Niagara Falls by Rev. Roswell Park

Written in remembrance of a visit to Niagara, and Queenstown ; April 20, 1827.

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Niagara Falls With a Rainbow, 1819 by Ralph Gore. Colour tint by Erne Jahnke.
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Niagara rolls on. The faithless wave,
That tore the Indian from his gentle cove,
Is smooth and bright as silver. Nothing speaks
Of last night’s rain : and now the rainbow smiles,
And the white gull flaps through its orange light ;
And the eternal roaring of the Falls
Goes on the same. Wild Indian, farewell !
Thou wert a brother, and thy dying bed
Was the white lashing spray ;— thy only knell
The Rapid’s thunder ;—and the deep, deep gulf
Thy sunless sepulchre !”
— J. R. ORTON.

THE sun shone brightly o’er me as I stood
And gazed upon Niagara’s swelling flood ;—
Whose waters, springing from a distant source,
Through ages past have sped their solemn course ;
Then rushing downward, o’er the lofty rock,
Have made the mountains tremble with their shock ;
Till flowing on majestical and free,
They join’d afar the bosom of the sea.
Between rich plains, extending far around,
And gentle hills with verdant foliage crown’d,
Whose sloping sides grow dim in distant blue,
Niagara river steals upon the view.
Then winding slow the current glides along
Its fertile isles and sunny banks among,
Till soon it meets a rough and rocky bed,
And o’er the rapids dashes on with speed ;—
Sinks in the hollows, swells and sinks again,
And rolls its billows like the raging main :—
Now the huge breakers raise it to the skies,
Whirlpools revolve, and foaming mountains rise.
New floods behind, the waves before them urge,
Approaching nearer to the giddy verge ;
Till a fair isle the mighty current braves,
And with its front divides the yielding waves.
On either side the mighty waters roll,
And ceaseless hurry to the frightful goal ;
Then from the lofty rocks with awful sound
Fall headlong downward to the vast profound,—
Speed to the bottom, swell the deeps below,—
Rise to the surface, boiling as they flow ;—
In eddying circles vent their angry force ;—
Then join the current and pursue their course.
Here on the brow the sea-green flood rolls by,
Reflecting all the brightness of the sky,
While piles of foam, the cataract beneath,
Hang o’er the rocks and round the billows wreathe.
There, as the falling torrent meets the air,
White foaming fleeces down the chasm appear ;
And the bright rainbow through the misty spray,
Shines in the sun and gilds the face of day.
And far below, from adamantine beds,
The rocky banks erect their hoary heads ;—
While lofty trees, like dwarfs, above them seen,
Clothe the high cliffs with robes of brightest green ;
Like uptorn Ossa, from its centre riven,
When the fierce giants fought the pow’rs of heav’n.
‡‡I thought when gazing on this glorious view,
How once the Indian, in his bark canoe,
While fishing far away upon the wave,
Was swiftly buried in a wat’ry grave.
As moor’d at anchor on the treacherous flood,
He throws his net and line in sportive mood,
How great his horror when at first he hears
The cataract swelling louder on his ears ;
When first, beneath the evening’s dusky hue,
The mighty rapid breaks upon his view ;
And unsuspected, with the currents’ glide,
His little boat is carried by the tide,—
While the dim figures seen upon the strand
Move with the stream which bears him from the land !
Then is his angle rod in haste thrown by,
While resolution flashes from his eye ;
Then his strong arm, unceasing bends the oar,
His course directing to the nearest shore ;
At every stroke he dashes through the foam,
And anxiously seems drawing toward his home.
Row ! Indian, row ! avoid the fearful steep !
Bend the light bark, and o’er the waters sweep !
Too late, alas ! the vigorous arm is strung ;
The rapid current hurries him along !
In vain he sees his cabin gleam afar,
Beneath the twinkling of the evening star;—
The shore recedes, the hut eludes his sight,
Then fades in distance mid the gloom of night !
And now the breakers swell with lofty waves,
And now his bark their foaming summit cleaves ;
Despair now seizes on his wearied breast,
His oars neglected lie upon their rest ;
His dog, unheeded, fawns upon his side,
Then leaps, unconscious, in the fatal tide.
One pray’r is utter’d by his wilder’d mind ;
Then sits the Indian, silent and resign’d,
And in his light canoe with patience waits
The speedy issue of his awful fates.
Now roar the waters, terrible and loud,
As heaviest thunder from the blackest cloud ;
And now the chasm its awful depth reveals,
And now the bark upon its summit reels ;
Then down the vast abyss is viewless borne,
To depths of darkness, never to return !
The setting sun beheld him far from shore,
Whom rising morn shall ne’er awaken more ;
But on the beach his bones unburied lie,
And whiten under many a summer’s sky ;
And oft, the Indians say, his spirit roves,
Where once he hunted in his native groves ;
And ever as he flies before the wind,
His faithful dog still follows close behind ;
And oft in loneliness the maiden weeps,
Beside the waters where her hero sleeps ;
And oft the stranger listens to his tale,
And hears the warriors raise his funeral wail ;
While fervent prayers to the Great Spirit rise,
To bless their brother-hunter in the skies.

West Point, Oct., 1828.


Source: Rev. Roswell Park. Selections of Juvenile and Miscellaneous Poems.  Philadelphia: DeSilver, Thomas & Co, 1836

Read about Rev. Roswell Park

Platt by James Penha

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Joseph Avery Stranded on Rocks in the Niagara River. Daguerrotype by Platt D. Babbitt, 1853. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

All night long they heard in the houses beside the shore,
Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar,
Out of the hell of the rapids as ’twere a lost soul’s cries,–
Heard and could not believe; and the morning mocked their eyes,
Showing, where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped up and ran
Raving round him and past, the visage of a man
Clinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caught
Fast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught.
Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung?
Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror rung.
–William Dean Howells, “Avery”

Nothing else I could do. It’s my profession after all. Photographing Niagara Falls. Its views. Its visitors. And selling the resulting daguerreotypes. Quite successfully. Because I’m a damn good daguerreotypist. Ask anyone around here. And I’m on duty every day, 365 days a year. This day, July 16, 1853, I was waiting for tourists along the American Channel rapids when I saw three men struggling to maneuver their row boat to shore. They had been working on the big dredging scow anchored in the river. Their oars were broken. Or lost. I turned my lens toward them just as the boat capsized and I saw two bodies cartwheeling over the edge of the American Falls too fast for me to capture them in my camera. There was no sign of the third man — turned out to be a local fellow named Samuel Avery — until he leapt up like a fucking phoenix and sat astride a log cantilevered in a rocky shoal in the middle of the river. The rapids were way too loud for him to hear my hallo, so I waved at him with both arms, but he was likely too afraid to let go of the log to answer. He was riding the river like a scared girl on a runaway stallion, but luckily he kept still enough for me to create an historic photograph. Took an even longer time till someone thought to hitch a lifeboat to the Bath Island Bridge and send the boat down toward the man. Avery caught and climbed into the boat, but before I could re-focus, the rapids turned the lifeboat upside down, and Avery, thrown back into the river, met his fate just as his friends had hours before. Nothing else I could do. I returned to my hotel where I processed the plate and encased a dozen of the images for sale at my Point View stand. They sold well. They still do.


Source: The author, 2021
The prose poem Platt by James Penha was first published in The Ekphrastic Review, March 17, 2016

View the poem Avery, 1853  by William Dean Howells

Sources:
Getting around.” Luminous-Lint. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.
Niagara River – Life & Death on the River: Accidents & Rescues.” 20 Feb. 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. .
Platt D. Babbitt (Getty Museum).” The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. .
Weld, Charles Richard. A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. Print.

A native New Yorker, James Penha has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Twitter: @JamesPenha

Conroy the Brave by Simeon Tucker Clark

Niagara Falls, June 1, 1874 

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Guide Thomas Conroy Standing by the Dressing Room of the Shadow of the Rock Building. Photo by George Barker. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

The sun looks out of a cloudless sky ;
‡‡The winds are drifting the apple-blows
That over the grass like snow-flakes lie ;
The oriole wooes his mate as they fly ;
‡‡And William McCullough to labor goes.

A prayer is warm in the old man’s heart,
‡‡A song is quivering on his tongue ;
As he busily plies his wonted art
He watches the arrowy rapids dart
‡‡Under his scaffolding, safely hung.

A moment more and under the tide
‡‡Of wrathful waters his form is lost !
The river fiends fasten on his every side —
They pluck at his beard, they gibber and chide !
‡‡He is blinded and deafened and pelted and tost !

Weary and wounded, all breathless and sore,
‡‡More than half dead he is hurried away,
Close to the brink where the great waters pour,
Heedless and headlong with terrible roar,
‡‡Into a vortex where never was day !

What can prevent him ? O Father Supreme !
‡‡Darkness like this thou alone can illume !
See !  What is that in the turbulent stream ?
It is a glimpse — a half-comforting gleam
‡‡Of floating grey hair mid the circling spume !

Yes ! he is clutching with half palsied hand
‡‡Yon God-given guerdon — a pillar of stone —
He whispers with Death and looks toward the land
Where he never again with his fellows may stand’
‡‡Who powerless must leave him to perish alone !

But lo ! who is coming with masterly stride,
‡‡Pride on his forehead and strength in his frame ?
Tom Conroy, the guide, who was never defied,
He laughs at the danger — and braving the tide
‡‡Is bound with a cord to the chariot of Fame.

Strong was the rope that was fast to the shore,
‡‡And under the coil was a heart big and brave —
Aye, braver to-day than ever before,
He reaches the rock — and like Perseus of yore —
‡‡He rescues his friend from the fiend of the wave !

When the names of our heroes are written or sung,
‡‡We will chant your name Conroy in musical stave
When palsied your arm and silent your tongue,
The child now unborn, shall hear how you flung
‡‡Yourself in the wave, a comrade to save !


Source: Niagara Gazette, June 10, 1874

Read an article on the rescue of William McCullough by Tom Conroy from the Buffalo Evening Courier & Republic, June 2, 1874

John Tyndall visited Niagara Falls, and in the chapter “Niagara” of his book Fragments of Science (1879) he tells of hiring Conroy as his guide. About a year after Tyndall’s visit, the rescue of  William McCullough took place. Tyndall wrote a postscript to the chapter:

A year or so after I had quitted the United States, a man sixty years of age, while engaged in painting one of the bridges which connect Goat Island with the Three Sisters, slipped through the rails of the bridge into the rapids, and was carried impetuously towards the Horse- shoe Fall. He was urged against a rock which rose above the water, and with the grasp of desperation he clung to it. The population of the village of Niagara Falls was soon upon the island, and ropes were brought, but there was none to use them. In the midst of the excitement, a tall powerful young fellow was observed making his way silently through the crowd. He reached a rope ; selected from the bystanders a number of men, and placed one end of the rope in their hands. The other end he fastened round himself, and choosing a point considerably above that to which the man clung, he plunged into the rapids. He was carried violently downwards, but he caught the rock, secured the old painter and saved him. Newspapers from all parts of the Union poured in upon me, describing this gallant act of my guide Conroy.

Sam Patch. Words and Music by Cornelius Eady


I’m the king of the Rochester Falls
Sam Patch has answered the call
This morning you’ll see it all.

The whirl of the water
That don’t bother me
Blood-thirsty crowd
That don’t bother me
Wind at my back
That don’t bother me
False friends cheering
That don’t bother me

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Poster Announcing Sam Patch’s Last Jump. Courtesy of Wikipedia

I’m the king of the Genesee
Every eye here is planted on me.
Roll up and see what you’ve
Never seen

The whirl of the water
That don’t bother me
Blood-thirsty crowd
That don’t bother me
Wind at my back
That don’t bother me
False friends cheering
That don’t bother me

Cho:
Fall and move on
Fall and move on
Fall and move on, boy,
Fall and move on
Fall and move on
Fall and move on,
Fall and move on, boy
Fall and move on.

The word has spread
The time has come
Come watch me leap
Into kingdom come
Come watch a day
That’s never been done.

The whirl of the water
That don’t bother me
Blood-thirsty crowd
That don’t bother me
Wind at my back
That don’t bother me
False friends cheering
That don’t bother me

The platform wobbles
Like a dancing bear
The foam and the spray
Rise like ghost in the air
Soon I will dance between
Here and there

The roar of the water
That don’t bother me
Blood-thirsty crowd
That don’t bother me
Wind at my back
That don’t bother me
False friends cheering
That don’t bother me

Will I fall and move on?


Cornelius Eady: Loops, and Vocals
Mitizie Collins: Hammered Dulcimer
Marvin Sewell: Electric Guitar
Emma Alabaster: Bass
Concetta Abbate: Violin

Source: The author.  First published in his music chapbook Book of Hooks, Kattywompus Press, 2013

About Cornelius Eady

Sam Patch jumped from a ladder at the base of Goat Island twice in the fall of 1829, and was killed later that year jumping at the Genessee Falls. Read more about Sam Patch.

Read Eady’s poem The Death of Sam Patch

Dedication of “The Miracle and Other Poems” by Virna Sheard

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Frozen Niagara River with the American Falls in the background just before the fatal disaster of February 4, 1912. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

TO MY DEAR BROTHER

ELDRIDGE STANTON (JUNIOR)

WHO DIED BRAVELY AT NIAGARA, ON THE AFTERNOON OF

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH, 1912

No tears for thee, no tears, or sighs,
Or breaking heart —
But smiles, that thou so well that bitter hour
Didst play thy part !


Source: Virna Sheard. The Miracle and Other Poems. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1913

A dedication to Eldridge Stanton, Junior, who died alongside his wife, Clara, and Burrell Hecock when the ice bridge across the Niagara River just below Niagara Falls broke up suddenly, leaving them adrift. Read Brian Busby’s account of the tragedy and the dedication in Virna Sheard’s book in his posting “A Dedication Born of Tragedy” in The Dusty Bookcase blog, November 7, 2019.