Rochesters Remarkable Past

Excerpt from Desultory Notes and Reminiscences of the City of Rochester: Its Early History, Remarkable Men and Events, Strange Revelations of the Murders, Mysteries and Miseries, Casualties, Curiosities and Progress of This Young and Growing City, for the Last 50 Years The first election for five Trustees was held in 1817, when Francis Brown, Daniel Mack, Wm. Cobb, Everard Peck and Jehiel Barnard for trustees, and Hastings R. Bender, Clerk, and F. F. Backus, Treasurer - now all deceased. Of the 16 officers of the Fire Department, only two are now alive, Col. Aaron newton and stephen charles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The true history of a legendary American folk hero In the 1820s, a fellow named Sam Patch grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, working there (when he wasn't drinking) as a mill hand for one of America's new textile companies. Sam made a name for himself one day by jumping seventy feet into the tumultuous waters below Pawtucket Falls. When in 1827 he repeated the stunt in Paterson, New Jersey, another mill town, an even larger audience gathered to cheer on the daredevil they would call the "Jersey Jumper." Inevitably, he went to Niagara Falls, where in 1829 he jumped not once but twice in front of thousands who had paid for a good view. The distinguished social historian Paul E. Johnson gives this deceptively simple story all its deserved richness, revealing in its characters and social settings a virtual microcosm of Jacksonian America. He also relates the real jumper to the mythic Sam Patch who turned up as a daring moral hero in the works of Hawthorne and Melville, in London plays and pantomimes, and in the spotlight with Davy Crockett—a Sam Patch who became the namesake of Andrew Jackson's favorite horse. In his shrewd and powerful analysis, Johnson casts new light on aspects of American society that we may have overlooked or underestimated. This is innovative American history at its best.

List of members in v. 1-2, 4.

THE WONDERFUL LEAPS OF SAM PATCH was originally published circa 1875 by McLoughlin Brothers, New York, New York.