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THE VILLAGE OF NIAGARA FALLS |
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THE
VILLAGE OF NIAGARA FALLS by
P. M. Eckel An ephemeral population of visitors, a
group distinct from the first settlers, soldiers and traders, was of a
constant and regular occurrence at the falls, such that James Flint commented
on their presence as early as 1822 (Scott and Scott, 1983). These visitors
frequently appealed to government to provide for their ease of passage, such
as La Rochefoucault in 1795, visiting Niagara on the Canadian (British) side
who "experienced so much difficulty in making a way through thickets,
rocks and swamps to points of vantage from which to view the cataract that he
was moved to write: "it is much to be regretted that the government of a
people which surpass all other nations in fondness for traveling and
curiosity should not have provided convenient places for observing this
phenomenon at all possible points of view." He considered that for
thirty dollars "the greatest curiosity in the known world would be
rendered accessible" (in Way, 1946). While the earliest industries engaged in
by the Europeans dealt with the capacity for milling on the river's edge, in
particular, by the French, with mills on both sides of the river (Way, 1946),
and trade, there were later taverns and other lodgings and related businesses
established based on the presence of spectators, especially after the turn of
the nineteenth century and the war of 1812-14 (Way, 1946). Chippawa, in
Ontario and just above the falls, possessed two taverns and ten houses.
"In 1801, the Reverend David Bacon of Connecticut discovered what was
apparently the first public-house at the site of the cataract. He recorded:
'There was at the Falls a good tavern where we took breakfast, but there was
no other house, and I think there was none on the American side" (Way,
1946, citing Green, no date). One inn, Forsythe's Hotel, in 1819 (perhaps on
the Canadian side) "had lately erected a covered stairway by which
visitors could descend into the gorge below the cataract" (Way, 1946,
citing Green, no date), a precedent to the Biddle Stairs. The entertainment
of visitors as a commercial enterprise increased in the 1820's (Way, 1946).
In 1823 the Ontario House and The Pavilion had been built on the Canadian
side, neither of which had existed in 1818 and one visitor noted, in 1822,
that "the Falls of Niagara are much visited by strangers ... there is a
large tavern on each side of the river, and in the album kept at one of
these, I observed that upwards of a hundred folio pages had been written with
names within five months" (James Flint, quoted in Way, 1946). The
Clifton House, Ontario, was erected in 1853. Tourism appears to have been more
fundamental to the settlement of the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, than the
twin city on the American side. A city was to have been created on the
Canadian side before 1836. The project "was primarily a financial one
dependent on the tourist traffic, it had as a secondary objective, the idea
of protecting the Falls from commercial enterprises derogatory to the natural
scenery" (Way, 1946). When, however, the American railway systems uniting
the settlement on the American side with Buffalo and Lockport were built,
"tourist traffic between Buffalo and the Falls was diverted from the
Canadian to the American side of the river" and the tourist industry on
the Ontario side experienced a setback, such that the project was temporarily
forestalled. "The population of the village of
Niagara Falls [New York] in 1853 was probably less than 2,000" (Adams,
1927). Some of these people would have worked in the mills established along
the upper river bank opposite Goat Island, some in municipal government, such
as it was, and some in the hotels built in the area. Although the village
sported such a small population, "it had a yearly influx of visitors in
numbers up to 60,000 .... Much of this tourism was stimulated by the growth
of the railroads .... By 1853 there were six railroads being built or
completed in the Falls area" (Scott & Scott, 1983). While the
Porters, who essentially owned the aboriginal land on which the village of
Niagara Falls developed, kept their eyes on the gigantic prospectus of
regional development, local businessmen made their money in the service
sector associated with the hotel and tavern businesses. As far as my
references indicate, the Porter family never involved itself in the local tourist
trade except for their interest in Goat Island. The descendants of Augustus
and Peter B. Porter never appeared to have offered up this bit of real estate
to development after the 1825 prospectus discussed above, rather
concentrating on the disposal of their considerable real estate across the
river on the mainland. The possession of Goat Island seemed to give the
family prestige, and they embellished it in such a way as to maintain or
augment this value. It is perhaps their dilettante interest in history that
stimulated the island's maintenance in its primitive state. With the establishment of the first
hydraulic company to develop the canal, in 1852, the Porters disposed of
"about 80 acres on the level plain or plateau below the falls, for
manufacturing sites, extending about 1 mile on and along the high bank of the
river, ... 1100 feet of water front for wharf purposes, above the falls,
opposite Grass Island, and ... a strip of land 100 feet wide for the canal,
the whole situated within the limits of the village of Niagara Falls"
(Adams, 1927). "'All these lands,' it was claimed, 'including their
water-privileges and other advantages, together with the exclusive right to
construct the proposed canal, were purchased by the company ... and are now
absolutely owned by them'" (Adams, 1927). Whether these property rights
were sold by the company when it failed, or reverted to the previous owners
could not be established here, but the rights most likely stayed with the
company and ended be-longing to the Schoellkopf concern, which permanently
owned the general outline of these lands up until the State acquired them in
the twentieth century. Grand and internationally famous hotels
were erected in the village: those built after the War of 1812 and around the
time of the opening of the Erie Canal, as discussed above, and others as the
century advanced. The Cataract House was built, in part, by David Chapman in
1824, and has been enlarged from time to time to its present great extent by
P. Whitney and Sons. The International Hotel, built by B. F. Childs, and
enlarged by J. T. Bush ... ranks with the Cataract House among the largest
and best conducted hotels anywhere to be found. The Spencer House and Niagara
House here, and the Monteagle Hotel at Suspension Bridge, are all of more
recent date, and are all of them hotels of high character and large
capacity" (A. Porter, 1875). In the mid-1940's, for example, the
Cataract House "was extended to the river's edge where bath areas were
built in the rapids" (Scott & Scott, 1983). "This addition
included a ballroom and balconies extending over the edge of the upper rapids
.... The unique combination of one of America's most spectacular natural
settings and a fine hotel representing the height of mid-19th century luxury
often moved visitors standing on the balconies of the Cataract to compose
reflective responses to the majesty of the cataract or of life itself"
(Scott & Scott, 1983). "The mood of a visit to Niagara in
the 1840's was genteel. Gardens and a fish pond edged the River bank by the
Cataract House." In the 1850's the International Hotel was built
"across the street from the Cataract next to where the Eagle Tavern had
long been established .... The Vedder, also known as the Glove, the Camel,
the Frontier House, or the Fall's View Hotel was constructed at Ontario
Street and Whirlpool. In 1852 the American Hotel was built .... On Falls
Street the Empire House [was] built in 1852 .... These hotels were generally
seasonal, but they catered to both short-term visitors and summer
guests" (Scott & Scott, 1983). During the 1850's a suspension bridge
was built to Canada and DeVeaux College was established; the town of
Suspension Bridge was incorporated into what became the City of Niagara Falls
in 1854. The Monteagle Hotel opened in 1855, "and in the following year
the very popular International Hotel opposite Prospect Park was expanded. ...
Opposite the International, the Niagara Park Place was opened which included
reading rooms, billiards, liquor, and a soda fountain" (Scott &
Scott, 1983). It appears that it was during the decade
of the Civil War that the peaceful mood within the visitor population and the
system erected for its comfort changed for the worse. As discussed in the
previous section, the nature of the business community changed perhaps from
something that might be described as "old money" to a class of
businessmen recently made rich from sale of goods under contract to the Union
government - an "ostentatious and offensive" lot. "The prosperity,
anguish, and dislocations of war stimulated extravagant living, frantic
amusements, vice, and crime .... Entertainment flourished. Theaters featuring
comedy were jammed; and parties, balls, and receptions cheered both the
indifferent and the afflicted of war. Vice flourished in cities and near army
camps, and Lincoln observed that in the wake of war 'Every foul bird comes
abroad, and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion ...
Murders for old grudges, and murders for pelf, proceed under any cloak that
will best cover for the occasion" (Hoogenboom, in American Encyclopedia,
1927). Alfred Porter, one of representatives of
"old money" on the Niagara Frontier, characterized the sad state to
which society had come in his town: Niagara Falls: "Few persons in this
progressive age will admit that the olden time was better than the new, yet
it cannot be denied that the fearful increase of crime, and the sad
corruption of morals, now so obvious, both in public and private life, are
legitimate fruits of wealth and luxury, and of the overweening greed for
money, so characteristic of the present times" (Porter, 1875). "The War did not stop the flow of
tourists to the Falls and Niagara business men continued to build to please
crowds" (Scott & Scott, 1983). Competition with tourist businesses
on the Canadian side was aggravated with the construction of the Upper
Suspension Bridge in 1869 (Scott & Scott, 1983). More bridges, walkways,
buildings were added to structures in Prospect Park and in the Goat Island
complex. Reports, such as that by Mark Twain in 1869, spoke of
"competing hackmen, aggressive salesmen, and Indian craftsmen soliciting
tourists in shops, in front of hotels, and even throughout the sloped banks
of the Park" (Scott & Scott, 1983). By the 1870's, economic interests began
to overwhelm the city environment near the falls. Residential areas at the
river's edge and adjacent to the entrance to the bridge to Goat Island were
bought up and commercialized -primarily through the enterprise of a Mr.
Tugby, who "dominated the River front to the left of the Goat Island
Bridge" (Scott and Scott, 1983). The area of Bridge Street, which
connected Main Street to the bridge to Goat Island had been residential
before it was commercialized. The Porter family continued to divest
itself of riverfront property to developers, particularly Prospect Point in
1872. Like Goat Island, the Porters had maintained Prospect Point with little
development. As part of the agreement of sale of Prospect Point, the Porters
demolished the Terrapin Tower, "about the same time that Bridge Street
was commercialized" (Scott & Scott, 1983). The "grand old
Terrapin Tower was needlessly torn down in 1873 in order that it might not
prove an adverse attraction to the interests of a company which had bought
and were about to fence in the last spot of land on the American shore, from
which a near view of the Falls could be obtained; a point which so long as it
remained in the possession of the owners of Goat Island had been free to the
world" (Porter, 1900). This last note is an example of the contradictory
stance of the Porters. The Prospect Park Company would be one of the last of
the private concerns to protest the State's condemnation of their property in
the establishment of the State Reservation (Welch, 1903). Fences were built
"around much of Prospect Point making the Falls only visible to paying
customers" (Scott and Scott, 1983). With Terrapin Tower gone, one of the
major prospect opportunities was lost to the people and the attraction to Goat
Island was lessened in favor of the business enterprise on Prospect Park -
with full cooperation by the Porter owners. The company operating the Park
established on this tract "a store, a dwelling, garden rockwork,
terraced slopes, flower beds, ornamental trees, fountains, several pavilions,
an art gallery, a variety theatre, and machinery for illuminating the
Falls" (Scott & Scott, 1983). A fountain was built by the Prospect
Park Company in 1877 "of stone, earth and moss in the center of a large
fish pond designed in the manner of a modern Disney creation .... Everything
was improved for the tourists .... Even an Art Gallery housing paintings,
magnifying lenses and stereoscopes was built near the Pavilion ...." Yet
the overall impression left in the minds of the visitors seems to be
expressed by Henri Rochefort's statement that: 'The banks on the side of the
rapids are crowded with pedlars and even fair-stalls. Everything is on
sale" (Scott & Scott, 1983). Perhaps as a testament to the impact of
the Civil War on the minds of the citizens of Niagara Falls, a monument to
Civil War soldiers was erected there in 1876 (Scott & Scott, 1983). Scott and Scott (1983) report many
instances in which it was attested that Goat Island and the American side was
one of the most popular attractions in the area, such in the 1830's when
"the Canadian side was preferred for its view, but Goat Island continued
to attract the most visitors." Again, Goat Island was the most popular
attraction in the 1860's, with over 100,000 people predicted in the Niagara
Falls Gazette to visit in 1868. "By the 1870's the area [of the falls]
had become, to the huge profit and advantage of local business, the greatest
tourist attraction in the Americas" (Way, 1946). The falls received world-wide
advertisement in commercial views of Niagara distributed world-wide, which
"decorated theater curtains, scenic wallpapers, dinnerware, sheet music,
commercial advertising labels, lamp shades, and stock certificates. Niagara
Falls also proved to be the single most popular landscape subject among the
millions of mass-produced stereographic photographs that flooded the parlors
of the Old and New Worlds after 1860. It was truly a theme for Everyman,
appealing equally to all classes and levels of taste on both sides of the Atlantic"
(Adamson, 1985). Gradually there came a point where the
businesses established to derive economic benefits from serving visitors
found themselves in a position to use these visitors in such a way as to
maximize the most profits for themselves. They permitted their customers
little independence and held the vistas for ransom. High fences were built at
Prospect Point and other areas on the shoreline, and visitors were blocked
from experiencing Niagara without first paying a fee. Only a few individuals
effectively blocked the multitudes from enjoying the great natural vista. A
precedent for fencing came in the 1820's on the Canadian prospect when, in a
bid to monopolize the tourist business, William Forsythe, owner of The
Pavilion hotel mentioned above and perhaps the earlier Forsythe Hotel (if
these were not the same enterprise), "in order to prevent free access to
points from which a close view of the cataract could be obtained ... erected
fences on the Chain Reserve, a reservation of government land sixty-six feet
in width which extended along the top of the Niagara's bank and was
originally intended for military purposes" (Way, 1946). In the 1880's, the village, or City, of
Niagara Falls, New York, existed still essentially within a rural regional context.
A makeshift, unorganized population of individuals was engaged in an
unregulated "tourist industry." The village had a government that
was inadequate in legislating and enforcing control over these
unsophisticated entrepreneurs, or it showed an unwillingness to do so. Coincidental with the commercialization
of Niagara Falls on both sides of the Niagara River was a distressing
spiritual degradation of the Falls environment brought about by the tourist
industry. Almost as a form of mockery of the "sublimity" of feeling
and inspiration traditionally presented by the unique character of Niagara's
environment, the tourist industry presented Niagara's unique character as a
freak of nature, not as its highest expression. The fences, through which one
could peep at the Falls for a coin, degraded the curious, as though paying
for a forbidden glance at a human or animal deformity in a carnival. As a parody of the awesome grandeur and
ominous peril of the high energy liquid landscape, people came to
"dare" the natural dangers. As early as 1829, Sam Patch erected
95-foot platforms over the water of the plunge pool beside the American Falls
and jumped into the deep waters there to an appreciative audience. In 1829-30
Francis Abbott, characterized as the Hermit of Niagara, presented his
conspicuous unhappiness to those who would observe him by suspending himself
over the cascading waters of the Horseshoe Falls off the Terrapin Rocks
bridge: "From the ends of these timbers he would hang by his hands, his
body suspended in mid-air over the abyss, exhibiting absolute fearlessness
and strength of will" (Porter, 1900). Stunts were performed by the
tightrope walkers Blondin and Willa Hunt in the 1850's and 1860's and people
thronged to see these people sent to their destruction as well as to their
successful accomplishments. As noted earlier, the blasting of weakened
cliff-ledges was announced and people crowded to watch. "Of all the incidents connected
with Niagara, none is more thrilling than the efforts made to rescue Avery
from a log in the rapids a short distance above the American Fall, on July
19, 1853. The night before, Avery and a companion had been swept over the
river in a boat. Avery landed on a log, but his companion was carried over
the Fall. All day long mighty efforts were made to save Avery. Boats, rafts
and barrels were let down to him from the Goat Island bridge, and towards
evening, just when a rescue appeared certain, the very boat that was designed
to carry him to safety struck him full in the breast and knocked him into the
river, he was hurled over the Falls to the horror of the assembled
thousands" (The Niagara Book, 1901). Hence the name Avery's Rock for one
of the rocks in the channel of the American falls. A similar incident
happened in 1838 to a Mr. Chapin, who was successfully rescued, after whom
Chapin's Island was named (The Niagara Book, 1901). "Everywhere peddlers hawked their
wares, and sideshows erected at every vantage point were filled with freaks
assembled from all over the world, so that the vicinity of the cataract had
taken on the aspect of a colossal carnival. William Dean Howells, in
describing the scene in 1860, mentions the tent enshrining a five-legged calf
which was offered as a secondary marvel when visitors were satiated with the
Falls. 'I do not say,' Howells whimsically observed, 'that the picture of the
calf on the outside of the tent was not a good as some pictures of Niagara I
have seen. It was, at least, as much like.' Thus on every hand, there was
barbarous incongruity between human debasement and the wonder of the
cataract" (Way, 1946). Way (1946) summed up the crisis
developing in the cities of Niagara Falls: "Since it is almost a truism
that uncontrolled enterprise in any sphere is apt to mistake liberty for
license, it is not surprising that the Falls had now [in the 1870's] been for
at least a generation the scene of unprincipled exploitation of the tourists
by rapacious cabmen and others practiced in the art of polite robbery ....
Travelers were regarded as lawful prey, fees being exacted for every service
and no service at all. By 1870 the annoyance and humiliation to which
tourists were subjected on both sides of the cataract was fast approaching a
climax. Already many persons had concluded that a change was imperative and
were expressing their conviction that the Governments of Canada and the
United States should assume responsibility through the establishment of
national parks." The Civil War in the United States
generated a substantial loss of human life, with more men dying from
bacterial causes associated with disease and primitive medical care than in
the battles themselves. This situation duplicated the situation for Britain
earlier in the Crimea, where "less than five thousand soldiers had
succumbed to enemy action, more than sixteen thousand to disease"
(Roper, 1973), a condition to which the British Sanitary Commission responded
with a vengeance. During the war "humanitarianism flourished and
intellectual life was not neglected. The United States Sanitary Commission
and the Christian Commission of the Young Men's Christian Association not
only helped care for the wounded but also improved the morale of able-bodied
soldiers" (Hoogenboom, in Encyclopedia Americana, 1927). Frederick Law
Olmsted was elected executive secretary of the United States Sanitary
Commission in 1861, a Federal commission established by Lincoln in the face
of an inept and hostile Medical Department of the United States Army. Locally in Buffalo, in association with
the war and its ending, socially conscious activities included the Ladies
General Aid Society who made shirts, drawers, socks and bandages for the
Union army, administered the Soldier's Rest Home and "several Christian
benevolent groups catered to the spiritual needs of wounded local soldiers.
While the female members ... engaged in these and kindred activities, the men
... donated some of their ... wealth for the foundation of the Buffalo
Historical Society, the Fine Arts Academy, and the [Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences]" (Goldman, 1983). The Buffalo chapter of the Young
Men's Christian Association shared its facilities with the young Society of
Natural Sciences. But above all, the Civil War resulted in
the triumph of a centralized federal government over state's rights - the
rights of the nation over those of the states. It gave, then, impetus to the
development of the bureaucracies that would govern the natural resources of
the nation, for instance the United Stated Forest Service under Gifford
Pinchott, friend of Olmsted, appointed forester to the Vanderbilt Biltmore
Estate which Olmsted designed and whose "large-scale example of
practical forest management," the first in the United States, was
conceptualized by the great designer, and implemented by Pinchott. Ultimately
would come the National Park Service. A strong, new superior government would
become the source of higher authority for problems not handled very
satisfactorily by state and municipal governments regarding issues that
transcended national and state boundaries. "During and after the Civil War,
the United Stated developed a sharpened consciousness of their unity as a
nation. ... Undertakings of national scope came into being, and certain ideas
spread, as though by contagion, nationally. National banks were superseding
state banks; national securities were a favorite investment. ... A national
Academy of Sciences was founded, a National Commissioner of Agriculture was
appointed, and a National Department of Education established. For the
promotion of industrial and agricultural education on a national scale,
Congress appropriated a vast domain from the public lands ... The national
park idea was anticipated in the reservation of the Yosemite Valley, and the
idea of rural parks for cities was taking hold across the country from New
York to San Francisco" (Roper, 1973). On January 9, 1879, Governor Robinson of
New York State submitted a message to the New York State Legislature
requesting the appointment of a commission, in conjunction with a similarly
appointed commission by the Province of Ontario, to develop a plan to
"remedy ... abuses" to which visitors were presently subjected at
Niagara Falls.
This delightful artist's representation
gives some indication of the kind of visitor's experience to be had, at least
on the Canadian portion of the area of the falls in the 1860's. No
attribution of publication for this cartoon is given by the source (Kiwanis
Club, 1984). Drawing by Duncan Macpherson. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Edward
Dean. 1927. Niagara Power: History of the Niagara Falls Power Company
1886-1918. 2 Vols. Niagara Falls Power Company, Niagara Falls, New York. Goldman, Mark.
1983. High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York. University of
the State of New York Press, Albany. Porter, Albert
H. 1875. Niagara from 1805 to 1875, by an old resident. Privately printed
pamphlet in Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. Porter, P. A. 1900.
Goat Island, in Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commission for the State
Reservation at Niagara for the Year 1899. Albany, pp. 75-129. Roper, L. W.
1973. A biography of Fredrick Law Olmsted. Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore. Scott, S. D.
& P. K. Scott. 1983. The Niagara Reservation Archaeological and
Historical Resource Survey, 1983. New York Office of Parks, Recreation, and
Historic Preservation. Historic Sites Bureau, March. Way, R. L.
1946. Ontario’s Niagara Parks, A History. The Niagara Parks Commission,
Niagara Falls, Ontario. |
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