Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier

by Frank H. Severance

Even now, as wandering upon Erie's shore
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,[77]
I sigh for home—alas! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.

Niagara in 1804 was most easily approached from the East by schooner on Lake Ontario from Oswego, though the overland trail through the woods was beginning to be used. Moore came by the land route. The record of the journey is to be found in the preface to his American Poems, and in his letters to his mother, published for the first time in his "Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence," edited by Earl Russell and issued in London and Boston in 1853-'56. The letters narrating his adventures in the region are dated "Geneva, Genessee County, July 17, 1804"; "Chippewa, Upper Canada, July 22d"; "Niagara, July 24th";—in which he copies a description of the falls from his journal, not elsewhere published—and "Chippewa, July 25th," signed "Tom." There is no mention in these letters of Buffalo, but in the prefatory narrative above alluded to we have this interesting account of the visit:

It is but too true, of all grand objects, whether in nature or art, that facility of access to them much diminishes the feeling of reverence they ought to inspire. Of this fault, however, the route to Niagara, at this period—at least the portion of it which led through the Genesee country—could not justly be accused. The latter part of the journey, which lay chiefly through yet but half-cleared woods, we were obliged to perform on foot; and a slight accident I met with in the course of our rugged walk laid me up for some days at Buffalo.

And so laid up—perhaps with a blistered heel—he sought relief by driving his quill into the heart of democracy. His friend, he lamented, had often told him of happy hours passed amid the classic associations and art treasures of Italy:

But here alas, by Erie's stormy lake,
As far from such bright haunts my course I take,
No proud remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days
Hath left the visionary light behind,
That lingering radiance of immortal mind,
Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene,
The humblest shed where Genius once had been.

He views, not merely his immediate surroundings in the pioneer village by Lake Erie, but the general character of the whole land:

All that creation's varying mass assumes,
Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms.
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand and conquering rivers flow;
But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray
This world's a wilderness and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren still repose,
Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows.
Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats and all,
From the rude wigwam to the Congress Hall,
From man the savage, whether slaved or free,
To man the civilized, less tame than he,
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
Betwixt half-polished and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world could brew
Is mixed with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
And naught is known of luxury, but its vice!
Is this the region then, is this the clime
For soaring fancies? for those dreams sublime,
Which all their miracles of light reveal
To heads that meditate and hearts that feel?
Alas! not so!

And after much more of proud protest against Columbia and "the mob mania that imbrutes her now," our disapproving poet turned in to make the best, let us hope, of Landlord Crow's poor quarters, and to prepare for Niagara. Years afterwards he admitted that there was some soul for song among the men of the Far West of that day. Very complacently he tells us that "Even then, on the shores of those far lakes, the title of 'Poet'—however in that instance unworthily bestowed—bespoke a kind and distinguished welcome for its wearer. The captain who commanded the packet in which I crossed Lake Ontario, in addition to other marks of courtesy, begged, on parting with me, to be allowed to decline payment for my passage." I cannot do better than to quote further from his account of the visit to the falls:

When we arrived at length at the inn, in the neighborhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening; and I lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a sort of era in my life; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where the full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters falling smoothly over the edge of the precipice; and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality—and vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened upon me, my first feeling was that of disappointment. It would have been impossible, indeed, for anything real to come up to the vision I had, in these few seconds, formed of it, and those awful scriptural words, 'The fountains of the great deep were broken up,' can alone give any notion of the vague wonders for which I was prepared.

But, in spite of the start thus got by imagination, the triumph of reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of my whole mind; presenting from day to day, some new beauty or wonder, and like all that is most sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as well as elevating thoughts. I retain in my memory but one other dream—for such do events so long past appear—which can by any respect be associated with the grand vision I have just been describing; and however different the nature of their appeals to the imagination, I should find it difficult to say on which occasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking at the Falls of Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum.