It was not long before another swimmer appeared who wore a harness over his shoulders to which was attached a wire running loosely over a cylinder on the bridge, which kept his feet straight towards Davy Jones's locker; he survived the leap to his considerable personal profit. From bridge to water he went in four seconds—the only time on record. Another foolhardy feat was performed by some of the reckless men who decorate almost inaccessible landscapes with possibly truthful but most annoying, puffs of ague-pills, liver-pads, tooth-powder, and such. A log once lodged forty rods above Goat Island, where for four years it lay seemingly beyond human reach. It touched the pride of certain shameless and professional advertisers, who were famous for their ingenious vandalism, that such a chance should be wasted. So, when the Rapids were thinly frozen over, they made their cautious way to the log, and soon there was a gorgeous sign fixed, twelve feet by four, on the very fore-front of one of the world's grandest spots, to-wit:
Go East via Lake Winipiseogee R. R.
American Falls from Goat Island.
Nothing daunted by the sad fate of Captain Webb, a burly Boston policeman, W. I. Kendall, went through the Rapids on August 22, 1886, protected by only a cork life-preserver. All previous trips had been publicly announced, but Kendall slipped through with only a few spectators, accidentally on the cliffs or bridges, to bear witness. For this reason some have felt that the trip was never made, but men of integrity are known who witnessed the performance. On Sunday, August 14, 1887, "Professor" Alphonse King crossed the river below the Falls and bridge on a water bicycle. The wheel with paddles was erected between two water-tight cylinders, eight inches in diameter and ten feet long.
"Steve" Brodie, who had achieved great notoriety by jumping from Brooklyn Bridge, created a greater sensation by going over the Falls. This occurred on September 7, 1889. Brodie wore an india-rubber suit, surrounded by thick steel bands. The suit was very thickly padded, yet Brodie was brought ashore bruised and insensible. His victories won, he became the proprietor of a Bowery bar-room, and the pride of the neighbourhood.
The cranks that were trying to get through the Whirlpool did not arrive at Niagara until about 1886, but from that on we find an embarras de richesse of them for a decade or so until the peculiar mania for notoriety died out.
The fate that befell Webb could not discourage others to venture the perilous trip, and, probably, the pioneer of them was C. D. Graham, an English cooper of Philadelphia, who conceived the idea that, though no regular boat could live in the rush of the waters below the Falls of Niagara, it would perhaps be possible for a novel kind of boat, a cask shaped like a buoy, with a man in it, to get down to Lewiston in safety. He therefore made a series of such casks at an expenditure of a great deal of time and labour; and, at last finding a shape to his mind, filled two or three in succession with bags of sand equal to his own weight, and set them afloat at Niagara. They arrived safely in smooth water, threading the Rapids and the Whirlpool after a journey of some five miles; the inventor thereupon resolved to keep one side uppermost, in which was left an air-hole, and fastened in the cask a long canvas bag, made like a suit of clothes, and waterproof. Getting into this bag on July 11, 1886, he grasped two iron handles fixed to the staves on the inner side of the cask; a movable cover being fastened on, the odd craft was shoved into the rushing waters. The cask, of course, turned over and over; and though water got into the air-hole, it did not get into the canvas bag; the surging waters handled the cask so roughly that Graham straightway fell sick, but clung to his iron staples, and in a space of time exceeding thirty minutes—accounts differ here—reached smooth water at Lewiston, five miles away, and was safely taken out, able to boast that he had performed a feat hitherto deemed impossible.
His record trip in a cask was made on August 19, 1886. On this occasion he announced that he would make the trip with his head protruding from the top of the barrel. This was actually done; he went as far as the Whirlpool, but it left him very little hearing, for a big wave gave him a furious slap on the side of the head. Graham made other trips in 1887 and 1889, and his last, probably, in 1901. This nearly ended his life, as he was caught in an eddy where he was held for over twenty minutes; when he finally reached the Whirlpool and was taken out he was nearly suffocated.