Secrets of Niagara Falls - Inconvenienced by General Washington Troy Riot Liberates Captured Slave Misbehavior in Saratoga The Rise and Fall of ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Volume 10 • Number 1
Summer 2010
$4.95
Secrets of
Niagara Falls
Inconvenienced by General Washington
Troy Riot Liberates Captured Slave
Misbehavior in Saratoga
The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Deli12 The American Falls, Niagara Falls, ca. 1905. N ew York archives • s ummer 2010
13
Hidden
History by G i ng e r S t r and Not just for
honeymooners
or daredevils,
Niagara Falls and
its historical secrets
now stand revealed––
from Egyptian
dynasties to the
Civil War to the
atomic bomb.
N
iagara Falls is one of
America’s best-known
natural wonders.
Scholars have ex-
pounded on its role
in shaping the American
sublime, popular histories
have recounted its capacity
for power development, and
souvenir volumes regularly
recount tales of daredevils
and honeymoons. The image
New York State Library
of the Falls has graced every-
thing from masterpieces of
landscape painting to tea
towels, from early Lumière
Brothers films to blockbuster
/Manuscripts and
IMAX movies. A depiction of
the Falls even occupies one
corner of New York’s license
plates, opposite the New
Special Collections
This promotional pamphlet for York City skyline: landscape
Library of Congress
the Niagara Falls Museum touts and cityscape, the state’s two
its thousands of curios, including must-see sights. Yet the most
mummies. interesting features of this
www.nysarchivestrust.org14
icon’s history have remained the famous landscape architect. canals required to harness
hidden—sometimes forgotten, Luminaries like J.P. Morgan, Niagara’s power. After the
sometimes deliberately ignored. Oliver Wendell Holmes, John state park was established,
My search for this hidden Jay, Thomas Carlyle, and the Falls was quickly harnessed,
history led me to numerous John Ruskin signed a petition beginning a new industrial
archival collections—each of urging the creation of a state age at Niagara.
which, it seemed, yielded up park at Niagara. They were
another surprising story. successful in 1885. But left Mummies and
out of the story of a public- Two-Headed Calves
Beauty and Power minded movement is the For many years, the Niagara
One of the most common profit motive that drove it. Falls Museum was an
tales told about Niagara Falls Many of the same men who attraction rivaled only by the
is that the family of Augustus signed Olmsted’s petition waterfall itself. Built at the
Porter, who founded the town turned up on the board of brink of the Horseshoe Falls,
of Niagara Falls, kept the area the Niagara Falls Power the museum was owned by
around the falls in its natural Company, which succeeded, Thomas Barnett and his family,
state until the State of New ten years later, in harnessing a museum clan dedicated to
York bought it in 1885. But the Falls for electricity. In the study of natural history
letters between Augustus and fact, Thomas Evershed, who and the pursuit of exotic
his brother, Peter, founder of specimens. Their collections
The Porters the town of Black Rock just included plants, minerals,
upstream, show that this was shells, and mounted birds and
developed the Niagara
New York State Library/Manuscripts and Special Collections
far from the case. The Porters animals. Like many museums
environs to the best developed the Niagara environs of the time, they also had a
to the best of their ability. collection of “freaks of nature,”
of their ability…they In the 1820s and 1830s they including a two-headed calf
built snack stands and viewing and a two-legged dog.
built snack stands and
platforms, grist mills and In the 1850s, the Barnetts
viewing platforms, tanneries, and even planned acquired a group of Egyptian
to build a large hotel for mummies that quickly became
grist mills and wealthy patrons on Goat Island, a featured exhibit at the
which separates the Canadian museum, but shortly thereafter
tanneries, and even
Horseshoe Falls from the the family fell on hard times
planned to build a American Falls. They also and lost possession of the
attempted, at least twice, to collections they had built for
large hotel for sell all their land at Niagara Peter B. Porter
years. Those collections passed
to wealthy “capitalists,” as surveyed the land around the through several families’
wealthy patrons on
they called them. They ran Falls and drew up the map ownership and ended up,
Goat Island. newspaper ads touting the of the proposed state park, in 1999, in the hands of a
potential water power to be was the company’s engineer. Toronto shrunken-head
had from the Falls. History has painted him as a collector named Billy Jamieson,
After the Civil War, well- savior of Niagara’s beauty, who sold the mummies to
heeled and well-connected but he was also thinking of an American museum for a
gentlemen began appealing money; Evershed’s map, which hefty sum. To the shock of
to the state to buy the exists only in two hand-drawn the antiquities world, one
area around the Falls. The versions, shows how he care- of the mummies turned out
movement, known as “Free fully drew the boundaries of to be a pharaoh—Rameses I,
Niagara,” was spearheaded the state park so that they founder of the New
by Frederick Law Olmsted, wouldn’t interfere with the Kingdom’s 19th Dynasty.
N ew York archives • s ummer 201015
Courtesy Michael Carlos Museum, Emory University
Jamieson realized the In the years leading up to
mummy might have been a the Fugitive Slave Act of
pharaoh because a diary 1850, slavecatchers became
recorded its purchase. Dr. increasingly active in northern
James Douglas, a Montreal states, and fleeing slaves
physician, had traveled to began heading to Canada,
Egypt with Sidney Barnett, where slavery was illegal.
Thomas Barnett’s son, and in One of the key places to cross
his travel journal Douglas into Canada was the Niagara
related how he and Barnett region. There were rail
had bought a mummy from connections to the Falls, and
an Egyptian antiquities dealer the area was well known; After experts at Emory University
named Mustapha Aga Ayat. many southerners even took catchers who came to Niagara determined that the Niagara Falls
Mustapha was a well-known their slaves with them when to “retrieve” fugitives. He mummy was Pharaoh Rameses I,
“fence” for a family of tomb they went there on vacation. even helped spark Canada’s they displayed it briefly, then
robbers who had discovered Before 1848, when the first race riot when he assisted returned it to Egypt.
a cache of royal artifacts in first bridge across the river a man, David Castleman,
the cliffs of Deir el-Bahri. was completed, boats could who attempted to extradite
When the robbers were finally be hired to cross the river into a fugitive named Solomon
caught, authorities discovered Ontario. At Black Rock, the Mosby from Canada in 1837.
the coffin of Rameses I in the river narrowed enough that Castleman stayed with For decades, rumors
tomb they had plundered. It some fugitives even attempted Porter while petitioning
persisted that a
was empty. to swim across. As national Ontario’s provincial governor
For decades, rumors dissent over slavery grew, for extradition. When the pharaoh lay among
persisted that a pharaoh lay fugitives by the hundreds governor agreed and Mosby
among the artifacts at the crossed at Niagara to Canada, was arrested at Niagara-on- the artifacts at the
Niagara Falls Museum, but no often helped by African the-Lake, people began to
Niagara Falls
one could believe it. A royal American workers in Niagara’s gather outside the jail. As the
mummy lying just steps away restaurants and hotels. Harriet deputy sheriff attempted to Museum, but no one
from a two-headed calf? Tubman, who lived in nearby take Mosby to the ferry for
Only when the Michael Carlos St. Catharines, personally extradition, an angry mob could believe it. A
Museum of Emory University led scores of people through intervened and freed him. In
royal mummy lying
bought the mummies and Niagara Falls to freedom. the melee, two protesters
began analyzing them using Peter B. Porter, Black were killed. Peter Porter just steps away from
CAT scans and computer Rock’s founder, watched all wrote an angry letter to the
imaging was the rumor taken of this with dismay. He was a governor after the incident, a two-headed calf?
seriously. Egypt’s top antiqui- hero from the War of 1812 but it fell on deaf ears. In
ties expert examined the and was now a militia general. fact, the case only fueled
mummy and declared it to be He had served in Congress Canada’s strong abolitionist
a pharaoh, at which point it and as John Quincy Adams’s stance. The following year,
was returned to Egypt. Thus secretary of war. He had also the British government upheld
with the help of a simple married into a prominent, Canada’s decision not to
diary, another of Niagara’s slave-owning Kentucky family extradite fugitive slaves to the
secrets was brought to light. and even inherited twenty-five United States.
slaves himself. In fact, it’s one
Icon of Fugitives of Niagara’s most surprising Coded Spectacles
A little-known highlight of secrets that General Porter, In sharp contrast with the
Niagara’s history is its role in one of Niagara’s town fathers, Underground Railroad, there’s
the Underground Railroad. aided and abetted slave- no shortage of stories about
www.nysarchivestrust.org16
nearly explicit in the magazines The A r ch i v e s
of the times: cartoons in C o nn e ct i o n
Harper’s and Vanity Fair
depicted President Lincoln as
Blondin, crossing a tightrope
over Niagara Falls with a slave
T he Local History Depart-
ment at the Niagara
Falls Public Library holds a
on his back. These cartoons,
tremendous collection of
as well as accounts of Blondin’s
primary and secondary
performances, helped me
material on the Falls. The
decode the secret rhapsody to
Buffalo and Erie County
freedom behind Blondin’s
Historical Society has the
apparent acts of pure spectacle.
Library of Congress
letters, business papers,
and steamship manifests
The Waterfall and the Bomb
of Augustus and Peter
Not all of Niagara’s secrets
Porter. The New York State
are quite so far in the past.
Archives has a hand-drawn
During World War II, Niagara
Tightrope walker Blondin’s daring crossings of Niagara Falls copy of Thomas Evershed’s
Falls was critical to the build-
carried hidden meanings, made clear in this cartoon from map. The Archives of
ing of the atomic bomb. This
Harper’s Weekly, which depicts him as Lincoln carrying a Ontario has the Barnett
secret was successfully kept
fugitive slave. family papers, including
not only from the public, but
Sidney Barnett’s wonderful
from the laborers who did the
diary. The American
aerialist Blondin’s famous work. Only in the 1990s did
Antiquarian Society and the
During World War II, tightrope ascensions over the the truth begin to emerge:
New-York Historical Society
Niagara Gorge. Blondin is fre- the government had hired
have extensive collections of
Niagara Falls was quently mentioned in Niagara dozens of private contractors
diaries, letters, and travel
histories, but the significance to quietly conduct experiments
critical to the building narratives pertaining to the
of his performances isn’t. In to refine and roll uranium for
Falls, as well as magazines,
of the atomic bomb… 1859 and 1860, as civil war the Manhattan Project. With
newspapers, and visual
looked inevitable, Blondin’s its concentration of chemical
materials such as postcards,
the government spectacular crossings of the and electro-metallurgical
stereoviews, and prints. The
falls referenced the Under- plants, Niagara Falls was
hired dozens of public libraries of nearby
ground Railroad through a home to many of these con-
Lewiston and Tonawanda
private contractors to series of codes. He crossed his tractors. The effects of their
are repositories for the
tightrope dressed as a chef or work are still present today;
FUSRAP reports and historic
quietly conduct a day laborer—jobs typically for example, the Army Corps
studies compiled by the
held by African Americans; he of Engineers is cleaning up
experiments to refine Army Corps of Engineers.
crossed shackled and with a seven radioactive sites within
and roll uranium sack over his head; he crossed ten miles of Niagara Falls
in the dark of night; and he through a program known as
for the Manhattan even famously crossed with FUSRAP (Formerly Used Sites’
his manager on his back. All Remedial Action Program).
Project. of this transpired just a few The Corps’s extensive
yards downstream from the documentation of the sites’
bridge that actual fugitives histories and cleanup efforts,
regularly crossed at night as deposited in local archives,
they risked being dragged ensures that another piece of
back to the South in shackles. Niagara’s hidden history will be
The meaning of Blondin’s made available to the public,
performances was made now and in the future. n
N ew York archives • s ummer 2010You can also read
