Sam Patch

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NOTE: The following is based on media-supported folklore. Very few of Patch's jumps, including the one that caused his death, are documented in any form other than rumor-based newsprint articles.

Sam Patch (1799 – 1829), known as The Yankee Leaper, was the first famous U.S. daredevil.

He began working as a child laborer in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in a textile mill. When he was not working, he entertained other boys by jumping off the mill dam. By his mid 20s he was working at a mill in Paterson, New Jersey and was jumping off of ever higher spots. He was beginning to attract crowds for his well advertised stunts. In September 1827 he jumped off the 70 foot Passaic Falls in New Jersey, pleasing a large crowd that had gathered.

Patch continued his career jumping from bridges, factory walls, and ship's masts. He became the first of Niagara Fall's famous daredevils. He was the star attraction at an event designed to draw visitors to the falls. The schooner Superior was sent into the river to go over the falls, but it hung up on rocks near Goat Island. Several black powder charges were set off blasting sections of the cliff face into the gorge. The largest explosion, designed to blast away a quarter of Table Rock, was canceled. Local authorities feared it would change the course of the river and drain the Welland Canal.

A 125 foot ladder was rigged for Sam's jump out over the gorge below Goat Island opposite the Cave of the Winds. Less than an hour before the scheduled noon jump, a chain securing the ladder to the cliff wall snapped, breaking 15 feet from the ladder. Rescheduled for 4 PM, Patch jumped on time. A boat circled near the entry point, but Patch did not appear. When he was finally spotted on the shore a great roar went up from the crowd. Sam Patch was the first to jump over Niagara Falls and live. Bad weather and the delay in his arrival drew a disappointingly small crowd for this jump, so Patch announced he would jump again! A few days later 10,000 gathered to watch him keep his word. His phrase "Some things can be done as well as others" became a popular slang expression across the nation.

Patch then came to Rochester to challenge the 99 feet high Upper Falls. He jumped the falls one time privately, for practice, witnessed by his companion Joe Cochrane.

His first jump on November 6, 1829 drew a disappointing crowd, so he picked Friday the 13th to do it again. After a pre-jump celebration in several local taverns, he threw his pet bear cub off the 25' tower he had built at the brink. Accounts from the 8,000 present differ on whether he actually jumped or fell, but he did not achieve his normal feet first vertical entry. A loud impact was heard and he never surfaced. Rumors were passed that he had hidden in a cave at the base of the falls, and was enjoying all the excitement he had created. But his frozen body was found in the ice in Charlotte early the next spring by Silas Hudson. Both of his shoulders had been dislocated on impact, and unable to swim, he drowned. Local ministers were quick to blame the crowd for urging him to jump, and put the guilt of his death on them.

A wooden board was placed over his grave:

Sam Patch – Such is Fame.

[edit] Literary references

Patch appears as a "daring immoral hero" in the works of Hawthorne and Melville (Johnson, 2004), and also appears in "Paterson" by William Carlos Williams.

[edit] Further reading

Johnson, Paul. "Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper" ISBN 0-8090-8388-4.