Connecticut western news., 1875-08-27
OVER A CATARACT.
A FUoihardy Exploit that Cost Three M
 Their Lives.


 throws itself over precipice ninety feet in height; Facing this waterfall. and scarcely thirty feet distant from it, is an height, and forming 8 firm barrier against which the river hrtrls itself in it's fall. The imprisoned waters can escape from the ohasm into which they have been trapped only by turning sharply away through a narrow deile to the plains. The scene is so grand that the people of Paterson havs coh1erted the surrounding acrss into a pleasure park, and have spanned the marrow gulf into which the waters leap with : light bridge. Around this bridge, when the waters are high and the river is strong, clouds of spray arise so dense as to hide from any one standing tipoh 1t the depth of the gulf below -..z--
 Above the dam there are moored half dozen light skifs owned by workmen living close by, who use them, to fish from i'll the mill pond, for ordinarily there is no water pouring over the 1af1, and no: cuttent whatever in the pond. All the stirplus water in such times is carried away through, a large sluice, and the rocky bed lying between, the dam and the falls is so dry that children. can cross from one grassy shore to the other, and can play around the huge Htasaes of stomp, whose tops 6ah scarce1y be seen in flood season. The rains have. filled the river and over the top of the, dam the waters pour three feet in depth with wonderful force Above the dam the surface is still, glassy and unbrolsen, but the current is pesistless attd dangereus, more dansefoiis for being unseen.c.l
 On 2 Sunday morning James Grogan went with two companions, named Jaseph H Horton and Henry Martin, to bor- row a neighbours boat for arrow on the river. The owner, Oswald Blakele4; warned them that the river Was high and the cttrfeht strong-" so strong," said he, :" that do not dare. to go out my, self.''s Thatsmay be. so," replied Gro r gan, stretching out his braWny arm to full length-an arm which, r, by it's strength and nefve, had made him cap- ! tain of the, cricket club --f but why should such. a fine fellow as be afraid to go upon the water2 4. L am young and not to be compared with you!' The oars and the key te unlock the boat. we're
 
 with his cothpanions. Horton and Mar tin jumped into the boat while it vas still chained to the shore, and Grogan stood on the bank with the oars in his hands, urging a friend who passed by to join in the excursion. The friend refused, and Grogan, crying outs !" Cap. pei is afraid to risk his life this morn ing," threw the oars into the boat, and without waiting for them to be placed in the row-locks, leaped into the skiff and pushed out into the stream. They were only forty feet from the brink of the dam, and below the dam were the high rushing rapids, and riust beyond the awful chasm. - ..0.4..' ,...
 The three men in the boat felt that their little craft was in the power of the river, and there was no time for them tc attempt the use of the oars. oy IT. ey looked at the shore and saw that 1t was beyond their reach they shouted loudly for help, but the few friends who hearc them could only look idly on they tried to turn the course of the boat with the rudder, but they gave only her broad | side to the stream and were more thai before powefless to hold her from the gulf on whose brink they were. Not ten seconds had elapsed since Grogar stood upon the bank, and now he stoo( all prepared at the prov of the boat to | jump into the current and strike out fo 1 life. As the little skiff shot rapidly ol | close to the dams fall, he plunged into the water, and Martin and Horton fol lowed him. They passed over the dam and used all endeavors to reach bit O stone wall running out from it's base int the stream. Martin and Horton failed entirely, but Grogan came, so near tx success that he stretched out his arms tc grasp projecting stone, when strong whirlpool seized him and dashed hin headlong against the wall. The bloy must have stunned him, for he sank an( rose no, more, The two others wer 1 tossed in the great rush of waters, ant times to ? the surface of the seethins l current .a e.i is5 ~
 A large number of the pleasure seek CTS in the park were drawn to the bank by the shouts of those who had seen tn boat when first caught in the stream, ant gazed horror stricken upon the scene They stood thus, and saw the two mel swept over the great precipice; but a they recovered and started to rush to tn river below the falls, they noticed tha the boat, which had been thrown ove the dam, was seized by the outer curren of wide whirlpool, carried close to tn cataract, and then. borne back to quie recess under the trees upon the shore All then followed the river for mile down the course, and grappling hook were thrown out from the shore into tn waters between the dam and the falls where Grogan had disappeared and wa supposed to be, but all search for tn
 bodies was unavailing.
 The next morning the waters ha, somewhat lsubsided from their fury o Sunday, and just before noon MT Sanford, standing upon the bluff facin, the cataract, saw 8 dark mass swinging in the falling water just under the brinl of the fall. It seemed to be caught an' held firmly at the upper end between two logs which been brought down tn
 river during the freshet, and which hat
 lodged in positions spanning the chasr
 down into which the river poured. H
 looked long and carefully, and saw a
 times, as the force of the water threw
 back and forth, the partially clad bod
 of man. MT. Sanford called others t
 him, and for hours the gaping crow
 rapidly increased until late in the after
 noon, when it numbered hundreds. Al those who came crept carefully out O.
 the slimy edge of the bluff and staye
 there enveloped in the, spray, whic
 only now and then parted so that the
 could see beyond it. They could SC
 the two great logs connecting tn
 ground upon which they stood with tn
 brink from which hung the body of tn unrecogniza5le drowned man.
 The logs lay with their butt ends te feet apart upon the bluff, but just be
 fore reaching the cataract they crosse each other, forming a crotch in whic , the body hung by its head. The water