Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-04-10
MEMPHIS TENN. WEDNESDAY EVENING APRIL 10 1875

passed up from pew to pew. Then
a woman in the congregation
tainted. She was the wife of John
Reilly, brother Of the young woman
first mentioned, and the slip read /:
(" Patrick and John Reilly have
gone over the Falls"
The two men are brothers and
live IN Chippewa. Early Monday
they crossed the river to Niagara
Falls village in two ordinary row
boats. John Reilly went over first,
and was followed by Patrick, who
was partly drunk, but who knew
the river well enough when drunk
to safely reach the entrance to the
water-power canal just above the
rapids. Hearing that his elder
brother had come over in that con-
dition, John Reilly looked him up,
and at about 6 o'clock got him into
one Of the boats and started home.
Some time alterward their boat was
seen by young man on Goat Is
land, headed for Chippewa. 1t is
said that John Reilly was not en-
tirely sober; certainly it was mere
suicide to try to cross the river
point blank, as nobody better knew
than both the men when they were
sober. One pulls up the stream
from the American side to acquire
an Offset to the vehemence with
which the Canadian current comes
down above the rapids. Two or
three people at the landing whore
they had embarked noted
the dangerous route they were
taking, but knowing both men to be
well acquainted with the river, took
it for granted that they would not
go into danger, but would pull up
the stream in time. But, appa-
rently, in utter ignorance of the
rapidity with which the current
bore the boat down the stream, the
two brothers pulled steadily on their
way. As the boat was swept lower
and lower the attention of others
on the bank of the river became at.
tracted to the impending catastro-
phe. When the boat, as seen from
the American shore, had apparent
ly gotten well over into the strong
Canadian current it had drifted far
down the river, and a last, when
too late, the brothers appeared to
realize their position. The boat
was headed up the stream, and the
men bent to their oars desperately
Finding that they were powerless to
stem the current, and having drift.
ed close to the first of the terrible
reefs at the head of the Canadian
rapids, they were seen to deliber-
ately turn their boat around and
with steady strokes pull their craft
safely over two Of the reefs. The
watchers on this side of the river
then lost sight of both men and
boat, but others on Streets Island
and in the Loretto Convent, on the
Canada shore, say that the boat
safely jumped the third reef, when
it upset and the men disappeared
in the boiling rapids that feed the
falls, and were never seen again.
1t is supposed that when the two
men, sobered by the unmistakable
signs of their approaching destruc-
tion, and as skillul boatmen appre-
ciatlng their position Instantly,
found that they had left their boat
to the current too long to think of
forcing it up the stream, they de
termined to attempt shooting the
reefs, in the faint hope of reaching
shore again by taking some possible
advantage of the apparently quiet
water below the reefs, and there
withstanding in some way the ruin
that threatened them. In the opin-
ion Of boatmen this suppOsition is
entitled to credit rather than the
conclusions of some of the aye-wit-
nesses tlat the boat was turned
around by an accident of the cur
rent and tbat the brothers pulled
blindly to their death without no
ticing the change. Pieces of the
boat were found the next day in the
river below the falls, but as yet
nothing has been seen of the bodies
9f the unfortunate men.
John Reilly was fortyand had no
children; his brother was forty-Gye
and unmarried. Their mother and
two sisters APE living;
i is an old 4Idian tradition,
which the local papers recall, that
the @Spirit Of the Cataract re-
quires every year sacrifice Of life,