The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-01
SAM PATCH.
How the Greatest of All Jumpers
Leaped to His Death.
Boston Transcript.D


Patch was born in Rhode Island
about the year 1907. At the age of 20
years, when he was working as cot
ton spinner in a mill at Paterson, n.
j.. he was seized with a mania for
jumping. A high bridge had been built
at Paterson over the PaSSaic river, and
Patch declared so stOutly that he would
leap therefrom that he was put under
arrest, but he nevertheless kept his
word and leaped from the rocks at the
foot of the bridge. He afterwards
jumped a second time from the bridge,
eighty or ninety feet, and arose from
the waters the hero of the day. He
went about the country jumping from
yardarms and bowsrpits and diving
down dizzy heights of topmast, and in
1929 he went to Niagara falls. where
he jumped from a shelving rock mid
way between the highest point of Goat
island and the water more than half
the height of the falls. Shortly after
ward the newspapers at Rochester con-
tanned notice to the effect that at 2
o'clock in the afternoon of Friday,
Nov. Is, 1929. he would. from scat
fold twenty-five feet in height erected
OH the brink of the Genesee falls,
''fearlessly leap into the abyss below,
a distance of 125 feet" the notice being
headlined as follows:
HIGHER YET.
SANS LAST JUMP!
Some Things Can Be Done as Well as
Others
There Is No Mistake in
SAM PATCH!
The announcement of this leap
brought a great crowd to the banks
Of the river (Genesee) to witness the
spectacle. Before making his leap Sam
delivered the following speech to the
assembled multitude: Napoleon was n
great man and a great general. He
conquered armies and he conquered
nations, but he couldn't jump the &C.
nesee falls Wellington was a great
man and a great soldier. He con-
quered nations, and he conquered Ma
poleon, but he could jump the Cen
esee falls. That was left for me to do.
and ! can do it. and will" He then
leaped and disappeared from view.
nothing more being seen of him till the
next st. Patrick's day, when his body
was found in cake of ice near the
mouth of the river. 1t was Sans am
btion to jump from London bridge,
and just before his death he had signed
an agreement with the captain of a
fast sailing packet to Liverpool 10
make a voyage with him in the fol-
lowing spring and jump from the yard
arm every fair day-an )rginal at
traction for securing passengers. For
months after his fatal leap the news
papers were filled with specula tons
and comments on his fate. The Unit
ed states Gazette Philadelphia) con-
tanned the following tribute to his
memory: GO. then. say we, to the sa-
cristan of the Temple of Fame, clear
the niche and place the pedestal for
Patch. and let the priest who minis
ters to immortality make it the pane
gyric of Sam that his ambition was
without bloodshed and his patriotism
was pure. for he fell in his country's
falls" Poems were written eytolling
him as a hero. the following stanza
being fair sample of the spirit of the
poetic tributes which were written to
his memory:
Some ready tongue ever this. tale
shall deliver,
And point to the spot where he
gasped his last breath:
And the cataract. pouring a winding
sheet Ger him,
For ages shall tell how it wrapped
him in DEATH