-
- This
column by John Cosway is a mix of 50 years of media memories
and 15 years of buying and selling experiences via live and online
auctions, flea markets, antique stores and markets etc.
|
|
|
- Ad Rates / Articles
/ Classified Ads / Editorial
/ Home / Links
/ Showtime
-
- Cosway's Corner -
Niagara daredevils thrill millions
|
- Niagara Falls took 11,800 years to become
tourist mecca
-
- By John Cosway
- The falls of Niagara made their debut about 12,000 years
ago when the Wisconsin Glacier retreated - but it took 11,800
years for tourism to become a buzzword.
-
- In the early 1800s, the locals got to work, building a dozen
bridges (only four remain) and three hotels, installing roads,
launching new boat and rail services, repairing artillery damage
from the War of 1812 and generally adopting a "y'all come"
attitude.
-
- An unexpected bonus was the arrival of Jerome Bonaparte,
brother of Napoleon, for his honeymoon. He travelled from New
Orleans by stagecoach and reportedly returned home a major Niagara
Falls honeymoon booster.
-
- Most visitors in the 1800s were content with viewing the
thundering, majestic waterfalls, but others eyed nature's wonder
as a source for conquests.
-
- In 1827, just for the thrill of it, owners of Niagara's new
Pavilion Hotel, Ontario House and Eagle Hotel, sent a retired
Lake Erie schooner plunging over the Horseshoe Falls with live
animals aboard.
-
- It was Sept. 8, 1827, and about 10,000 people gathered for
the widely advertised event. News reports said two bears escaped
before the schooner went over the Falls and of the other animals
- a buffalo, a dog, two raccoons and a goose - only the goose
survived.
-
- Like monkeys sent into space in rockets, man was sure to
follow the schooner animals.
-
- Enter the daredevils, who would challenge the Niagara with
high dives, swims, parachute jumps, high-wire walks, boat and
barrel rapids rides and falls over the Falls in assorted devices.
Some would die trying.
-
- Niagara historians say the first human feat was Sam Patch's
85-foot high dive into the Niagara River off Goat Island on Oct.
7, 1829. Patch, 22, repeated the dive 10 days later from 130
feet, but died in Rochester, N.Y., in a 100-foot dive into the
Genesee River.
-
- Niagara daredevils were golden for local businessmen, who
were always looking for ways to attract tourists to the Honeymoon
Capital of the World.
-
- But of all the Niagara stunts, nothing captivated insatiable
tourists more than the death defying tightrope walkers and over-the-falls
daredevils.
-
- The first of many Niagara tightrope walkers was Jean Francois
Gravelet, a French aerialist, who called himself "The
Great Blondin" because of his fair hair.
-
- Gravelet, walking tightropes from age five, was 27 and famous
when he joined a French troupe of equestrian and acrobatic performers
in 1851 for a tour of North America.
-
- After viewing Niagara Falls for the first time, he reportedly
said: "To cross the roaring waters became the ambition of
my life."
-
- On June 30, 1859, Gravelet, The Great Blondin, did just that,
dazzling tens of thousands of onlookers by walking a 1,300-foot
tightrope from the American side to the Canadian side in 20 minutes.
-
- Gravelet repeated that historic, first-ever Niagara tightrope
walk eight more times that summer, including a walk with his
manager, Harry Colcord, clinging to his back.
 As fate and the spirit of competition
would have it, William Leonard Hunt was also keen on crossing
Niagara on a tightrope. And he would do so as Signor Guillermo
Antonio Farini - The Great Farini, which had more flare than
Bill Hunt.
-
- Hunt, born in 1838 in the United States to Canadian parents,
was raised in Bowmanville, Ontario. He first walked the tightrope
as a youngster after secretly attending a circus. At 21, he graduated
to the big time in 1859 with two tightrope walks 80 feet above
the Ganaraska River between two downtown Port Hope buildings.
-
- On. Aug. 15, 1860, he added Niagara Falls to his conquests.
-
- So there were Hunt, The Great Farini, and Gravelet, The Great
Blondin, two tightrope walkers in search of bragging rights.
A Niagara high-wire competition was inevitable.
-
- Their aerial competition in the summer of 1860 - 180 feet
above the Niagara Gorge near the falls - did not disappoint the
huge crowd. Their innovative antics left spectators breathless.
-
- Gravelet, who wowed Niagara crowds for two summers, bid adieu
with a final performance on Sept. 8, 1860. He was wooed to England
by the Prince of Wales and performed at the Crystal Palace in
London until retiring in 1896. He died in 1897 at age 73.
-
- Hunt performed in Niagara for several more years and on tours
in the U.S. and
Europe before retiring from the high-wire in 1869. But always
the showman, he continued to travel with circuses and toured
Africa with other acts.
-
- The multi-talented daredevil, author, inventor and artist,
who spent most of his life in Port Hope, died there in 1929 at
age 91, a respectable old age for a daredevil. He is buried in
Union Cemetery, there is a small park named for him faces the
Lantern Inn on Walton Street and a new downtown restaurant/bar
is called The Great Farini.
-
- Many other tightrope walkers entertained Niagara tourists
in the late 1800s, but The Great Blondin and The Great Farini
remained the cream of the crop.
-
- (FYI: Niagara historians say Maria Spelterini, 23,
became the first and only female Niagara tightrope walker on
July 8, 1876. She made four more crossings that month before
retiring into obscurity.)
-
- By the end of the 19th century, tightrope walking had peaked.
Niagara tourists had seen it all and it was time for a new breed
of daredevils.
-
- Enter the over-the-falls era.
-
 The first recorded
human attempt to plunge over the falls in a barrel was the Oct.
24, 1901, crowd pleaser by Annie Edson Taylor on her 46th
birthday.
-
- Taylor, a 160-pound widowed schoolteacher born in Auburn,
N.Y., squeezed into a padded, 160-pound oak barrel held together
by seven iron hoops.
-
- Wearing a long black dress and a colourful hat, she survived
the 18-minute rocky ride over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls with
minor cuts and bruises.
-
- Historians say Taylor anticipated fame and fortune, but fame
was fleeting and fortune non-existent. She died broke in a Lockport,
N.Y., infirmary on April 29, 1921. She was 65.
-
- Taylor's most quoted comment after being helped from the
battered barrel in 1901?
- "Nobody ought ever to do that again."
-
- But more than a dozen men and women would tackle the Falls
in barrels and other devices throughout the 20th century and
into the 21st century, with at least five deaths.
- Niagara Falls remains a magnet for daredevils, but strict
laws have drastically reduced the number of stunts.
-
- Just ask Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan. He made history
on Oct. 3, 2003, by surviving a 180-foot plunge over the Horseshoe
Falls in nothing but his street clothes. It cost him a few sore
ribs and a $2,300 Canadian fine for illegally performing a stunt.
-
- Niagara's most amazing non-stunt survival story occurred
July 9, 1960, when a boating accident sent Roger Woodward,
7, wearing only a life jacket and bathing suit, over the Canadian
Horseshoe Falls. He survived with a slight concussion.
-
- Roger's sister Deanne, 17, was rescued near the edge of the
Falls, but the man operating the boat when it overturned died
when swept over the Falls.
-
- Numerous web sites tell the history of humans versus the
mighty Niagara, including infoniagara.com.
Original barrels and other daredevil relics can be viewed at
the free Niagara Daredevil Exhibit in the IMAX Theatre.
-
- As for taking a gamble in Niagara Falls, 180 years after
the schooner and animals stunt, it is mostly confined to the
dry and comfy casinos.
-
- Photo 1 - Jean
Francois Gravelet, aka The Great Blondin, walks the Niagara
tightrope; Photo 2 - William Leonard Hunt, aka
Signor Guillermo Antonio Farini - The Great Farini; Photo
3 - Annie Edson Taylor, the first Niagara Falls barrel
rider, self promotes with minimal success. Photos courtesy of
Niagara Falls Public Library.
-
- Other articles by John Cosway
-
-
|
-
|
