops. A green more gorgeously cool and
pure it is impossible to conceive. You can fancy it is
the parent green ; the head spring of color to all the
verdant water caves, and all the clear haunts and
bowers of naiads and mermen in all the streams of
earth. The river drifts along, with measured pride,
deep and lucid, yet of immense body — the most
stately of torrents. Its movement, its sweep, its pro-
gression are as admirable as its color, but as little as
its color to be made a matter of words. These things
are but part of a spectacle in which nothing is imper-
fect. You stand steeped in long looks at the most
beautiful object in the world. — Henry James.
282
While within the sound of its waters, I will not say
that you become part and parcel of the cataract, but
you will find it difficult to think, speak or dream of
anything else. I am Niagara-mad. — C. J. Latrobe.
We were less struck with the grandeur of this
cataract than with its sublime softness and gentleness.
We felt ourselves attracted by the surpassing loveli-
ness of Niagara. The gulf below was more imposing
than we had expected to see it, but it was Italian in
hue and softness, amid its wildness and grandeur.
Not a drop of the water that fell down the precipice
inspired terror ; for everything appeared to us to be
filled with attraction and love. — James Fenimore Cooper.
As I stood on the brink of the Fall, I could not
help wishing that I could have been so made that
I might have joined it in its flow, with it to have
rushed harmlessly down the precipice, to have rolled
uninjured into the deep unfathomable gulf below, and
to have risen again with the spray to the skies. For
about an hour I continued to watch the rolling water,
and then I felt a slight dizziness and a creeping sen-
sation come over me, the sensation arising from strong
excitement, and the same probably which occasions
the bird to fall into the jaws of the snake. This is
the feeling which if too long indulged in becomes
irresistible, and occasions a craving desire to leap into
the flood of rushing waters. — Captain Marryat.
The first emotion on viewing Niagara is that of
familiarity. Ever after its strangeness increases.
The surprise is none the less a surprise because it is
kept until the last, and the marvel, making itself felt
in every nerve, all the more fully possesses you. It is
283
as if Niagara reserved her magnificence and preferred
to win your heart with its beauty. — W. D. Howells.
One feels thoroughly alone when overhanging that
thundering mass of waters with the silent moon treading
her tranquil way. I thought of soul, and this mighty
fall seemed as a drop to the cataract of mind which
had been rushing from the bosom of the Eternal from
age to age ; now covered with mists of sorrow, now
glittering in the sunlight of joy, now softened by the
moonlight of tender memories, now falling into the
abysses of death, but all destined — I trust in God —
to flow in many a happy river around His throne. —
Caroline- Oilman.
It was not until I came on Table Rock and looked
— Great Heaven! — what a fall of bright green
water! — that the vastness of the scene came upon
me in its full majesty and might. Then when I felt
how near to my Creator I was standing, the first
effect, and the enduring one — instant and lasting —
was peace. Peace of mind, calm tranquility, calm
recollections of the dead, great thoughts of eternal
rest and happiness — nothing of gloom or terror.
Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an
image of beauty to remain there, changeless and
indelible, until its pulses ceased to beat forever. I
think in every quiet season now, still do those waters
roll and leap and roar and tumble all day long ; still
are the rainbows spanning them a hundred feet below.
Still, when the sun is on them do they shine and glow
like molten gold. Still, when the day is gloomy, do
they fall like snow or seem to crumble away like the
front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rocks like
284
dense white smoke. But always does the mighty
stream appear to die as it comes down, and always
from its unfathomable grave arises that tremendous
ghost of spray and mist which is never laid ; which
has haunted this place with the same dread solemnity
since Darkness brooded on the deep, and that first
flood before the deluge — Light — came rushing on
Creation at the word of God. — Charles Dickens.
And lastly, in antithesis, let me quote the confession
of John Gait, who at the commencement of his auto-
biography tells how, as a child, he was entranced at
seeing a picture of Niagara. Years afterwards he went
there, presumably and solely on purpose to see the
Falls, and then — but let him tell in his own words
what sort of a man he was :
It was sunset when we reached Manchester, and as the fire
in the hotel was very inviting, my disposition did not incline,
at the time, to go abroad. So I sent my servant to look at
the Falls with orders to come back and tell me what they
were like, and if it were worth while to go and look at them.
No doubt the lad's downright character had some influence
in making me give this ludicrous order, but his answer when
he returned was beyond expectation : " It is a very cold
night," said he, " and there is nothing to be seen but a great
tumbling of waters," advising me at the same time not to go
abroad that night.
Thus it came to pass that, although within a hundred
yards of the Falls of Niagara, I was induced not to visit
them, nor did I during my first visit to America. —John Gait,
A utobiography.
That the man could be such a fool seems strange,
but that he should deliberately record his own stupid-
ity is almost incomprehensible. In including him in
this particular section, he is placed in noble company;
285
but, in order to emphasize the fact that he is admitted
only by contrast, the quotation from his work is set in
smaller type. Were it set in a type of a size suitable
to express the inevitable contrast, it would be unread-
able, in fact, it would be invisible.
POETRY.
" What poets have shed
From countless quills
Niagaras of ink."
The first reference to Niagara in poetry is exactly
coincident with its first reference in literature.
Champlain, in his " Des Sauvages " (Paris, 1603),
embodies a sonnet by " Le Sieur de la Franchise."
As it is written to Champlain, the author no doubt
derived his knowledge of the Falls directly from him.
La Franchise refers to " les saults Mocosans."
Mocosa being the ancient name of Virginia, all com-
mentators seem to agree that this reference can be
only to Niagara.
Let me begin with the statement that no poet of
the first rank, of any nation, has ever written a great
poem on Niagara.
Tom Moore visited it and touched on it in some of
his minor poems. It is currently believed that the
following well-known lines of his were written on the
banks of the lower Niagara, while on a visit to
Newark :
I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near ;
And I said, " If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here."
286
It was noon, and on flowers that languished around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee ;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree.
And " Here, in this lone little wood," I exclaim'd,
" With a maid that was lovely to soul and to eye,
Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I
blamed,
How blessed I could live, and how calm I could die !
" By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips
In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline,
And to know that I sigh'd upon innocent lips,
Which had never been sigh'd on by any but mine ! "
Although these lines were written long before
Niagara became a Mecca for brides and grooms, the
vicinity of the cataract was even then conducive to
thoughts of love.
Byron's famous description of Velino may properly
be applied to Niagara :
"A matchless Cataract
Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge
Like hope upon a deathbed, and unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues, with all their beams unshorn,
Resembling, midst the torture of the scene,
Love watching madness with unalterable mien."
Goldsmith, in his "Traveler," dowered it with the
single line —
"And Niagara stuns with thundering sound."
287
The sentimental Mrs. Lydia M. Sigourney wrote at
least four poems on it. The "Apostrophe," written
on Table Rock, and her " Niagara," being the best
known. I give a quotation from each :
" Up to the Table Rock, where the great flood
Reveals its fullest glory. To the verge
Of its appalling battlements draw near,
And gaze below, or, if thy spirit fail,
Creep stealthily and snatch a trembling glance
Into the dread abyss.
What there thou seest
Shall dwell forever in thy secret soul,
Finding no form of language.
For 'tis meet
That even the mightiest of our race should stand
Mute in thy presence, and, with child-like awe,
Disrobed of self, adore his God through thee."
And-
" Flow on forever in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty ! God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud
Mantles around thy feet, and He doth give
The voice of thunder power to speak of Him
Eternally — bidding the lip of man
Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-stricken praise."
John G. C. Brainard, then editor of a Connecticut
newspaper, in response to a call for copy, wrote, at a
single sitting, what has been called " The best poem
ever written on Niagara " :
"The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God pour'd thee from His hollow hand,
288
And hung His bow upon thine awful front,
And spoke in that loud voice which seem'd to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
The sound of many waters, and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back
And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks.
1 Deep calleth unto Deep, and what are we
That hear the question of the voice sublime?
Oh ! What are all the notes that ever rung
From War's vain trumpet by thy thundering side '
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life to thy unceasing roar !
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drown'd a world and heaped the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains? — a light wave
That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might."
B. Frank Palmer's "Apostrophe to Niagara," a
typical apostrophe of devotional verse, has been
characterized "as having the music of Niagara in it,"
and is reproduced in full :
This is Jehovah's fullest organ strain !
I hear the liquid music, rolling, breaking,
From the gigantic pipes the great refrain
Bursts on my ravished ear, high thoughts awaking !
The low sub-bass, uprising from the deep
Swells the great paean as it rolls supernal —
Anon, I hear, at one majestic sweep
The diapason of the keys eternal.
Standing beneath Niagara's angry flood —
The thundering cataract above me bounding —
I hear the echo : " Man, there is a God ! "
From the great arches of the gorge resounding.
289
Behold, O man, nor shrink aghast in fear!
Survey the vortex boiling deep before thee !
The Hand that ope'd the liquid gateway here
Hath set the beauteous bow of promise o'er thee !
Here, in the hollow of that Mighty Hand,
Which holds the basin of the tidal ocean,
Let not the jarring of the spray-washed strand
Disturb the orisons of pure devotion.
Roll on, Niagara ! Great River King !
Beneath thy sceptre all earth's rulers, mortal,
Bow reverently ; and bards shall ever sing
The matchless grandeur of thy peerless portal !
I hear, Niagara, in this grand strain
His voice, who speaks in flood, in flame, and thunder —
Forever, mayst thou, singing, roll and reign —
Earth's grand, sublime, supreme, supernal wonder.
The author wrote it on Table Rock.
Frederika Bremer wrote a brief poem on Niagara.
The translation of a portion of it is :
Niagara is the betrothal of Earth's life
With the Heavenly life.
That has Niagara told me to-day.
And now I can leave Niagara. She has
Told me her word of primeval being.
One of the best poems on Niagara is that by Maria
Jose Heredosia, translated from the Spanish by
William Cullen Bryant :
Tremendous Torrent, for an instant hush
The terrors of thy voice, and cast aside
Those wide involving shadows ; that mine eyes
May see the fearful beauty of thy face.
* * #
290
The hoarse and rapid whirlpool's there ! My brain
Grows wild, my senses wander, as I gaze
Upon the hurrying waters ; and my sight
Vainly would follow, as toward the verge
Sweeps the wide torrent; waves innumerable
Meet there and madden ; waves innumerable
Urge on and overtake the waves before,
And disappear in thunder and in foam.
And the following, credited to Miss Hancock, whose
nom de plume was Jennie Frye, deserves a place in
full:
Great Fall, all hail :
Canst thou unveil
The secrets of thy birth ;
Unfold the page
Of each dark age,
And tell the tales of earth ?
When I was born
The stars of morn
Together sang — 'twas day :
The sun unrolled
His garb of gold
And took his upward way.
He mounted high
The eastern sky
And then looked down on earth ;
And she was there,
Young, fresh, and fair,
And I, and all, had birth.
The word of power
Was spoke that hour :
Dark chaos felt the shock ;
Forth sprung the light,
Burst day from night,
Up leaped the living rock.
291
Back fell the sea
The land was free,
And mountain, hill and plain
Stood forth to view,
In emerald hue, —
Then sang the stars amain.
And I — oh Thou :
Who taught me how
To hymn thy wondrous love,
Deign to be near
And calm my fear,
0 Holy One above.
1 caught the word,
Creation heard,
And by Thy power arose ;
His goodness gave
The swelling wave
That ever onward flows.
By His command
The rainbow spanned
My forehead, and His will
Evoked the cloud
My feet to shroud,
And taught my voice to trill.
And who is he
That questions me?
From whom hast thou thy form,
Thy life, thy soul ?
My waters roll
Through day, night, sunshine, storm.
In grateful praise
To Him I raise
A never ceasing song ;
To that dread One,
To whom stars, sun,
Earth, ocean, all belong.
292
Thou, too, adore
Him evermore
Who gave thou all thou hast ;
Let time gone by
In darkness die,
Deep buried in the past.
And be thy mind
To Him inclined
Who made earth, heaven and thee
Thy every thought
To worship wrought, —
This lesson learn of me.
Others who have written beautiful verse on Niagara
are : In English, Rev. C. H. Buckley (the longest
poem on the subject), J. Rodman Drake, Thos. Grin-
field, A. S. Ridgeley, R. W. Gilder (the shortest and
one of the best), George Houghton, Lord Morpeth, J.
S. Buckingham, Willis G. Clark, William ElleryChan-
ning, and " a member of the Ohio Bar," an unsigned but
beautiful piece of verse. In French, a Canadian, Louis
Frechette, and the Compte de Fleury have written
excellent verse. In Italian, J. B. Scandella and Rev.
Santo Santelli. In Spanish, Juan Antonio Bonalde.
In Swedish, John Nyborn.
And, lastly, " Thoughts on Niagara," by Michael
McGuire, a blind man, whose poem proves that the
cataract appeals to the senses by the ear as well as by
the eye.
Numberless other writers of good verse might be
named ; but, as in art, it is impossible to name each
one who has produced a picture of Niagara that is
good, but not superlative, and as in prose it is impossi-
293
ble to quote each writer whose article contains a
specially notable expression or comparison, even so
in poetry one cannot even name all who have paid
tribute in verse, perhaps in meritorious verse, to
Niagara.
F. H. Severance (to whose researches in Niagarana
I am indebted for the names of some of the writers
last referred to) thus aptly sums up the feebleness of
the poetry on the great cataract :
" True poetry must be self-expressive, as well as
interpretive of truths which are manifested through
physical phenomena. Hence it is in the nature of
things that a nameless brook shall have its Tennyson,
or a Niagara flow unsung."
294
NIAGARA IN ART.
" What artist armies have essayed
To fix that evanescent bow?"
Niagara in art dates back but a trifle over two
centuries, the first known picture thereof being that
by Father Louis Hennepin, published in 1697. No
one spot on earth has been more portrayed, one may
go further and say, no one spot on earth has been
half as much portrayed, as has Niagara. It has been
pictured in every known style of art ; in oils, in
water colors, in engravings of every grade and kind,
in lithographs, in every form of illustration known to
magazines and newspapers, in daguerreotypes, and,
lastly ( numerically exceeding many, many times all
the other forms combined), in photography.
And yet, in spite of all this, the really great pic-
tures of Niagara are so few that their number can
be expressed by a single numeral, and that number
will not be the highest single one.
None of the great painters of mediaeval times ever
even knew of the existence of the great cataract.
Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, and Veronese had
all been in their graves for half a century before
Europeans even heard that a wondrous waterfall
existed in the northern part of the Western Hemis-
phere. Rembrant, Murillo, Rubens and Velasquez,
while all of them may have learnt of the existence
295
of Niagara, had passed away, before the first known
picture of it appeared. As each of them, in the
glory of their art, both in their allegory and
portraiture, often used natural scenery as a back-
ground for their subjects, it is interesting to conjecture
how, had it been known to them by even incorrect
reproduction, any of them would have depicted the
great cataract.
No one of the great artists of the eighteenth cen-
tury ever journeyed to Niagara ; and as their art was
true to nature, no one of them, so far as is known,
ever tried to reproduce Niagara in any way.
Art was not a remunerative occupation- in Great
Britain's American colonies ; neither was the period
of the Revolution, nor the decade that followed it,
conducive thereto, on this side of the Atlantic.
Yet it is remarkable that such a subject as Niagara,
so prominent during their lives, in Britain's military
history (in her struggle with France for supremacy in
the New World), did not appeal to Reynolds, or West,
or Copley, to the latter two especially, as both were
born in the colonies, though they spent much of their
lives in England.
Again, in the first decade of the nineteenth century,
what a picture of the cataract either Turner or Allston
— the one an Englishman, the other an American —
could have produced ; and yet, although the War of
1812 was fought to a large extent on this frontier,
and a famous battle, often called the Battle of
Niagara, occurred on the heights above the cataract,
and in view of it, the portrayal of Niagara did not
appeal to either of them.
297
It was left to later and less famed artists to produce
what are called the great pictures of this greatest of
natural wonders.
Commencing with Hennepin's picture, in 1697, the
first half of the eighteenth century saw many repro-
ductions of Niagara, mainly in wood engraving, all
done by artists who never saw Niagara, largely by
engravers of the French school, for it must be borne in
mind that the French were the owners of Eastern
Canada, and from 1678 to 1725 the Niagara region
was visited by a large number of Frenchmen, both
soldiers and fur traders ; and from 1725 to 1759 Fort
Niagara was garrisoned by a large French force.
Such of these men as returned to France carried back
with them reports of the cataract ; and it was no
doubt with Hennepin's picture as a basis, modified by
the criticisms thereon and suggestions in connection
therewith, made by their countrymen who had seen
it, that all the reproductions of Niagara during the
first half of the eighteenth century were drawn.
As illustrative of Niagara in art during the first
half of the eighteenth century, I have selected three
prints : First — Hennepin's, published 1697, though he
saw the Falls in 1678-80. This view is given on page
1 1 8. Second — Leclercq's, about 1710, based no doubt
on Hennepin's view, and modified to better conform
to Hennepin's own description, and probably with
such changes as friends of his who had seen Niagara
suggested. Third — A typical view, practically the
typical accepted view, of Niagara of that period,
probably about 1725.
The dates of these three pictures give convincing
testimony as to the changes in the contour of the
Falls. Hennepin speaks of the three falls, including
one that was at the western end of the Horseshore
Fall, formed by the end of the fall running around a
big rock, or small rocky isle, at the edge of the cliff,
and he so pictures it.
The next view does not show this third fall, going
to show that between 1678 and 1710 this rock, or
rocky isle, had disintegrated and been swept into the
gulf below, thus making this third fall a part of the
great Fall.
In 1759, the British gained control of this region,
and during that year and the succeeding ten years
many hundred Anglo-Saxons, soldiers and traders,
gazed upon Niagara.
Thus the picturing of Niagara in the second half of
the eighteenth century passed from the French to the
English school of engravers ; and, as Niagara became
better known, its reproductions became more artistic,
and, therefore, more truthful.
Probably the first picture of Niagara after the
British acquired possession of this territory was an
engraving from a drawing by Captain Thomas Davies,
dedicated to General Amherst. It must have appeared
about 1760, the plate being one of a series of six, all
representing North American scenery. The rainbow
must have been an exceptionally large and brilliant
one on the day the artist made the sketch.
In 1768 there appeared the first engraving of
Niagara which had any serious pretensions either to
accuracy or to any artistic merit. It was from a
painting by Richard Wilson, which in turn was taken
301
from a drawing made by Lieutenant Pierie of the
Royal British Artillery, who, no doubt, was then sta-
tioned at Fort Niagara. These two engravings are
reproduced as typical of Niagara in art in the latter
half of the eighteenth century.
After the Revolution, and prior to 1810, travelers
often came to Niagara. The journey, it was true,
was a tiresome one, but many came.
In 1804 John Vanderlyn painted what at that date
were the best pictures extant of the Falls. They
were done in oils. These two pictures are now in the
possession of the New York Historical Society, so
badly hung as to be unappreciated.
It is to be noted that all the views of Niagara prior
to 1800 are taken from the Canadian side.
The reason for this is obvious. The early visitors
sought the one and the most accessible view. Goat
Island was accessible only by canoe, the shore on the
American side was covered with forest trees, and there
was no accommodation for travelers, nor even a
settlement there ; whereas on the Canadian shore two
or three public houses had been built on the high bluff
overlooking the American Fall in the latter years of
the eighteenth century. What facilities for travel
there were, were on the Canadian shore.
Along about 1820, Niagara became a resort of note.
Taverns, luxurious ones for that period, were erected
on the American side about that date, and the first
guide book that included Niagara appeared in 1821, a
sure sign that it was a frequented place.
Between 1830 and 1840, the illustrations of Niagara
became more plentiful. The lithographers in France,
303
England, and America seemed suddenly to have
turned their attention to it. Large colored views, in
pairs, in sets of four and six, and smaller views, in sets
of six, eight, and twelve appeared. Some were fairly
well drawn ; many were outrageously exaggerated.
The coloring of almost all of them was inartistic, if
not villainous. As fairly typical of Niagara in the
lithography of the first half of the nineteenth century,
I have selected but one view, done about 1840, and
specially interesting, in that it shows the curve of the
Horseshoe Fall, a name substituted during the first
half of this century for the former more appropriate
name of the Greater Fall.
The middle of the nineteenth century saw the art
of Niagara placed on a far higher plane by American
artists. In 1848, Thomas Cole portrayed Niagara on
canvas better than it ever had been portrayed. In
1857, Frederick Church painted his famous view of
the cataract, which is now in the Corcoran Art Gallery
in Washington. It stands to-day as the best and
highest reproduction of Niagara in art. Gustave Dore
never gazed on the Falls ; but, in illustrating
Chataubriand's Atala, embodied a view of the Greater
Fall, done in his characteristic manner — the sheet of
water viewed from between, and as it were framed in,
the mannered trees for which Dore was famed.
Albert Bierstadt has produced one or two specially
well executed views of Niagara out of his many
studies of the subject.
The rapids above the Falls, that have appealed to
many prose writers and poets as the most interesting
parts of Niagara, have, of recent years, found two
305
artists of renown who selected them for reproduction
in preference to the Falls themselves. When Wm. M.
Hunt was selected to decorate the huge panels of the
Assembly Chamber in the Capitol at Albany, about
1880, he chose Niagara for one of his subjects ; and
at Niagara he selected the rapids above the Goat
Island Bridge as the ideal view. He died before the
work on the panel had been commenced, but his
finished studies for the work are among the best
examples of art at Niagara. Lastly, in 1890, Colin
Hunter, now a Royal Academician, came to place
Niagara on canvas. He selected as the typical view,
the one from the upper end of the Little Brother
Island, of the Goat Island group. It is doubtful if,
with the exception of Church's Niagara, any picture of
Niagara is so fascinating. The crest of the first ledge
of the Canadian Rapids, extending from the Sister
Islands toward Canada, is the sky line, only the tops of
a few trees on the Canadian shore indicating the
presence of land.
As representing Niagara in art during the latter
half of the nineteenth century, I have selected Thomas
Cole's distant view of both Falls from down stream ;
Frederick Church's Niagara, from just above Table
Rock and looking across the Horseshoe Fall and up
the river ; Bore's Niagara as a "mannered sketch ";
and Colin Hunter's Rapids of Niagara. This latter
is given on page 94.
Many more examples might be given ; and, per-
haps, at some future date, this sketch of Niagara in art
may be extended so as to include a fairly full set of
the typical reproductions that have been made of the
307
scenery of the Cataract during the two hundred years
it has been known to the world by reproduction.
Of the unnumbered thousands of photographs of
Niagara that professionals from the days of Daguerre,
and amateurs for some years past, have taken of this
spot, it is only necessary to say here, that the many
illustrations in this volume represent the highest and
best reproductions of Niagara that the art of photog-
raphy at the close of the nineteenth century can
produce. Many of them represent views heretofore
inadequately pictured, in some cases never before
known to have been secured. And the desire of the
great majority of its visitors to carry home a fairly
faithful picture of Niagara, as they saw it, is the main
reason for its being incessantly photographed, both
by experts and by amateurs.
It is the immensity, so to speak, of Niagara ; it is
the overwhelming feeling of power ; it is its practically
unproducable lights and shades ; it is the almost
unattainable brilliancy of its coloring — that have de-
terred many really great artists from attempting to
paint it.
I think everyone will agree with Hatton when he
writes : " The painter is delighted with Niagara, with
the varying forms that challenge his pencil, with the
play of light which defies his brush. The light of
heaven dances upon it in a thousand different hues.
To paint the glories that come and go upon the fall-
ing, rushing waters, the artist must dip his brush in
the rainbow, and when he has done his best, he will
not be believed by those who have not seen his sub-
ject with their own eyes."
309
PAINTED BY GUSTAVE DORE, ABOUT 1860.
Whether the cataract can be, or will ever be, really
truthfully pictured depends on the correctness of the
following statement :
" When motion can be expressed by color, there will
be some hope of imparting a faint idea of it ; but until
that can be done, Niagara must remain unportrayed."
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