The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts

by George W. Holley

Bruin serenely contemplated the landscape in the direction of the island. Fisher was also intensely interested in the same scene, and still more intensely impressed with their gradual approach to the rapids. He tried the paddle again. But the tyrant of the quarter-deck again emphatically objected, and as he was master of the situation, and fully resolved not to resign the command of the craft until the termination of the voyage, there was no alternative but submission. Still, the rapids were frightfully near and something must be done. He gave a tremendous shout. But Bruin was not in a musical mood, and vetoed that with as much emphasis as he had done the paddling. Then he turned his eyes on Fisher quite interestedly, as if he were calculating the best method of dissecting him. The situation was fast becoming something more than painful. Man and bear in opposite ends of the canoe floating—not exactly double—but together to inevitable destruction. But every suspense has an end. The single shout, or something else, had called the attention of the neighbors to the canoe. They came to the rescue, and an old settler, with a musket which he had used in the War of 1812, fired a charge of buck-shot into Bruin which induced him to take to the water, after which he was soon taken, captive and dead, to the shore. He weighed over three hundred pounds.

A son of the settler who shot the bear had a frightful experience in the river many years afterward. He was engaged in Canada in the business of buying saw-logs for the American market. Coming from the woods down to Chippewa one cold day in December, at a time when considerable quantities of strong, thin cakes of ice were floating in the river, he took a flat-bottom skiff to row across to his home. This he did without apprehension, as he had been born and brought up on the banks of the Niagara, understood it well, and was also a strong, resolute man.

As he drew near the foot of Navy Island, intending to take the chute between it and Buckhorn Island, two large cakes between which he was sailing suddenly closed together and cut the bottom of his skiff square off. Just above the cake on which his bottomless skiff was then floating there was a second large cake, at a little distance from it, and beyond this a strip of water which washed the shore of Navy Island. In less time than it has taken to write this, he sprang upon the first piece of ice, ran across it with desperate speed, cleared the first space of water at a single leap, ran across the next cake of ice, jumped with all his might, and landed in the icy water within a rod of the shore, to which he swam. He was soon after warming and drying himself before the rousing fire of the only occupant of the island.

His father had a fine farm on the bank of the river, which he cultivated with much care. But before the drainage of the country was completed the land was decidedly wet. A friend from the East who made him a call found him plowing. The water stood in the bottom of the furrows. But agriculture has been progressive since those days. It is now almost a fine art instead of a mere pursuit. And nowhere north of the equator is there a climate and soil so genial and favorable for the growth of certain kinds of fruit, especially the apple and the peach, as are those of Niagara County. Many persons claim that they can tell from the peculiar consistency of the pulp, and by its flavor and bouquet, on which side of the Genesee River an apple is grown.

It is said that the winter apples of Niagara are as well known and as greatly prized above all others of their kind on the docks of Liverpool, as is Sea Island cotton above all other grades of that plant. The delicious little russet known as the Pomme Gris, with its fine aromatic flavor when ripe, grows nowhere else to such perfection as along the Niagara River. In 1825, at the grand celebration held to commemorate the completion of the Erie Canal, the late Judge Porter made the first shipment east of apples raised in Niagara County. It consisted of two barrels, one of which was sent to the corporation of the city of Troy, and the other to that of New York. They were duly received and honored. From this small beginning the fruit trade has grown to the yearly value of more than a million of dollars for Niagara County alone.

With reference to the forest which once covered this country, an erroneous impression prevails as to its age. Poets and romancers have been in the habit of speaking of these "primeval forests" as though they might have been bushes when Nahor and Abraham were infants. But this is a great error. Since the discovery of the country only one tree has been found that was eight hundred years old. This is mentioned by Sir Charles Lyell as having grown out of one of the ancient mounds near Marietta, Ohio. But the great majority of them were not over three hundred years old. The testimony of the trees concerning the past is not quite so abundant as that of the rocks, but that of one tree grown in central New York is of a remarkable character. It was a white oak, which grew in the rich valley of the Clyde River, about one mile west of Lyons' Court House, and was cut down in the year 1837. The body made a stick of timber eighty feet long, which before sawing was about five feet in diameter. It was cut into short logs and sawed up. From the center of the butt-log was sawed a piece about eight by twelve inches. At the butt end of this piece the saw laid bare, without marring them, some old scars made by an ax or some other sharp instrument. These scars were perfectly distinct and their character equally unmistakable. They were made, apparently, when the young tree was about six inches in diameter. Outside of these scars there were counted four hundred and sixty distinct rings, each ring marking with unerring certainty one year's growth of the tree. It follows that this chopping was done in 1374, or one hundred and eighteen years before the first voyage of Columbus across the Atlantic.

It has been questioned whether the rings shown in a cross-section of a tree can be relied upon to determine truly the number of years it has been growing. A singular confirmation of the correctness of this method of counting was furnished some years since.

In the latter part of the last century the late Judge Porter surveyed a large tract of land lying east of the Genesee River, known as "The Gore." Some thirty-five years afterward it became necessary to resurvey one of its lines, and recourse was had to the original surveys. Most of the forest through which the first line had been run was cleared off, and such trees as had been "blazed" as line-trees had overgrown the scars. One tree was found which was declared to be an original line-tree. On cutting into it carefully the old "blaze" was brought to light, and on counting the rings outside of it, they were found to correspond with the number of years which had elapsed since the first survey.

One of the three small buildings at Niagara which escaped the flames of 1814 was a log-cabin, about thirty by forty feet in its dimensions, that stood in the center of the front of the International block. In the latter part of 1815 the inhabitants returned, and the late General P. Whitney put a board addition to the log-house, and opened the first hotel. From that has grown up the present International. The immediate predecessor of the International was the Eagle Tavern, which was, for some years, in charge of a genial and popular landlord, the late Mr. Hollis White. It was formed by the addition to the old frame structure of a three-story brick building, of moderate dimensions. Across the front of this addition was a long, wide, old-fashioned stoop. This was well supplied with comfortable arm-chairs, which furnished easy rests for guests or neighbors, and were well patronized by both, and especially during the summer season by the genial humorists of the place. On the opposite side of the street was a small house, a story and a half high, belonging to Judge Porter, and to which he built an addition. Then, as now, there were occasionally more visitors than the hotel could accommodate, and the neighbors assisted in entertaining them. Judge Porter, did this frequently, and among his guests were President Monroe, Marshal Grouchy, General La Fayette, General Brown, General Scott, Judge Spencer, and other distinguished strangers.

The first building erected on the ground where the Cataract House now stands was of a later date—1824—a frame house about fifty feet square. It was purchased by General Whitney in 1826, and formed the nucleus of the great pile which constitutes the present Cataract House.