Clarke Hill Islands – The Rapids and the Lovers Bridge. Photo by George Barker. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
If Lovers‘ Leaps were now the fashion, ‡‡‡‡As they were in days of yore,
O what a place to drown the passion ‡‡‡‡In Niagara‘s foaming roar.
Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848
This link takes you to the scanned version of the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust
Hut on Goat Island Used By Francis Abbott. the Hermit of Niagara, from 1829-1831. Sketch by C. Breckinridge Porter
It was the leafy month of June,
And joyous Nature, all in tune, ‡‡With wreathing buds was drest,
As toward Niagara‘s fearful side ‡‡A youthful stranger prest;
His ruddy cheek was blanched with awe
And scarce he seemed his breath to draw, ‡‡While bending o‘er its brim,
He marked its strong, unfathomed tide, ‡‡And heard its thunder-hymn.
His measured week too quickly fled,
Another, and another sped,
And soon the summer rose decayed,
The moon of autumn sank in shade;
Years filled their circle, brief and fair,
Yet still the enthusiast lingered there, ‡‡Till winter hurled its dart:
For deeper round his soul was wove
A mystic chain of quenchless love,
That would not let him part. Continue reading “The Hermit of the Falls by Lydia Huntley Sigourney”→
Welland Canal – Davis Culvert Construction, 1927. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library(With apologies to Kipling’s “Ballad of Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House”)
As I sat upon the doorstep Of Bunkhouse Number Two Big Jim, the One lounged down ‘longside And cut him off a chew. This is the story he told me, As I tell it to you.
“Twas tougher then than now, me boy,”
Along this old canal;
But the Spirit of the Big Ditch
Held young and old in thrall.
The men often whined, “We Cannot,”
But the Spirit said, “Ye Shall.”
When they huddled in the shanties
After a twelve hour day
On the reeking piles of gumbo
(That cursed sticky clay).
They were nigh onto exhaustion,
Dyin’ to hit the hay.
But they’d sit around like we are,
And smoke a pipe or two,
And swap the most amazing yarns
Or curse the heavens blue.
They was a mongrel, jumbled lot
That Old Canal Crew.
There was Charlie Loo, the Chinee cook,
“The Senor” from Tampico,
The Greek which we called Louie,
Tall Hans from old Saro,
A guy from far-off Hebrides,
“Slow Sam” from Idaho.
There was Jake Tike, the scar-faced Red,
And his ugly leering sneer,
He was always stirring trouble
When the big Boss wasn’t near.
And there was Mike, the Irish lad,
With eyes still bright and clear.
