Jesse W. Sharp Going Over Niagara Falls in His Kayak. June 5, 1990. Photographer unknown. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
Down through
The rapids above the falls he
comes floating, kayak like a blunt
arrow, a twig, a hollow stick, him waist-
up from the center paddling, the white noise
of falling water thrashing the air. People
running along the shore as if in a dream,
arms waving, tiny mouths shouting
without sound. He imagines cameras
pointing, himself on millions of television
screens around the world—gets hung up
on rocks, lifts himself heart thudding
awkwardly out, has legs again, pulls
the kayak clear, settles into it, shoots
forward toward the lip, paddle digging
water jumping to bare arms and chest, imagining
himself sailing clear, beyond the rocks, down,
down, triumphant—lifts the paddle
over his head, whirling it in salute
as he hits the edge, thinks
I’m going to make it! sees
the open maw of the gorge, mist, sunlight
on the far side, sees he’s not sailing clear
realizes the weight of bad judgement
the error of imagination, tons
of water, heavier than shame.
Source: E. R. Baxter III. Niagara Lost and Found: New and Selected Poems. Yarmouthport, MA: Abyss Publications, 2013.
On the hill beside the river
Stands a building dear to me,
By its threshold one bright morning
There I first saw Harriet C.
Then that house was new and cheerful,
Now its walls are sad to see.
Years have passed and it’s decaying—
Where is charming Harriet C.?
When we watched the mighty cataract
She would closer cling to me,
And our hearts nigh ceased their throbbing—
Then I loved sweet Harriet C.
Time passed on and we were parted,
It softened much our childish glee
And I’ve never, never since then
Seen my lovely Harriet C.
But I’m standing by the schoolhouse
Where her form I first did see,
And my heart is sadly asking—
Where is gentle Harriet C.?
Source: Zavitz, Sherman. Niagara Falls: Historical Notes. St. Catharines, Looking Back Press, 2008. First published in the Niagara Falls Review as part of the Historical Notes series.
The historical note about the school is reproduced below with the permission of Sherman Zavitz.
The View Down Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, March 28, 2003. Photo by Janice Leak Note sign for the Comfort Inn, partially visible on the right. This was the site of the original Clifton Schoolhouse more than a century earlier. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
The Schoolhouse on Clifton Hill: Who Was Harriet C?
A school on Clifton Hill? While such a building would certainly seem out of place there now, in fact a one-room schoolhouse once stood on this thoroughfare, long before it became the now famous Street of Fun.
A roughcast structure, it was built around 1835 and was located on the south side of the street where the Comfort Inn Fallsway is now located. In 1848, after all the property on the south side of the hill was purchased by local entrepreneur Samuel Zimmerman, the building was moved to the other side of the street.
The school served the area along the Niagara River from Dufferin Islands (as they are now called) to the Whirlpool. This included the little community of Clifton, which at that time was centered around the Clifton Hill, Victoria Avenue area. Clifton was established in 1832 by Capt. Ogden Creighton, a British half-pay officer.
The following year, a hotel was built at the foot of Clifton Hill where Oakes Garden Theatre presently stands. As happened with the hill, the hotel took its name from the community in which it was located. The Clifton House became Niagara’s most renowned 19th century hotel.
Some of the teachers at this early school included William Pointer, Miss Tobias and a Mr. Williams. Around 1849, the teacher was Mr. McMullen, who also had a side job. The owner of a hansom carriage, every time an excursion party arrived at the nearby Falls, he would rush out of the school and become a tour guide, leaving his niece to take over his teaching duties.
The last teacher at this school was Marsena Biggar, who was there from 1851 to 1853. During the fall of 1851, Marsena might very well have taken his pupils down the road to the Clifton House to hear the famous singer Jenny Lind. Known as the Swedish Nightingale, she was a guest at the hotel for a number of weeks that autumn and would occasionally present a concert from its balcony.
The little schoolhouse on Clifton Hill closed at the end of 1853. The school section had been divided into two and new stone schoolhouses had been built. One of these was just to the north along Victoria Avenue, near Bender Hill. Open for only three years, it was replaced in 1857 by Simcoe Street School. The other was on Buchanan Avenue (now Fallsview Boulevard) where the Hilton Hotel now stands. It was used until the opening of Falls View School in 1910.
In February of 1857, an interesting letter appeared in a Buffalo newspaper. It was from an anonymous gentleman (he signed his name “Traveller”) in Lockport, New York, who told how several years earlier he had paid a visit to the old Clifton Hill schoolhouse. He had been a pupil there in its early years and wandering around the closed building naturally brought back many memories, including those of an infatuation he had had with another pupil he identifies only as Harriet C.
Moved by the nostalgic experience and lamenting his lost love, he wrote a poem, which was published along with the letter.
Entitled “Lines to Harriet,” [above] are a few of the verses.
Just who was Harriet C.? While we can’t be absolutely certain, it was likely Harriet Crysler, who was born here in 1831. The Crysler family home stood where the Victoria Avenue Library is now. Harriet died in 1903.
In Yugoslavia at the age of six he dreamed
about Niagara and a waterwheel—and years
later dreamed of throwing electricity all
over the world, without wires, to far planets,
people taking what they needed from the air—
Tesla, who championed the alternating current
that lights the earth, who drove Edison mad,
who drove Edison into the public electrocution
of cats and dogs at lectures to demonstrate
the satanic danger of alternating current—
Tesla, who invented the radio before Marconi,
who held computer patents in the 1800s, who
believed high voltage cables running under
classroom floors would stimulate the intellect
of dull students. Who, during the last years
of his life, became a caretaker of park pigeons,
feeding them, even from between his lips,
as they fluttered around his feet, alighted
on his hat, his shoulders, his outstretched
arms, a Saint Nicola of Alternating Current,
gone to the birds. Who now sits brooding
in bronze on Goat Island, larger than life,
still attracting the occasional pigeon as he
sits, open book on his lap, pretending to read
but looking over the heads of wandering tourists
to watch the rush of water surging toward the Falls,
the volume diminishing over the years—dreaming
that soon all the water will stop flowing,
that it will all be turned into electricity,
transforming the earth into a planetary fireball
of lightning, illuminating the furthest reaches
of the dark universe, beyond our imaginations.
Source: E. R. Baxter III. Niagara Lost and Found: New and Selected Poems. Yarmouthport, MA: Abyss Publications, 2013.
