The weekly clarion., 1873-01-16


While in Rochester, saws Eli Perkins
met Mr.. Hubbard. an old resident %
Gennessee county, who saw Sam Patct
make his famous jump off Genesee Falls
thirty or forty years ago. He says tha
Jump day was great day in Rochester
The people gathered for miles around ID
see this intermittent American jumper
as he performed his last feat | shouldn't
say Intermittent jumper. but chronic
jumper for sam was all the time as craly
10 Jump down waterfall ~ Geor.,
Francis, our chronic candidate for th,
Presidency, is crazy 10 run for the Whit,
House.
sam Patch had previously jumped
over Niagara. Then, saving "some
things can be done rs we'll as others, he
slashed around like Sergeant Bate-
through the western part of the State o.
back up his proverb. Before his last
Jump he bought a big black bear of a
circus man, and led him over the turn
pike To Rochester.
sam was queer philosopher. He had a
theory that each new generation had more
knowledged and could do greater deeds
than it, predecessor. He often said his
father knew more than his grandfather,
and that he knew more than his father.
"Why, thunderation sam, bv your
argutying, your grandfather must have
been darned tool, ntcrposcd hy-
stander; but he only turned around,
and commenced talking about something
else.
sam was n great talker His tongue
l..
ION the jump; and all for uotorioty
One day, when he was a little boy,
his mother vino lived in a clearing near
Brockport, was speaking Of Sans prcco-
city.
why, said she, .'our Sam can read
the Bible like a spelling-book, repeat the
catechism from ind to ind, and slice APP.
pies us well a, his mother
Yes said sam, "an' yesterday /
licked Bill Simpson, throwcd the the kit
tens in the well, and jumped off the saw
mill into the ilumc
Sam himself said he once came home
tight, washed the face of the clock, and
then wound up the baby and set it for
ward fifteen minutes.
But about the great Jump.
had arrived in town with the black bear.
and the crowd rushed into Rochester from
around. Twelve o'clock was the hour to
jump Jump a hundred feet down
down the terrible fail into the boiling
caldrcn below.
A staging had been built out over the
water, and Sam appearing on the stag
ing, dressed in "A sailors fancy jacket
His friends now took up a collection ON
shore, while sam swung his hat aud said
after Jumping himself he would return
and throw the bear over Then. amid a
death-lke stiffness. he ran "A few steps
and gave one leap into the air, and fell,
cutting the mist like a lead-sinkcr, two
hundred feet into the seething Whirlpool
As he left the staging his body assumed
an OblIque p sition, his head foremost,
but above his feet. As he struck the wa
ter there was dreadful silence. while
thc pepulace awaited with choking
breath his re-appearance. One minute,
two minutes, three minutes, and no
signs of the daring jumper Then the
people sent up a loud wail--a long muir
mur Of sorrow.
This was tie end Of Sam Patch.
They say he had been drinking during
the morning, and failed to keep his feet
together and his body perpendicular, as
on previous occasions. SO, when he
struck the water, the breath left his body,
and he was knocked senseless. A month
or 50 afterwards they found his body
away down below Rochester, drifted up
on the rocks. He never returned 10
throw in the bear, or claim the money
collected.
believe in the doctrine?of TRANSMIT
grafton Of souls, but on looking at the
almanac nobody was born during tn
whole Of that fa.l day but George
Francis Train.