Delaware Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1843-1874, 1866-09-17
Correspondence of the Republican,
TRENTON FALLS, New YoRK,
September 6, 1866.

TRENTON FALLS, NEW York,
September 6, 1866. I
Friend Vernon BY way of keeping up COM
munication with dear old Wilmington, and al
your request, send you little letter from
this delightful spot in Oneida county, N, Y.
Trenton Falls take their name from a little
village near by, settled many years ago by the
Dutch. As a place of resort tho Falls have
been known to the public only OF compare
lively late years. The tourist reaches them
from New York City by way of the Central
Railroad of New York: We-my friend Nr.
Morrow and my self-took the Hudson River
Railroad TO Albany. This is one of the most
beautiful roads in the land running on the
shore OF the river, and often for long distances
on causeways and bridges, over the water itself,
the whole distance from New York to Albany.
Without changing cars you cross the Hudson
on the bridge constructed with such wonderful
celerity and strength, short time since, and
the New York Central Railroad receives you.
Ninety Ave miles brings you to Utica, city
of broad and beautiful streets, and full OF busi-
ness activity. Leaving the Central Road You
take the Blackwater Railroad, and ride by
rail and stage of seventeen miles ends al the
Trenton House close by the Falls. The hotel
is large and handsome and situated very beau
hfully, but the fare does not answer to the
situation or especially to the charges.
We reached here just at night fall, after
day of pleasant travel. Let me try to give you
faint conception, as we had it, of
TRENTON FALLS.
They are not a single fall, but a succession
of some five or six falls occurring in the river
during a course of some two or three miles. A
peculiar feature, and one which adds greatly
to their interest, 10 the fact that oae can as
tba 81; hapL nj h,,t tl,a rf,ip nf fba
water almost the whole distance, and thus be
successively at the foot OF each fall as he ap-
proaches it, reviewing first, it from below, and
then climbing the rocks and looking down
upon it from above.
Proceeding few rods from the Hotel and
going down a fight of stairs, you come TO the
river AID very soon the path cut in the rocks,
(along which you pass, at times securing your
footing by chain which hangs for hand rail J
brings you in sight of the first fall. 1t is
body OF water, perhaps fifty feet wide, rushing
over rocks some twenty feet high. There would
be nothing especially striking in the fall itself
were 1t not for its surroundings. You fnd
yourself in deep gorge with vast piles of rocks
towering above you some two hundred feet,
covered with evergreen, your narrow path
holding you close beside the rushing waters
which touch your feet, and the roar of the fsll
in your ear.
Passing carefully on, at one point under an
overhanging rock which roofs for fifty feet
your way, at a sudden turn you come out on a
narrow platform of rock and the Falls Of Tren-
ton, the High Falls are before you.
The river here makes two majestic leaps
the frst with a perpendicular tall of almost
80 feet, the second of lo9 feet. They aie not
in immediate succession, the river flowing by
q rapid descent from the first several huudred
yards before making its second plunge; bu.
from where you stand the line of vision cuts
the top of the frat and strikes the teot of the
second, and both appear as one.
The upper fall, which is both the highest
and the widest, is not in one broad Sheet but
to your right, comes over in thin lace-like
veil, white and beautiful in this autumn sun
to your left it ruehes in vast volume an amber
flood, 60 different that you might well doubt
that there were the same waters flowing there.
You stand with the falls before you the roar
and the dash at your side, the mountain clffs
shutting you in, the pine-clad heights and the
blue sky above you. II is a scene OF mingled
grandeur and beauty, which one is privileged
to have but here aud there in this world 80 full
OF wonder and beauty. There is nothing here
OF Niagaras sublimity and awfulness, but more
than Niagara's beauty.
Climbing up from rock to rock and upon 'olg
fight OF stairs you come along the falls and
pass on. still finding yous way among the rocks
an1 close along the shore, still under the
shadow OF oyerhanging crags which rise ffe-
1uently hundreds of feet above you, till you
come to the "Mill Dam Fall, where the river in
a broad but broken Sheet pours over the rocky
barrier, n fall Of twenty one feet. Above this
are smaller falls, aud finally your way comes
to an end in a deep gorge with rocks that rise
like smooth cut walls on either side aud the
river roaring in dashing "rapids' between
Them. But | have no time fer further de-
scription now.