The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts Part 8

1847 A lad of fourteen undertook to row across on a Sunday morning, and went over.

1848 In August, a man in a boat pa.s.sed under the Goat Island Bridge, within ten feet of the sh.o.r.e; he asked of persons on the bridge, "Can I be saved?" Soon after the boat upset, and he went over, feet foremost, struck on the rocks below, and was never seen afterward.

--A little boy and girl were playing in a skiff, which swung off the sh.o.r.e; the mother waded into the water and rescued the girl. The boy, sitting in the bottom of the skiff, with a hand on each side, went over.

1870 A lady from Chicago, said to be deranged, threw herself from Goat Island Bridge, and went over.

1871 In June three men, unacquainted with the river, hired a boat to cross, were drawn into the rapids and went over.

--In July two men in a boat went over.

1873 Friday, July 4th, a young man and woman, and a boy twelve years of age, brother of the latter, hired a boat in Chippewa, ostensibly for a sail on the river. Not understanding the currents, they were drawn into the rapids and carried over the Horseshoe Fall. The bodies were not recovered. It was afterward ascertained that the young man had taken $500 from his father, in Ohio; had come to Chippewa to meet the young woman, who was from Toronto, to whom he was married on the day preceding their death.

1874 September 19th, a young man connected with the Mohawk Inst.i.tute, at Brantford, Canada--whether as student or instructor was not known--walked deliberately into the rapids above Table Rock, and was carried over the precipice, never to be seen again.

1875 September 8th, Captain John Jones--at that time marine surveyor for a New York insurance company--jumped into the rapids below Goat Island Bridge, and went over the cliff, before the eyes of many excursionists.

Ill-health was supposed to be the cause. The body was not found.

1877 March 5th, Mr. G. Homer Stone, aged twenty-four, a school-teacher, living near Geneva, N. Y., leaped into the rapids, near the upper end of Prospect Park, and was carried over the Falls. The body was not recovered.

--July 1st, three men went out in a sail-boat from Connor's Island, during a high wind and very rough water. Attempting a starboard tack, in order to reach Gill Creek Island, the boat was upset, and two of them--after the three had tried in vain to right the boat, and found it difficult to keep their hold--abandoned it and tried to swim ash.o.r.e; but, owing to the rough sea and their wet and heavy clothing, they were soon exhausted, and went to the bottom. The third man, divesting himself of everything except his pantaloons, determined to swim for the nearest land the down-floating boat should pa.s.s. Fortunately, a large boat, manned by three st.u.r.dy oarsmen, coming up the river, rescued him, after he had become nearly exhausted. Three days after the accident one of the bodies was found near Gra.s.s Island, above the Falls, and the other, two days later, in the Whirlpool below.

1877 October 16th, the discovery in the morning of several articles of female apparel on a flat rock, near the site of the old stone tower, and close to the brink of the Falls, led to investigation, which developed the fact that Miss Schofield, a young woman from Woodstock, in Canada, while suffering from a sudden attack of brain fever, had thrown herself into the rapids, and gone over the Horseshoe Fall. She was a skillful telegrapher, and had some local literary reputation. Her body was never recovered.

1878 April 1st, John and Patrick Reilley, brothers, started from Port Day, above the Falls, to row across to Chippewa. One of them, being under the influence of liquor, refused to row steadily and quarreled with his brother, thus preventing him from rowing. They were drawn over the Canadian side of the Horseshoe Fall about four o'clock in the afternoon. They were both skillful rowers, and well acquainted with the river, which they had crossed and recrossed many times. Their bodies were recovered several weeks later.

1878 April 6th, a young man, nineteen years of age, from Woodstock, Canada, a member of the Queen's Own, a volunteer regiment, which had attended a recent military review at Montreal, was on his return home, and crossed from Chippewa to Navy Island to visit friends who kept small boats on both sides of the river. After finis.h.i.+ng his visit, he declined to accept the a.s.sistance of a young relative in recrossing the river, and started alone. The result was that, not understanding the force of the treacherous current, he was carried into the great rapids and went over the Horseshoe Fall. His body was found, two days afterward, below the ferry.

1879 June 21st, the names of Monsieur and Madame Rolland were registered at one of the hotels, where they spent a night, but took their meals at a restaurant kept by a Frenchman, because Monsieur R. could not, as he said, speak English. The following morning they went to the Moss Islands. While near the lower end of the outer island, so the husband claimed, madame took a cup from him to get a drink of water from the rapids, and, while his attention was diverted for a moment, he heard a splash in the water, and on looking round, saw that his wife had fallen into the rapids. She went over the Horseshoe Fall. He showed great distress and every demonstration of sorrow. Nevertheless, he left the next day for New York, after giving his address to the restaurant-keeper, who, a few days afterward, sent word to him that the body had been recovered. Monsieur R. sent thirty dollars to pay expenses of burial, and sailed for France. Those who have seen the place where, according to his story, madame fell in, are skeptical on that point.

1881 February 23d, a stranger named Doyle threw himself into the rapids from Prospect Park, and was carried over the American Fall. A body found some days after in the river below, claimed by friends to be his, was identified by a coroner's jury as that of a man named Rowell, whose body had been found some days before in the river, near the ferry, with a bullet through the head. It was never ascertained whether it was a suicide or an a.s.sa.s.sination.

--July 12th, the body of a woman was found floating below the Falls, having evidently come from the river above. Some female wearing apparel found on the sh.o.r.e of the rapids, below Goat Island Bridge, it was supposed belonged to the suicide.

1881 Dr. H. and Mrs. S., of good birth, education, and social position, loved not wisely but too well. Exposure was certain and near. They met at Niagara, July 14th, and went over the Falls together.

--September 5th, a man from Toronto plunged into the rapids at Table Rock, and went over. In a letter to a Toronto paper, he stated that domestic trouble was the impelling motive.

BELOW THE FALLS.

In 1841 A number of British soldiers, stationed at Drummondville, attempted to swim across the rapids at the ferry at different times.

None succeeded, and two were drowned.

1842 A British soldier attempted to lower himself down the bank, opposite Barnett's Museum, in order to escape to the American sh.o.r.e. The rope broke, and he was killed by the fall.

1844 In August, a gentleman was washed under the great Fall, from a rock on which he had stepped, against the remonstrances of the guide. He was drowned.

1846 In August, a gentleman fell forty feet from a rock near the Cave of the Winds, and was instantly killed.

1875 August 9th, two young women and three young men, residents of the village, went through the Cave of the Winds, as they had often done before, to enjoy the exhilarating bath. One of the young women, Miss P., stepped into one of the eddying pools lying a little outside of the usual track, and one of the young men, Mr. P., thinking she might find the current stronger than she antic.i.p.ated, followed her, and while seeking a sure footing for himself to guard against accident, the young lady lost her balance and fell into the current. Mr. P. endeavored to seize her bathing-dress, but not succeeding, sprang at once into the current, and both went over a ledge some eight feet high, at the foot of which Miss P. rose to her feet in an eddy, and sought support by leaning against a large rock lying adjacent to it. When Mr. P. rose to the surface he swam to her, and thinking they would be safer in an opening among smaller rocks on the opposite side of the eddy, he put his arm round her, and both made a desperate effort to reach the desired shelter. But the current proved too strong, and bore them both out into the river; Mr. P. swimming on his back, and supporting Miss P. with his right arm, while her right hand rested upon his shoulder. Suddenly they became separated. Miss P., apparently concluding that both could not be saved, disengaged herself from him, and immediately sank below the surface. Instantly her heroic friend plunged after her. A cloud of spray covered the troubled waters for a moment, and when it pa.s.sed nothing could be seen of the unfortunate pair. The treacherous under-currents bore them to their doom. Both bodies were recovered a few days afterward from the Whirlpool.

1877 August 31st, Dr. Louis M. Stein registered at the International Hotel. The following day, after riding to different points on the American side of the Falls, he alighted at the upper Suspension Bridge, and inviting a young bootblack to accompany him, he started across the bridge, talking rather incoherently on the way. When near the Canadian end he stopped, took from his pocket a roll of bills, gave the boy a dollar note, and returned the others to his pocket. He then started back, and when near the center of the bridge dropped his hand-bag and shawl, seized the boy, saying with an oath, "You have got to come, too!"

and attempted to climb over the railing. The boy successfully resisted, but the man got over and dropped from one of the wire stays into the river, one hundred and ninety feet below. He was probably killed instantly, and the body floated down the river, from which it was taken some ten days afterward and delivered to a son, who arrived from New York city.

--December 25th, a man from Chatauqua County, N. Y., suffering from ill-health and misfortune, jumped from the new Suspension Bridge, and was never seen again.

The narrowest escape at the Falls was that of the man who, in January, 1852, fell from the Tower Bridge into the rapids, and was caught between two rocks just on the brink of the precipice, whence he was rescued, nearly exhausted, by means of a rope.

In 1874, Mr. William McCullough, while at work painting the small bridge between the first and second Moss Islands, missed his footing and fell into the middle of the channel; he was carried down about fifty rods, and, going over a ledge into more quiet water, got on his feet and waded to a small rock projecting above the water, upon which he seated himself to collect his senses and await results. After several vain efforts to get a rope to him, Mr. Thomas Conroy, a guide, then connected with the Cave of the Winds, who had in the previous autumn conducted Professor Tyndall up to Tyndall's Rock, put on a pair of felt shoes, and, holding to an inch rope, picked his way with an alpen-stock, from a point a short distance up-stream, through favoring eddies and pools to McCullough. After a short rest, he put the rope around McCullough, under his arms, and winding the end around his own right arm, the two started sh.o.r.eward. On reaching the deep water near the sh.o.r.e, both were taken off their feet, and, as the people pulled vigorously at the rope, their heads went under for a short distance, but they were safely landed. A contribution was taken up for Conroy's benefit, and Professor Tyndall, on hearing of the rescue, sent him a five-pound note.

In view of the fact that nearly every year persons are drawn into the rapids and carried over the Falls, a New York journalist suggested a most extraordinary method of saving them. He proposed that a cable should be stretched across the rapids, above the Falls, strong enough to arrest boats, and to which persons in danger might cling until rescued.

But this kind and ingenious person forgot that old ca.n.a.l-boats, rafts of logs, and large trunks of trees, with roots attached, would be troublesome things to hold at anchor. As well hope to stay an Alpine avalanche with pipe-stems.

CHAPTER XVI.

The first Suspension Bridge--The Railway Suspension Bridge--Extraordinary vibration given to the Railway Bridge by the fall of a ma.s.s of rock--De Veaux College--The Lewiston Suspension Bridge--The Suspension Bridge at the Falls.

On the partial completion of the Hydraulic Ca.n.a.l, the princ.i.p.al stockholders, with a number of invited guests, celebrated the event on July 4, 1857, by an excursion from Buffalo in the _Cygnet_, the first steamer that ever landed within the limits of the village of Niagara.

The same route is followed during the season of navigation by tugs towing ca.n.a.l-boats and rafts out and in. No pa.s.senger boat, however, has been placed on the route, although the sail on the river is a charming one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE WAS BEGUN]

Mr. Charles Ellet, in 1840, built the first suspension bridge over the chasm. He offered a reward of five dollars to any one who would get a string across it. The next windy day all the boys in the neighborhood were kiting, and before night a youth landed his kite in Canada and received the reward. The first iron successor of the string was a small wire cable, seven-eighths of an inch in diameter. To this was suspended a wire basket in which two persons could cross the chasm. The basket was attached to an endless rope, worked by a windla.s.s on each bank. At an entertainment given on the occasion of the completion of the bridge, the good people of the embryo village at the bridge, elated with their new acquisition, were inclined to regard their neighbors at the Falls with patronizing sympathy. One of the latter said to Mr. Ellet, "This bridge is a very clever affair, and you only need the Falls here to build up a respectable village." "Well," he replied, "give me money enough and I will put them here." He had great faith in dollar-power.

This bridge was an excellent auxiliary in the construction of the present Railway Suspension Bridge, built by Mr. John A. Roebling. It was begun in 1852, and the first locomotive crossed it in March, 1855. It is one of the most brilliant examples of modern engineering, and stands unrivaled for its grace, beauty, and strength. Seizing at once upon the natural advantages of the location, the engineer resolved to combine the tubular system with that of the suspension bridge. The carriage way was placed level with the banks of the river at the edges of the chasm. The railway track was placed eighteen feet above, on a level with the top of the secondary banks across which the two railroads were to approach it.

The plan was perfect, and perfectly and faithfully executed in all its details. It is practically a skeleton tube. As the traveler pa.s.ses over it in a carriage or a railway car, from the almost total absence of any vibratory motion he feels at once that he is on a safe basis, and his sense of security is complete.

One feature of the construction of the bridge may be noticed as having a bearing on the question of its durability. It is well known that when wrought-iron is exposed to long continued or oft repeated and rapid concussions, its fibers after a time become granulated, whereby its strength is greatly impaired and finally exhausted. It is also known that the effect of rhythmical or regular vibrations is more destructive than the effect of those which are inharmonious or irregular. Because of this, a body of men is never allowed to march to music across a bridge, nor is a large number of cattle ever driven across at one time, lest they should, by accident, fall into a common step and so overstrain or break down the bridge. It is the difference between a single heavy blow and an irregular succession of light ones. Hence, when harmonious, regular vibrations can be broken up, the destructive influence is greatly modified and r.e.t.a.r.ded.

The bridge is supported by two large cables on each side, one pair above the other, the lower pair being nearer together horizontally than the upper pair, so that a cross section of the skeleton tube would be shaped somewhat like the keystone of an arch. Each of these large cables is ten inches in diameter, and is composed of seven smaller ones, called strands. These smaller strands are made of number nine wire, and each one contains five hundred and twenty wires. Each of these wires was boiled three several times in linseed oil, giving it an oleaginous coating of considerable thickness and great adhesive power. Each wire was carried across the river separately, from tower to tower, by a contrivance of the engineers, the chief feature of which was a light iron pulley about twenty inches in diameter, suspended on what might be called a wire cord. This apparatus was called a traveler, and curious and interesting was its performance as seen from below. It looked like a huge spider weaving an iron web.

Six of the seven strands forming each of the cables were laid around the seventh as a center, and when all were properly placed they were again saturated with oil and paint. After this, by another contrivance of the engineers, they were wound or wrapped with wire, like winding a rope cable with marlin, and thus the whole cable was made into a thoroughly compact, huge, round, iron rope. This was covered with numerous coats of paint to prevent the oxidation of the inner wires. The oleaginous coating of the wires, together with the small triangular s.p.a.ces between them, would seem to reduce the destructive power of the vibrations to zero. But the vibrations are very greatly reduced and the stiffness of the structure is greatly increased by the use of a series of triangular stays, the triangle being the only geometrical figure whose angles cannot be s.h.i.+fted. There are sixty-four of these triangles. Their hypothenuses are formed by over-floor stays of wire rope reaching from the tops of the towers to different points in the lower floor, this latter, of course, forming their common base and the towers their alt.i.tude. The stays are fastened to the suspenders so as to form straight lines. As the towers and the floor are rigid and solid in the direction of the lines they represent, it follows that the intersections of the hypothenuses with the common base form so many stationary points in the latter. These stationary points present a powerful resistance to vibrations. The side trusses, with their system of diamond-work braces and the weight of the railway track on the upper bridge, also help to stiffen the structure. There are likewise fifty-six under stays or guys of wire rope fastened to the rocks below, designed to prevent upward and lateral vibrations. A heavy locomotive with twenty loaded cars produced a depression of the upward curvature of the track of nearly ten inches.

The ordinary loads make a depression of only five inches.

In Part II., attention was directed to a point on the American side of the river, just below this bridge, where the disintegration of the shale and abrasion of the superposed rock is strikingly exhibited. A singular phenomenon was witnessed here in 1863. A ma.s.s of rock and shale, about fifty feet long, twenty feet wide, and sixty feet deep, fell with a great crash. Directly following the fall a remarkable motion was developed in the bridge itself. A strong wave of motion pa.s.sed through the whole structure from the American side to the opposite sh.o.r.e, and returned again to the same side.

Some twelve or fifteen mechanics, who were at work on the upper or railway track, were so alarmed that they fled with all speed to the sh.o.r.e. The motion imparted to the bridge was incalculably greater than, and of a different character from, any motion imparted by the crossing of the heaviest trains. The rocky ma.s.s which fell was forty rods below the bridge, and the hard floor on which it struck was more than two hundred and thirty feet beneath it. The ma.s.s itself fell about sixty feet average distance, and might have weighed five thousand tons. The extraordinary motion imparted to the bridge by the concussion must have been transmitted along the bed-rock to the anchorages on the American side, thence through the cables and the bridge across to the anchorages on the Canadian side, whence it returned to the American side.

Mr. Donald McKenzie, master carpenter and superintendent of repairs, who has been connected with the bridge constantly since its erection, and all the men under him at the time, confirm this statement, and declare it is impossible to exaggerate or describe the wave-like motion which they experienced while escaping to the sh.o.r.e.

Half a mile further down is De Veaux College, a n.o.ble charity endowed by the late Mr. Samuel De Veaux. He was for many years an active business man at Niagara, and by his integrity, industry, and wise enterprise acc.u.mulated a handsome fortune. His death occurred in 1852, and by his will he left nearly the whole of his estate to certain trustees to establish an inst.i.tution for the care, training, and education of orphan boys. In addition to these, other pupils are received who pay a fixed price for their tuition, board, and incidentals. The inst.i.tution has gained a high reputation for the thoroughness of its instruction and the excellence of its discipline. One of its sources of income is the amount received annually for admissions to the Whirlpool. Every visitor to that interesting locality will cheerfully pay the fee charged when he understands this fact.

The suspension bridge below the mountain near Lewiston, spanning the river where the water emerges from the fearful abyss through which it dashes for five miles, was built in 1856, by Mr. T. E. Serrel. The guys designed to protect it from the effect of the wind were fastened in the rocks on either side at the water's edge. The great ice jam of 1866 tore from their fastenings, or broke off, many of these guys. Before they were replaced a terrific gale in the following autumn broke up the road-way, severed some of the suspenders, and left the structure a melancholy wreck dangling in the air.