Chapter VIII: Part 8

The rain had stopped and the stars were shining in a cheerful way as we all trudged down the wet road to the lake shore. Our boat was found close in shore, and Martin and his wife had waded out to it, while Sam and I stood talking in low tones on the beach. Suddenly a crash like the breaking of fence-boards was heard on the bank near by, and to the westward of us. We looked up quickly and saw the form of a man climb over the fence and then crouch down in the shadow. Up came Sam's rifle, and with a hurried aim he fired at the moving object. His old gun was trusty and his aim true, and had it not been for a lucky blow from my hand, which knocked the gun upwards just as he fired, and sent the ball whistling harmlessly over the bank, there'd have been one less mean man in the world, and we should have had a corpse to dispose of. I scrambled up the bank, with my heart in my mouth, I'll confess, just in time to see the sneak scurry along in the direction of the highway. I watched a long time at the creek after the boat left, and seeing no one astir started for home. By the time I reached the Lake road the moon had come up, and a fresh carriage-track could be plainly seen. I followed it down the road a short distance, when it turned, ran across the sod, and ended at the fence, which had been freshly gnawed by horses. It then turned back into the highway, followed up the crossroad to Wesleyville, and thence came to the city.

The fugitives reached the promised land in safety, and I heard from them several times thereafter. The man Sam subsequently made two or three successful trips back to the old home, once for a wife and afterwards for other friends. He made some money in the Canada oil fields, and some time after sent me $100, $50 for myself to invest in books, and $50 for the fishermen who carried them safely across to Long Point and liberty.

* * * * *

Of all the places which have sheltered the fugitive slave there is none better known, along the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, than the old Methodist church at Wesleyville, Erie Co., Pennsylvania. It stands today much as it stood a half century since; though repairs have been made from time to time, and of late years modern coal stoves have replaced the capacious but fervid old wood-eaters known as box-stoves. Dedicated to God, it has been doubly hallowed by being devoted to the cause of humanity. To more than one wretch, worn out with the toils of a long flight, it has proved a glorious house of refuge; and if safety lay not within the shadow of its sacred altar, it surely did amidst the shadowy gloom of its dingy garret.

In the year 1856 there lived in Caldwell County, in western Kentucky, a well-to-do farmer named Wilson. He owned a large and well-stocked farm, which he had inherited, with several slaves, from his father. Mr. Wilson was an easy-going and indulgent master, and reaped a greater reward of affection from his "people" than he did of pecuniary gain from his plantation. In the autumn of the above-named year he died, and his servants were divided among the heirs, who lived in Daviess County, in the same State. Two of the slaves, Jack and Nannie, a young man and his sister, fell to the lot of a hard master named Watson. The housekeeper dying, Nannie was taken from the field to fill her place. Nothing could have been worse for the poor girl. She was handsome, her young master a brute. Because she defended her honor she was cruelly punished and locked up for many hours. Her brother succeeded in freeing her, and together they fled, only to be recaptured. They were whipped so terribly that the girl Nannie died. Jack survived, heart-broken, quiet for a time, but with a growing resolve in his heart. One night his master came home from a debauch, and ordered Jack to perform some unreasonable and impossible task. Because the poor boy failed, the master flew at him with an open knife. It was death for one of them. The image of poor Nan, beaten to an awful death, rose before Jack's eyes. In a moment he became a tiger. Seizing a cart-stake, he dealt his master a blow that killed him. The blood of his sister was avenged.

Once more Jack fled. The murder of the master had aroused the neighborhood. Blood-hounds, both brute and human, scoured the woods and swamps; flaming handbills offered great rewards for Jack Watson, dead or alive. With incredible cunning, and grown wary as a wild animal, Jack lurked in the vicinity a long time. When the excitement had somewhat abated, he found his way to Salem, Ohio, and was for a time in the employ of a worthy Quaker named Bonsell, whose descendants still live in that locality. It was then a neighborhood of Friends, and Jack's life among them brought him great good. He learned to read and write, and became in heart and conduct a changed man. His life, however, was haunted by two ghastly forms; and as often as the image of his murdered master rose before him, that of Nan came also to justify the deed. These apparitions wore upon him, and made his life unnatural and highly sensitive. On one occasion, while in Pittsburg, he saw what he took to be the ghost of his murdered master coming toward him in the street. He turned and fled in abject terror, much to the astonishment of all passers-by. Long afterward he learned that the supposed apparition was a half-brother of his former master.

Jack now determined to devote his life to freeing his countrymen from bondage. In due time he found his way to the house of Mr. John Young, a noted Abolitionist of Wilmington township, in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Young was one of the first men in Mercer County to proclaim his political convictions to the world, and to stand by them, bravely and consistently, and through many a dangerous hour, until slavery was a thing of the past. No man ever asked brave John Young for help and was refused. His house was known among Abolitionists far and wide as a safe station for the Underground Road.

While Jack was at Mr. Young's he fell in with a young minister, himself a former fugitive from Kentucky, and who was at the time an earnest Baptist preacher in Syracuse, N. Y. This friend, named Jarm W. Loguen, promised Jack shelter if he could but reach Syracuse, and so Jack was "forwarded" along the road.

When he reached Erie, the late Mr. Thomas Elliott, of Harborcreek, carried him to Wesleyville. His pursuers were incidentally heard of as being in the vicinity of Meadville, and it was necessary to proceed with great caution; so Jack was hidden away for a few days beneath the shelter of the old church roof.

It so happened that at this time a protracted meeting was in progress in the church. It was a great awakening, well remembered yet in the neighborhood. There were meetings every night, though the church was shut up during the day. During the evening meetings Jack would stay quietly concealed in the garret; but after the congregation dispersed and the key was turned in the door, he would descend, stir up a rousing fire, and make himself as comfortable as possible until the meeting-hour came round again. It is related that Mr. David Chambers generously kept the house supplied with fuel; and his boys, to whose lot fell the manipulation of the wood-pile, were in constant wonder at the disappearance of the wood. "I shan't be very sorry when this revival winds up," said one of them confidentially to the other; "it takes an awful lot of wood to run a red-hot revival." The meanwhile black Jack toasted his shins by the revival fire, and found, no doubt, a deal of comfort in the sacred atmosphere of the sheltering church.

The meetings grew in interest with every night. Scores were gathered into the fold of the church, and the whole community, young and old, were touched by the mysterious power. The meetings were conducted by the Rev. John McLean, afterwards a venerable superannuate of the East Ohio Conference, yet living (at least a few years ago) in Canfield, Mahoning County, Ohio; by the Rev. B. Marsteller, and others. The interest came to a climax one Sunday night. A most thrilling sermon had been preached. Every heart was on fire with the sacred excitement, and it seemed as if the Holy Spirit were almost tangible in their very midst. The church was full, even to the gallery that surrounds three sides of the interior. Methodists are not--at least were not in those days--afraid to shout; and Jack, hidden above the ceiling, had long been a rapt listener to the earnest exhortations. His murder, his people in bondage, all the sorrows and sins of his eventful life, rose before his eyes. Overcome with contrition, he knelt upon the rickety old boards, and poured out his troubles in prayer. Meanwhile, down below, the excitement grew. The Rev. James Sullivan made an impassioned exhortation, and when he finished, the altar was crowded with penitents. The service resolved itself into a general prayer-meeting. Men embraced each other in the aisles, or knelt in tearful prayer together; while shouts of victory and groans of repentance filled the church. God bless the good old-fashioned shouting Methodists, who shouted all the louder as the Lord drew near! Some of the old revival hymns, sent rolling across winter fields, and throbbing and ringing through the midnight air, would set the very universe rejoicing, and scatter the legions of Satan in dismay. Alas that the religion of lungs--the shouting, noisy, devout, glorious old worship, is passing away! The whispers of the Devil too often drown the modulations of modern prayer, and instead of glorified visions of angels and the saints, the eyes of modern worshipers rest weariedly upon the things of the world.

As the tide of excitement swelled higher and wilder that night, it caught poor Jack, up in the garret. Through narrow cracks he could see the emotions and devotions of the audience; and in his enthusiasm he wholly forgot that he was in concealment and his presence known to only two or three of the worshipers.

"Come up, sinners, come up to the Throne of Grace and cast your heavy burdens down," called the pastor, his face aglow with exercise and emotion, and his heart throbbing with exultation. "Praise be to God on High for this glorious harvest of souls."

"Glory, glory, amen!" rose from all parts of the church.

"Glory, glory, amen!" came back a voice from the unknown above.

The hubbub was at such a pitch down stairs that Jack's unconscious response was scarcely heard; but to those in the gallery it was plainly audible.

"Lord God of Sabbaoth," prayed the minister, "come down upon us tonight. Send Thy Spirit into our midst!"

"Amen! glory! hallelujah!" shouted Jack in the garret.

The people in the gallery were in holy fear. "It is Gabriel," they said.

"We come to Thee, Lord! We come, we come!" cried the repentent sinners down stairs.

"I come, I come, glory to God, hallelujah, amen!" shouted back the Gabriel in the garret, clapping his hands in the fervor of his ecstacy.

All at once his Abolition friends below heard him. They were struck with consternation and looked at each other in dismay. If Jack was discovered, there would be trouble; they must quiet him at any hazard. "The idea of that nigger getting the power in the garret! A stop must be put to that at once. A revival in full blast is an unusual treat for an Underground Railroad traveler; he should take with gratitude what he could hear, and keep still for the safety of his skin." So thought his frightened friends, who at once cast about for means to quiet him.

Now it so happened--how fortunate that there is always a way out of a dilemma!--that the old stove-pipe, which connected with the chimney in the attic, frequently became disconnected; and on more than one occasion incipient fires had started among the dry boards of the garret floor. The people were used to seeing the boys go aloft to look after the safety of the house; so, when Dempster M. Chambers, a son of Mr. Stewart Chambers, inspired by a happy thought, scrambled up the ladder and crawled through the trap-door into the gloom, those who noticed it thought only that the old stove-pipe had slipped out, and continued to throw their sins as fuel into the general religious blaze; or thinking of the fires of hell, gave little heed to lesser flames. Jack was soon quieted, and the meeting, having consumed itself with its own fervor, broke up without further incident. There is no doubt, however, that certain worthy people who were seated in the gallery have ever stoutly maintained that the Angel Gabriel actually replied to the prayers of that memorable night.[67]

In due time Jack Watson reached the home of his friend, the Rev. Jarm W. Loguen; and during the dark days of the War he rendered valuable aid to the Union cause along the Kentucky and Virginia borders, and in one guerrilla skirmish he lost his left arm. A few years since he was still living on a preempted land-claim in Rice County, Kansas.

The following incident, connected with Watson's career, will not be out of place in closing this sketch:

Some years since the Rev. Glezen Fillmore, a famous pioneer of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Buffalo, and for more than half a century an honored member of the Genesee Conference, was engaged in raising funds for the Freedmen's Aid Society. One day his cousin, the late ex-President Millard Fillmore, rode out from Buffalo to visit him. During the conversation the venerable preacher related the story of Watson's escape, as Watson himself had told it while at Fillmore's Underground Railroad depot. The former President was strongly touched by the story, and at its close he drew a check for fifty dollars for the Freedmen. "Thank you, thank you," said the good old parson. "I was praying that the Lord would open your heart to give ten dollars, and here are fifty."

No study of Underground Railroad work in this region, even though, like the present paper, it aims to be chiefly anecdotal, can neglect recognition of the fact that it was a Buffalo man in the Presidential chair who, by signing the Fugitive Slave act of 1850, brought upon his head the maledictions of the Abolitionists, who were so stimulated thereby in their humanitarian law-breaking, that the most active period in Underground Railroad work dates from the stroke of Millard Fillmore's pen which sought to put a stop to it. No passage in American history displays more acrimony than this. Wherever the friends of the negro were at work on Underground lines, Mr. Fillmore was denounced in the most intemperate terms. In his home city of Buffalo, some who had hitherto prided themselves upon his distinguished acquaintance, estranged themselves from him, and on his return to Buffalo he found cold and formal treatment from people whom he had formerly greeted as friends. Insults were offered him; and the changed demeanor of many of his townsmen showed itself even in the church which he attended. Certain ardent souls there were who refused any longer to worship where he did.[68] Mr. Fillmore met all these hostile demonstrations, as he sustained the angry protests and denunciations of the Abolitionists in general, in dignified impurturbability, resting his case upon the constitutionality of his conduct. The act of 1850 reaffirmed the act of 1793, and both rested upon the explicit provision in the Constitution which declares that "no person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." Obviously, so far as this section was concerned, many people of the North were in rebellion against the Constitution of the United States for many years before the Civil War. That the work of the Underground Railroad was justifiable in the humanitarian aspect needs no argument now. But the student of that period cannot overcome the legal stand taken by Mr. Fillmore, his advisers and sympathizers, unless he asserts, as Mr. Seward asserted, that the provision of the Constitution relating to the rendition of slaves was of no binding force. "The law of nations," he declared, "disavows such compacts--the law of nature written on the hearts and consciences of men repudiates them."[69] This was met by the plausible assertion that "the hostility which was directed against the law of 1850 would have been equally violent against any law which effectually carried out the provision of the Constitution."[70] During the years that followed, efforts were made to recover fugitive slaves under this law. Special officers were appointed to execute it, but in most Northern communities they were regarded with odium, and every possible obstacle put in the way of the discharge of their offensive duties. Many tragic affairs occurred; but the organization of the Underground Railroad was too thorough, its operation was in the hands of men too discreet and determined, to be seriously disturbed by a law which found so little moral support in the communities through which its devious trails ran. Thus the work went on, through civil contention and bloody war, until the Emancipator came to loose all shackles, to put an end to property in slaves, and to stop all work, because abolishing all need, of the Underground Railroad.

Niagara and the Poets.

NIAGARA AND THE POETS.

On a day in July, 1804, a ruddy-faced, handsome young Irishman, whose appearance must have commanded unusual attention in wild frontier surroundings, came out of the woods that overlooked Lake Erie, picking his way among the still-standing stumps, and trudged down the Indian trail, which had not long been made passable for wagons. Presently he came into the better part of the road, named Willink Avenue, passed a dozen scattered houses, and finally stopped at John Crow's log tavern, the principal inn of the infant Buffalo. He was dusty, tired, and disgusted with the fortune that had brought an accident some distance back in the woods, compelling him to finish this stage of his journey, not merely on foot, but disabled. Here, surrounded by more Indians than whites, he lodged for a day or so before continuing his journey to Niagara Falls; and here, according to his own testimony, he wrote a long poem, which was not only, in all probability, the first poem ever composed in Buffalo, and one of the bitterest tirades against America and American institutions to be found in literature; but which contained, so far as I have been able to discover, the first allusion to Niagara Falls, written by one who actually traveled thither, in the poetry of any language.

The poetry of Niagara Falls is contemporary with the first knowledge of the cataract among civilized men. One may make this statement with positiveness, inasmuch as the first book printed in Europe which mentions Niagara Falls contains a poem in which allusion is made to that wonder. This work is the excessively rare "Des Sauvages" of Champlain (Paris, 1604),[71] in which, after the dedication, is a sonnet, inscribed "Le Sievr de la Franchise av discovrs Dv Sievr Champlain." It seems proper, in quoting this first of all Niagara poems, to follow as closely as may be in modern type the archaic spelling of the original:

Mvses, si vous chantez, vrayment ie vous conseille
Que vous louez Champlain, pour estre courageux:
Sans crainte des hasards, il a veu tant de lieux,
Que ses relations nous contentent l'oreille.
Il a veu le Perou,[72] Mexique & la Merueille
Du Vulcan infernal qui vomit tant de feux,
Et les saults Mocosans,[73] qui offensent les yeux
De ceux qui osent voir leur cheute nonpareille.
Il nous promet encor de passer plus auant,
Reduire les Gentils, & trouuer le Leuant,
Par le Nort, ou le Su, pour aller a la Chine.
C'est charitablement tout pour l'amour de Dieu.
Fy des lasches poltrons qui ne bougent d'vn lieu!
Leur vie, sans mentir, me paroist trop mesquine.

I regret that some research has failed to discover any further information regarding the poet De la Franchise. Obviously, he took rather more than the permissible measure of poet's license in saying that Champlain had seen Peru, a country far beyond the known range of Champlain's travels. But in the phrase "_les saults Mocosans_," the falls of Mocosa, we have the ancient name of the undefined territory afterwards labeled "Virginia." The intent of the allusion is made plainer by Marc Lescarbot, who in 1610 wrote a poem in which he speaks of "great falls which the Indians say they encounter in ascending the St. Lawrence as far as the neighborhood of Virginia."[74] The allusion can only be to Niagara.

It is gratifying to find our incomparable cataract a theme for song, even though known only by aboriginal report, thus at the very dawn of exploration in this part of America. It is fitting, too, that the French should be the first to sing of what they discovered. More than a century after De la Franchise and Lescarbot, a Frenchman who really saw the falls introduced them to the muse, though only by a quotation. This was Father Charlevoix, who, writing "From the Fall of Niagara, May 14, 1721," to the Duchess of Lesdiguieres, was moved to aid his description by quoting poetry. "Ovid," the priest wrote to the duchess, "gives us the description of such another cataract, situated according to him in the delightful valley of Tempe. I will not pretend that the country of Niagara is as fine as that, though I believe its cataract much the noblest of the two," and he thereupon quotes these lines from the "Metamorphoses":

Est nemus Haemoniae, praerupta quod undique claudit
Sylva; vocant Tempe, per quae Peneus ab imo
Effusus Pindo spumosis volvitur undis,
Dejectisque gravi tenues agitantia fumos
Nubila conducit, summisque aspergine sylvas,
Impluit, et sonitu plusquam vicina fatigat.

It would be strange if there were not other impressionable Frenchmen who composed or quoted verses expressive of Niagara's grandeur, during the eighty-one years that elapsed between the French discovery of Niagara Falls and the English Conquest--a period of over three-quarters of a century during which earth's most magnificent cataract belonged to France. But if priest or soldier, coureur-de-bois or verse-maker at the court of Louis said aught in meter of Niagara in all that time, I have not found it.

A little thunder by Sir William Johnson's guns at Fort Niagara, a little blood on the Plains of Abraham, and Niagara Falls was handed over to Great Britain. Four years after the Conquest English poetry made its first claim to our cataract. In 1764 appeared that ever-delightful work, "The Traveller, or, a Prospect of Society," wherein we read:

Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Behold the duteous son, the sire decayed,
The modest matron or the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around
And Niagara[75] stuns with thundering sound.
Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests and through dangerous ways,
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.[76]

Obviously, Oliver Goldsmith's "Traveller," in its American allusions, reflected the current literature of those years when Englishmen heard more of Oswego than they ever have since. Niagara and Oswego were uttermost points told of in the dispatches, during that long war, reached and held by England's "far-flung battle line"; but if Britain's poets found any inspiration in Niagara's mighty fount for a half century after Goldsmith, I know it not.

And this brings us again to our first visiting poet, Tom Moore, whose approach to Niagara by way of Buffalo in 1804 has been described. Penning an epistle in rhyme from "Buffalo, on Lake Erie," to the Hon. W. R. Spencer--writing, we are warranted in fancying, after a supper of poor bacon and tea, or an evening among the loutish Indians who hung about Crow's log-tavern--he recorded his emotions in no amiable mood:

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.

It was the tranquillity and unapproachableness of the great fall, in the midst of so much turmoil, which most impressed him. He tried to express this in a Song of the Spirit of the region:

There amid the island sedge,
Just upon the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit at close of day,[78] ...

The poem as a whole, however, is not a strong one, even for Tom Moore.

As the Irish bard sailed back to England, another pedestrian poet was making ready for a tour to Niagara. This was the Paisley weaver, rhymster and roamer, Alexander Wilson, whose fame as an ornithologist outshines his reputation as a poet. Yet in him America has--by adoption--her Oliver Goldsmith. In 1794, being then twenty-eight years old, he arrived in Philadelphia. For eight years he taught school, or botanized, roamed the woods with his gun, worked at the loom, and peddled his verses among the inhabitants of New Jersey. In October, 1804, accompanied by his nephew and another friend, he set out on a walking expedition to Niagara, which he satisfactorily accomplished. His companions left him, but he persevered, and reached home after an absence of fifty-nine days and a walk of 1,260 miles. It is very pleasant, especially for one who has himself toured afoot over a considerable part of this same route, to follow our naturalist poet and his friends on their long walk through the wilderness, in the pages of Wilson's descriptive poem, "The Foresters." Its first edition, it is believed, is a quaint little volume of 106 pages, published at Newtown, Penn., in 1818.[79] The route led through Bucks and Northumberland counties, over the mountains and up the valley of the Susquehanna; past Newtown, N. Y., now Elmira, and so on to the Indian village of Catherine, near the head of Seneca Lake. Here, a quarter of a century before, Sullivan and his raiders had brought desolation, traces of which stirred our singer to some of his loftiest flights. In that romantic wilderness of rocky glen and marsh and lake, the region where Montour Falls and Watkins now are, Wilson lingered to shoot wild fowl. Thence the route lay through that interval of long ascents--so long that the trudging poet thought

To Heaven's own gates the mountain seemed to rise

--and equally long descents, from Seneca Lake to Cayuga. Here, after a night's rest, under a pioneer's roof:

Our boat now ready and our baggage stored,
Provisions, mast and oars and sails aboard,
With three loud cheers that echoed from the steep,
We launched our skiff "Niagara" to the deep.

Down to old Cayuga bridge they sailed and through the outlet, passed the salt marshes and so on to Fort Oswego. That post had been abandoned on the 28th of October, about a week before Wilson arrived there. A desolate, woebegone place he found it:

Those struggling huts that on the left appear,
Where fence, or field, or cultured garden green,
Or blessed plough, or spade were never seen,
Is old Oswego; once renowned in trade,
Where numerous tribes their annual visits paid.
From distant wilds, the beaver's rich retreat,
For one whole moon they trudged with weary feet;
Piled their rich furs within the crowded store,
Replaced their packs and plodded back for more.
But time and war have banished all their trains
And naught but potash, salt and rum remains.
The boisterous boatman, drunk but twice a day,
Begs of the landlord; but forgets to pay;
Pledges his salt, a cask for every quart,
Pleased thus for poison with his pay to part.
From morn to night here noise and riot reign;
From night to morn 'tis noise and roar again.

Not a flattering picture, truly, and yet no doubt a trustworthy one, of this period in Oswego's history.

But we must hurry along with the poet to his destination, although the temptation to linger with him in this part of the journey is great. Indeed, "The Foresters" is a historic chronicle of no slight value. There is no doubting the fidelity of its pictures of the state of nature and of man along this storied route as seen by its author at the beginning of the century; while his poetic philosophizing is now shrewd, now absurd, but always ardently American in tone.

Our foresters undertook to coast along the Ontario shore in their frail "Niagara"; narrowly escaped swamping, and were picked up by

A friendly sloop for Queenstown Harbor bound,

where they arrived safely, after being gloriously seasick. It was the season of autumn gales. A few days before a British packet called the Speedy, with some twenty or thirty persons on board, including a judge advocate, other judges, witnesses and an Indian prisoner, had foundered and every soul perished. No part of the Speedy was afterwards found but the pump, which Wilson says his captain picked up and carried to Queenston.

Wilson had moralized, philosophized and rhapsodized all the way from the Schuylkill. His verse, as he approaches the Mecca of his wanderings, fairly palpitates with expectation and excitement. He was not a bard to sing in a majestic strain, but his description of the falls and their environment is vivid and of historic value. As they tramped through the forest,--

Heavy and slow, increasing on the ear,
Deep through the woods a rising storm we hear.
Th' approaching gust still loud and louder grows,
As when the strong northeast resistless blows,
Or black tornado, rushing through the wood,
Alarms th' affrighted swains with uproar rude.
Yet the blue heavens displayed their clearest sky,
And dead below the silent forests lie;
And not a breath the lightest leaf assailed;
But all around tranquillity prevailed.
"What noise is that?" we ask with anxious mien,
A dull salt-driver passing with his team.
"Noise? noise?--why, nothing that I hear or see
But Nagra Falls--Pray, whereabouts live ye?"

This touch of realism ushers in a long and over-wrought description of the whole scene. The "crashing roar," he says,

---- bade us kneel and Time's great God adore.

Whatever may have been his emotions, his adjectives are sadly inadequate, and his verse devoid of true poetic fervor. More than one of his descriptive passages, however, give us those glimpses of conditions past and gone, which the historian values. For instance, this:

High o'er the wat'ry uproar, silent seen,
Sailing sedate, in majesty serene,
Now midst the pillared spray sublimely lost,
Swept the gray eagles, gazing calm and slow,
On all the horrors of the gulf below;
Intent, alone, to sate themselves with blood,
From the torn victims of the raging flood.

Wilson was not the man to mistake a bird; and many other early travelers have testified to the former presence of eagles in considerable numbers, haunting the gorge below the falls in quest of the remains of animals that had been carried down stream.

Moore, as we have seen, denounced the country for its lack of

That lingering radiance of immortal mind

which so inspires the poet in older lands. He was right in his fact, but absurd in his fault-finding. It has somewhere been said of him, that Niagara Falls was the only thing he found in America which overcame his self-importance; but we must remember his youth, the flatteries on which he had fed at home and the crudities of American life at that time. For a quarter of a century after Tom Moore's visit there was much in the crass assertiveness of American democracy which was as ridiculous in its way as the Old-World ideas of class and social distinctions were in their way--and vastly more vulgar and offensive. Read, in evidence, Mrs. Trollope and Capt. Basil Hall, two of America's severest and sincerest critics. It should be put down to Tom Moore's credit, too, that before he died he admitted to Washington Irving and to others that his writings on America were the greatest sin of his early life.[80]

Like Moore, Alexander Wilson felt America's lack of a poet; and, like Barlow and Humphreys and Freneau and others of forgotten fame, he undertook--like them again, unsuccessfully--to supply the lack. There is something pathetic--or grotesque, as we look at it--in the patriotic efforts of these commonplace men to be great for their country's sake.

To Europe's shores renowned in deathless song,

asks Wilson,

Must all the honors of the bard belong?
And rural Poetry's enchanting strain
Be only heard beyond th' Atlantic main?
Yet Nature's charms that bloom so lovely here,
Unhailed arrive, unheeded disappear;
While bare black heaths and brooks of half a mile
Can rouse the thousand bards of Britain's Isle.
There, scarce a stream creeps down its narrow bed,
There scarce a hillock lifts its little head,
Or humble hamlet peeps their glades among
But lives and murmurs in immortal song.
Our Western world, with all its matchless floods,
Our vast transparent lakes and boundless woods,
Stamped with the traits of majesty sublime,
Unhonored weep the silent lapse of time,
Spread their wild grandeur to the unconscious sky,
In sweetest seasons pass unheeded by;
While scarce one Muse returns the songs they gave,
Or seeks to snatch their glories from the grave.

This solicitude by the early American writers, lest the poetic themes of their country should go unsung, contrasts amusingly, as does Moore's ill-natured complaining, with the prophetic assurance of Bishop Berkeley's famous lines, written half a century or so before, in allusion to America:

The muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.
. . . . . . . . .
Westward the course of empire takes its way, ...

I have found no other pilgrim poets making Niagara their theme, until the War of 1812 came to create heroes and leave ruin along the frontier, and stir a few patriotic singers to hurl back defiance to the British hordes. Iambic defiance, unless kindled by a grand genius, is a poor sort of fireworks, even when it undertakes to combine patriotism and natural grandeur. Certainly something might be expected of a poet who sandwiches Niagara Falls in between bloody battles, and gives us the magnificent in nature, the gallant in warfare and the loftiest patriotism in purpose, the three strains woven in a triple paean of passion, ninety-four duodecimo pages in length. Such a work was offered to the world at Baltimore in 1818, with this title-page: "Battle of Niagara, a Poem Without Notes, and Goldau, or the Maniac Harper. Eagles and Stars and Rainbows. By Jehu O' Cataract, author of 'Keep Cool.'" I have never seen "Keep Cool," but it must be very different from the "Battle of Niagara," or it belies its name. The fiery Jehu O' Cataract was John Neal.[81]

The "Battle of Niagara," he informs the reader, was written when he was a prisoner; when he "felt the victories of his countrymen." "I have attempted," he says, "to do justice to American scenery and American character, not to versify minutiae of battles." The poem has a metrical introduction and four cantos, in which is told, none too lucidly, the story of the battle of Niagara; with such flights of eagles, scintillation of stars and breaking of rainbows, that no brief quotation can do it justice. In style it is now Miltonic, now reminiscent of Walter Scott. The opening canto is mainly an apostrophe to the Bird, and a vision of glittering horsemen. Canto two is a dissertation on Lake Ontario, with word-pictures of the primitive Indian. The rest of the poem is devoted to the battle near the great cataract--and throughout all are sprinkled the eagles, stars and rainbows. Do not infer from this characterization that the production is wholly bad; it is merely a good specimen of that early American poetry which was just bad enough to escape being good.

A brief passage or two will sufficiently illustrate the author's trait of painting in high colors. He is a word-impressionist whose brush, with indiscreet dashes, mars the composition. I select two passages descriptive of the battle:

The drum is rolled again. The bugle sings
And far upon the wind the cross flag flings
A radiant challenge to its starry foe,
That floats--a sheet of light!--away below,
Where troops are forming--slowly in the night
Of mighty waters; where an angry light
Bounds from the cataract, and fills the skies
With visions--rainbows--and the foamy dyes
That one may see at morn in youthful poets' eyes.

Niagara! Niagara! I hear
Thy tumbling waters. And I see thee rear
Thy thundering sceptre to the clouded skies:
I see it wave--I hear the ocean rise,
And roll obedient to thy call. I hear
The tempest-hymning of thy floods in fear;
The quaking mountains and the nodding trees--
The reeling birds and the careering breeze--
The tottering hills, unsteadied in thy roar;
Niagara! as thy dark waters pour
One everlasting earthquake rocks thy lofty shore!
. . . . . . . . .
The cavalcade went by. The day hath gone;
And yet the soldier lives; his cheerful tone
Rises in boisterous song; while slowly calls
The monarch spirit of the mighty falls:
Soldier, be firm! and mind your watchfires well;
Sleep not to-night!

The following picture of the camp at sunset, as the reveille rings over the field, and Niagara's muffled drums vibrate through the dusk, presents many of the elements of true poetry:

Low stooping from his arch, the glorious sun
Hath left the storm with which his course begun;
And now in rolling clouds goes calmly home
In heavenly pomp adown the far blue dome.
In sweet-toned minstrelsy is heard the cry,
All clear and smooth, along the echoing sky,
Of many a fresh-blown bugle full and strong,
The soldier's instrument! the soldier's song!
Niagara, too, is heard; his thunder comes
Like far-off battle--hosts of rolling drums.
All o'er the western heaven the flaming clouds
Detach themselves and float like hovering shrouds.
Loosely unwoven, and afar unfurled,
A sunset canopy enwraps the world.
The Vesper hymn grows soft. In parting day
Wings flit about. The warblings die away,
The shores are dizzy and the hills look dim,
The cataract falls deeper and the landscapes swim.

Jehu O' Cataract does not always hold his fancy with so steady a rein as this. He is prone to eccentric flights, to bathos and absurdities. His apostrophe to Lake Ontario, several hundred lines in length, has many fine fancies, but his luxuriant imagination continually wrecks itself on extravagancies which break down the effect. This I think the following lines illustrate:

... He had fought with savages, whose breath
He felt upon his cheek like mildew till his death.
. . . . . . . . .
So stood the battle. Bravely it was fought,
Lions and Eagles met. That hill was bought
And sold in desperate combat. Wrapped in flame,
Died these idolaters of bannered fame.
Three times that meteor hill was bravely lost--
Three times 'twas bravely won, while madly tost,
Encountering red plumes in the dusky air;
While Slaughter shouted in her bloody lair,
And spectres blew their horns and shook their whistling hair.
. . . . . . . . .

There are allusions to Niagara in some of the ballads of the War of 1812, one of the finest of which, "Sea and Land Victories," beginning

With half the western world at stake
See Perry on the midland lake,--

appeared in the Naval Songster of 1815, and was a great favorite half a century or more ago. So far, however, as the last War with Great Britain has added to our store of poetry by turning the attention of the poets to the Niagara region as a strikingly picturesque scene of war, there is little worthy of attention. One ambitious work is remembered, when remembered at all, as a curio of literature. This is "The Fredoniad, or Independence Preserved," an epic poem by Richard Emmons, a Kentuckian, afterwards a physician of Philadelphia. He worked on it for ten years, finally printed it in 1826, and in 1830 got it through a second edition, ostentatiously dedicated to Lafayette. "The Fredoniad" is a history in verse of the War of 1812; it was published in four volumes; it has forty cantos, filling 1,404 duodecimo pages, or a total length of about 42,000 lines. The first and second cantos are devoted to Hell, the third to Heaven, and the fourth to Detroit. About one-third of the whole work is occupied with military operations on the Niagara frontier. Nothing from Fort Erie to Fort Niagara escapes this meter-machine. The Doctor's poetic feet stretch out to miles and leagues, but not a single verse do I find that prompts to quotation; though, I am free to confess, I have not read them all, and much doubt if any one save the infatuated author, and perhaps his proof-reader, ever did read the whole of "The Fredoniad."

* * * * *

No sooner was the frontier at peace, and the pathways of travel multiplied and smoothed, than there set in the first great era of tourist travel to Niagara. From 1825, when the opening of the Erie Canal first made the falls easily accessible to the East, the tide of visitors steadily swelled. In that year came one other poetizing pilgrim, from York, now Toronto, who, returning home, published in his own city a duodecimo of forty-six pages, entitled "Wonders of the West, or a Day at the Falls of Niagara in 1825. A Poem. By a Canadian." The author was J. S. Alexander, said to have been a Toronto school-teacher. It is a great curio, though of not the least value as poetry; in fact, as verse it is ridiculously bad. The author does not narrate his own adventures at Niagara, but makes his descriptive and historical passages incidental to the story of a hero named _St. Julian_. Never was the name of this beloved patron saint of travelers more unhappily bestowed, for this _St. Julian_ is a lugubrious, crack-brained individual who mourns the supposed death of a lady-love, _Eleanor St. Fleur_. Other characters are introduced; all French except a remarkable driver named _Wogee_, who tells legends and historic incidents in as good verse, apparently, as the author was able to produce. _St. Julian_ is twice on the point of committing suicide; once on Queenston Heights, and again at the falls. Just as he is about to throw himself into the river he hears his _Ellen's_ voice--the lady, it seems, had come from France by a different route--all the mysteries are cleared up, and the reunited lovers and their friends decide to "hasten hence,"

Again to our dear native France,
Where we shall talk of all we saw,
At thy dread falls, Niagara.[82]

From about this date the personal adventures of individuals bound for Niagara cease to be told in verse, and if they were they would cease to be of much historic interest. The relation of the poets to Niagara no longer concerns us because of its historic aspect.

* * * * *

There remains, however, an even more important division of the subject. The review must be less narrative than critical, to satisfy the natural inquiry, What impress upon the poetry of our literature has this greatest of cataracts made during the three-quarters of a century that it has been easily accessible to the world? What of the supreme in poetry has been prompted by this mighty example of the supreme in nature? The proposition at once suggests subtleties of analysis which must not be entered upon in this brief survey. The answer to the question is attempted chiefly by the historical method. A few selected examples of the verse which relates to Niagara will, by their very nature, indicate the logical answer to the fundamental inquiry.

There is much significance in the fact, that what has been called the best poem on Niagara was written by one who never saw the falls. Chronologically, so far as I have ascertained, it is the work which should next be considered, for it appeared in the columns of a New-England newspaper, about the time when the newly-opened highway to the West robbed Niagara forever of her majestic solitude, and filled the world with her praise. They may have been travelers' tales that prompted, but it was the spiritual vision of the true poet that inspired the lines printed in the _Connecticut Mirror_ at Hartford, about 1825, by the delicate, gentle youth, John G. C. Brainard. It is a poem much quoted, of a character fairly indicated by these lines:

It would seem
As if God formed thee from his "hollow hand"
And hung his bow upon thine awful front;
And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Savior's sake,
"The sound of many waters"; and bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.

Measured by the strength of an Emerson or a Lowell, this is but feeble blank verse, approaching the bombastic; but as compared with what had gone before, and much that was to follow, on the Niagara theme, it is a not unwelcome variation.

The soul's vision, through imagination's magic glass, receives more of Poesy's divine light than is shed upon all the rapt gazers at the veritable cliff and falling flood.