Tag: Niagara Falls

One poem leads to another….. (hair albums)

Many of the pre-1921 poems published on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website are found with the assistance of Charles Dow’s Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls, published in 1921. Chapter 8 of this two-volume set deals with the music, poetry, and fiction published about Niagara Falls in chronological order, starting in 1604. Many entries are purely bibliographic; that is they list the author, title, and source of a poem. Others contain summaries or editorial comments by Dow about the poem, the full text of some of the shorter poems, and excerpts from some of the longer poems.  Dow does have the habit of changing words and punctuation, and sometimes skipping sections without giving indication that he is doing so, so whenever possible, I go to the original source. Dow’s work is monumental, and I am in awe of what he accomplished. If I find a pre-1921 poem that is not in Dow, I feel a sense of accomplishment, and, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, of smugness that I managed to find something that he hadn’t. 

Case in point: in the entry for 1867, Dow cites a poem by M.F. Bigney – Visit of the Sunbeams to the Falls of Niagara in Bigney’s book The Forest Pilgrims and Other Stories. I searched for the book and found a full-text copy online through the Hathi Trust. After adding this poem to the site, I then looked at the rest of his poems, and discovered one called Lines Written for a Lady’s Hair Album, at Niagara, which I proceeded to add to the site. I admit that I had never heard of hair albums, so I conducted a search for them. My wife, Louise, had known about hair braidings that people (including her grandmother) had framed and hung to commemorate the passing of a loved one, but not albums. The search led to an interesting article Hairy Memories: Hair albums used braided hair to create memories by James Rada, Jr., and to a Brock University Archives online exhibition called Stories Told Through Scrapbooking. One of the scrapbooks in the exhibition is the Bradt Family Hair Album, with locks of hair from the Bradt family (United Empire Loyalists who settled in Niagara) from 1843 to 1976.  David Sharron, Head of Archives & Special Collections at Brock University, tells me that “We love the Bradt hair album here.  It is always a showstopper on tours.”

hair albums

Lock of Susannah (Price) Dunn’s hair
Image courtesy of Brock University Archives

 

On the exhibition page, a poem from page 11 of the album had been transcribed. Titled Resignation to the Approaching Period of Decline and Decay,  it had originally been written in 1812, just after the outbreak of the War of 1812, by James Melloy, and dedicated to “The Misses Price.” One of them, Susannah (Price) Dunn, had been born in 1808 and died in 1887.  A lock of her hair had been included in the album.

So today feels like a real win for me. I’ve managed to add three 19th century poems to the website (only one of which had been indexed by Dow), learned about a death rite that I had previously never known about, and added a new dimension to my upcoming presentation, The Niagara Way of Death, to the 2023 Popular Culture Conference in San Antonio, Texas. 

 

 

 

 

Lines Written for a Lady’s Hair Album, at Niagara by M.F. Bigney

hair
A Page from The Album of Bradt Family Hair 
Courtesy of Brock University Archives & Special Collections

 


DEAR braided locks ! which tell 
‡‡‡‡‡Of the distant, the departed, 
As the songs of ocean murmur in the shell ; 
‡‡‡‡‡And which whisper—”All is well !” 
‡‡‡‡‡When we might be lonely hearted 
And with voiceless music mystically swell.

‡‡‡‡‡Locks fair, and dark, and gray,
‡‡‡‡‡Erst to kindred ringlets mated ;
Severed from the crowns of loved ones now away. 
‡‡‡‡‡Some in spirit-gardens stray,
‡‡‡‡‡Warmed by suns all uncreated,
And some still linger with us in the clay.

‡‡‡‡‡To other times ye pass,
‡‡‡‡‡Bright aids to recollection, 
Mirroring the storied past as in a glass,
‡‡‡‡‡And shall we cry, alas !
‡‡‡‡‡In our spirit’s deep dejection, 
For those cut down and withered as the grass ?

‡‡‡‡‡No : they shall reappear
‡‡‡‡‡In a land of light unending, 
Where no eye shall e er be dimmed by a tear—
‡‡‡‡‡In that higher, purer sphere
‡‡‡‡‡Where celestial glories blending, 
Shall form a crown for those who triumph here.

Source: M.F. Bigney. The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems. New Orleans: James A. Gresham, 1867

Bigney was the editor of The New Orleans Daily

From the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, vol 2:  

“J.W. Overall and M.F. Bigney were liberal and enlightened patrons of literature in New Orleans. Both were poets, and Mr. Bigney published, in 1867, a volume called The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems, among which the “Wreck of the Nautilus” has often been quoted.

Read the article Hairy Memories: Hair albums used braided hair to create memories by James Rada, Jr.

See The Bradt Family Hair Album in the Brock University Archives. The Bradt family were United Empire Loyalists who settled in Niagara-on-the-Lake and the St. Catharines area. This poem by Bigney was not written in the Bradt album, although the poem Resignation to the Approaching Period of Decline and Decay by James Melloy was.

Visit of the Sunbeams to the Falls of Niagara by M.F. Bigney

bigney
Table Rock, Niagara Falls, 1867
by Edward Ruggles
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress


FROM orient realms, in depths of space afar, 
Young sunbeams travel in their golden car ; 
Lightly they glance along old Ocean’s breast, 
Enkindling  sea-gems on each wavelet’s crest ; 
O’er flow’ry plains and verdant fields they pass, 
Where dewy pearls adorn each blade of grass— 
Where fragrance rises from the tears of Night 
When smiled on by these messengers of light, 
These angel visitants of earth, whose ray 
Receives its lustre from the God of Day.

Away, away they speed—and many a grove 
Sends forth its tuneful melodies to rove 
Amid the brightness of their path, and sing 
A mournful anthem on exultant wing. 
Still on they pass—the cottage and the hall, 
The snow-crown’d mount, the ivied castle wall, 
The rich man’s mansion and the poor man’s home 
Are lighted by their presence as they roam.

Beside Niagara, entranced, I stood, 
Awed by the thunder of its falling flood, 
Stilled by the voice of its eternal roar, 
Passions were lull’d and fancy taught to soar.

‘Twas early morn, and as the Sunbeams came 
In golden grandeur from a world of flame, 
They reveled in their brightness, mid the trees, 
Whose fresh leaves fluttered in the whisp’ring breeze,
Then rested, old Niagara, on thee—
Sov’reign of streams and type of majesty !
Thy smiling courtiers, rising from thy feet,
Rise up on wings of amber-mist to greet
Sol’s bright ambassadors—they meet—they bring 
A rainbow-wreath to crown the Cascade King ! 
‘Twas brightly beautiful ! its changeful hues 
Were brilliant as the love-dreams of the muse ; 
While blending glories glittered in each gem 
Set in that fair supernal diadem.

On pass thy Sunbeams and the vapors bright 
In mystic dance of loveliness and light ; 
Wildly they wander through the fields of air, 
Or stoop to kiss sweet Flora’s children fair ; 
New charms expand in the bright, beauteous race, 
And fragrance welcomes still the fond embrace ; 
With ever-varying tint each petal glows,
The smiling lily hails the blushing rose—
Still on they go, through garden, field and grove, 
la ceaseless rounds of harmony and love !

Source: M.F. Bigney. The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems. New Orleans: James A. Gresham, 1867

Bigney was the editor of The New Orleans Daily

From the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, vol 2:  “J. W. Overall and M. F. Bigney were liberal and enlightened patrons of literature in New Orleans. Both were poets, and Mr. Bigney published , in 1867 , a volume called  The Forest Pilgrims , and Other Poems ,  among which the “Wreck of the Nautilas” has often been quoted.

Under the Falls by James Penha

under
James Penha and His Husband, Ferdy, Shortly After Their Wedding Ceremony, on the Maid of the Mist Boat in Front of the American Falls
Image courtesy of James Penha

Listen to James Penha perform “Under the Falls”


My memories begin with the cascade
of tears at Niagara Falls as I screamed
NO when my father led us to board
the boat he said would be sailing
“under the Falls.” Under the Falls,
he said. Distinctly Under the Falls.
Not near, not close to, but under.
What three-year-old would not weep
uncontrollably, unstoppingly, until 
assured there would be no boat ride
that day or the next. Seventy years 
later, right after marrying his husband
at Niagara Falls City Hall, the old boy
kissed his mate on The Maid of the Mist 
as it carried them crying and laughing
quite safely not quite under the Falls.

Source: The author, 2022

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) 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. Bluesky: @jamespenha.bsky.social

Ode to Niagara by Lansing V. Hall

hall
Canada Southern Railway Train and Cars, American & Horseshoe Falls in Background
executed by the American Oleograph Co. Image Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

MAJESTIC river, full of awe and wonder,
Roll onward in thy might, and roar like thunder ;
Bring from the upper lakes where the waters nap,
Thy burthens to this brink, and let ‘ em drap.
Roll onward in thy wrath, and foam and spatter ;
My bark is on dry land—that’s what’s the matter.
To pay for all this splurge, there’s a Lincoln cent,
I’ve dropped it in thy surge—so let it went !
If more thou still demand, there’s a Canada copper,
Large as a full-blown moon-put that in your hopper !
Methinks I feel a bug, and hear him hum ;
‘Tis only the “Maid of the Mist,” for passengers come.
I’ve climbed the weary stairs, the steps I’ve counted,
But wish now by the cars and ropes I’d mounted.
My coat is wet with spray, but my throat is dry ;
This scene is grand, they say, but it’s all in their eye.
I’ve heard of thee, Niagara, and now I’ve found thee ;
But sorry thou dost keep such robbers round thee.
The Yankees stole my purse, John Bull my hat,
And my last disputed stamp I paid to Pat.
So now I’ve nothing left, as I’m a sinner,
To recompense “mine host” for his dollar dinner.
But hold ! I have it now—there goes the bell !
I’ll sell my ode, I vow ! Old stream, farewell !
Should e’er we meet again, with case inverted,
I, tumbling toward the main, thou, dry and deserted,
I’ll wet thy husky throat till thou feelest staggery,
And I’ll sprinkle well thy coat. Farewell, Niagara !
Should e’er we meet again this side the ocean,
I’ll sing in loftier strain my deep devotion ;
I’ll praise thy gorgeous bow till my voice shall quiver.
But the steam is up—we go. Good-by, old river !
Good-by ! the echoes die with the cataract thunder,
While away like the wind we fly to a western wonder,
Where objects meet the sight too marvelous to tell,
Where cities grow up in a night. Fogies, farewell !
For the golden land I’m bound, where the trees reach heaven,
With trunks four miles around—diameter seven ;
Where grapes like pumpkins grow in every dell,
Where corn needs plow nor hoe. Reader, farewell !
And when I’ve reached the shore by the “Great Pacific,”
I’ll carve on the depot door this hieroglyphic ;
A sleeping car, marked “through,” ‘neath a huge balloon,
Myself among the crew, labeled, “the moon.”

Source: L.V. Hall. Voices of Nature. New York: John A. Gray & Green, Printers, 1868.

In his  Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls, Charles Mason Dow writes “The author of this poem was blind. The “Ode” is evidently intended to be humorous, but the humor consists largely in slang and bad grammar.