At the foot of Niagara Falls lies a museum and a mystery. The barrel museum shows a proud display of the "barrels," --none of which are really conventional barrels-- that crazed stuntmen used in a usually vain attempt to ride for glory over the roaring rapids of Niagara Falls.
Niagara is split into two falls. On one side of Goat Island is American Falls. It's the shorter of the two by a few feet. But the bottom is lined with rocks. Riding over it in a barrel would not be a crapshoot. It would be straight suicide.
All the daredevils have gone over Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. It's a bit higher, but it offers the possibility of a survivable landing.
Nineteen people have tried to ride Niagara Falls in a barrel -- or in worse than a barrel. Four died. Six were stopped before they could try it. Nine made the fall and lived to tell of it.
Going over Niagara Falls in a barrel was once the archetypal daredevil's feat, but it's hardly the only stunt ever attempted there. The first glory hunter was Sam Patch, who leaped into the churning waters at the foot of the falls twice in 1829, the second time from a hastily built ladder more than 100 feet high. (He survived, but was killed later that year jumping at a different falls.) In 1859 a French "funambulist" (tightrope walker) known as the Great Blondin sashayed across Niagara's gorge on a specially made rope three inches in diameter and 1,100 feet long. Blondin made several repeat trips that year: for one he carried his manager on his back, and for another he toted a small stove, which he used to cook an omelette halfway across.
Tightrope walking remained popular for the balance of the century, but entrepreneurs were already looking for new ways to dazzle the rubes. The first to try a barrel was a cooper, fittingly enough--English immigrant Carlisle Graham introduced this innovation in 1886. He didn't go over the falls but rather shot the treacherous "whirlpool rapids" a short distance downstream. Many more followed suit, with activity rising to a peak in 1901 due to the crowds drawn by the Pan-American Exposition in nearby Buffalo. Predictably, on October 24 of that year, somebody decided to take things to the next level. Not so predictably, that somebody was a woman, Annie Edson Taylor, a plump 63-year-old schoolteacher.
Annie Taylor was the first to ever attempt this feat—and one of the few to survive it. Was she mad? far from it. In fact, her calculated attempt was a brave way to rectify one of the great injustices of her world and to buy dignity and self-sufficiency in her dotage.
In 1901 Anne Taylor was widowed and at the end of her career as a school teacher. Broke, without a penny in the world and facing an old age bereft of husband or pension, she schemed to get rich or die trying. So that was what took her to the Falls on October 24, 1901. In classic fashion, she claimed to be 46 years old, although she was actually 63.
Her vessel was a large oak barrel, equipped with inflated pillows, a mattress, and a 100-pound blacksmith’s anvil on the bottom to keep it floating upright. Then into the barrel she jumped, with her hapless pet kitten, thoughtfully cushioned with 30 pounds per square inch of air pumped in by a bicycle pump, and into the water went barrel and all.
Her ride was fairly uneventful, apart from the fact that she plunged roughly 170 feet over the falls in the middle of it; she was fished out 75 minutes after she'd gone in, bruised and shaken but alive.
The question of “Have I gone over the falls?” as the dazed, aging lady stepped onto dry land, was followed by “Nobody ought ever do that again.”
Others did follow however.
It was ten years after Taylor's success that a man named Bobby Leach repeated the trick. Leach did stunts like that for a living. He shot rapids, did daring parachute drops, and -- finally -- died of injuries after he slipped on an orange peel.
The third try at going over the Falls was made by an English barber named Charles Stephens. All they ever found of him were some barrel staves and one tattooed arm.
In 2003, one Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan braved the plunge. He didn’t even bother with the barrel, only going with the clothes on his back.He became the second known person to survive a plunge over the Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device. While it is still not known whether Jones was determined to commit suicide, he survived the 16-story fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises.
As recently as March of this year, second person survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. When rescued from the river, was reported to be suffering from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity has not been released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water.
Like Annie Taylor, though fame, glory and riches may be the primary motivator, it doesn’t ever seem to work out that way. Afterwards Taylor tried to mount a speaking tour, but it didn’t pan out. She wasn’t the kind of hero people wanted to hear about. She lived for many years after her stunt, scratching out a meager living posing for picture with her pickle barrel. She died penniless at age 83.
Marnie Stern/ Put All Your Eggs In One Basket
The Hold Steady/ Stay Positive
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists/ You Could Die (Or This Might End)
The Thermals/ Here's Your Future
- Annie Taylor, oak barrel, 1901. The first to attempt the falls in the now iconic barrel. Survived.
- Bobby Leach, steel barrel, 1911. The first man to go over the falls, he survived, only to die 15 years later after slipping on an orange peel in Christchurch, New Zealand.
- Charles Stephens, oak barrel, 1920. Stephens also brought an anvil for ballast, but he strapped it to his feet. When the barrel hit the water at the base of the falls, the anvil kept going, breaking through the bottom lid and taking most of Stephens with it (his right arm was found still strapped in).
- Jean Lussier, 760-pound rubber ball reinforced with steel bands, 1928. Survived.
- George Stathakis, 2,000-pound barrel, 1930. The barrel was trapped behind and beneath the falls for more than 14 hours; Stathakis suffocated.
- William "Red" Hill Jr., 13 heavy-duty inner tubes lashed together with canvas webbing and fishnet, 1951.He had been living in the shadow of his father, William Hill, Sr., a famous river man who had gone through the Niagara rapids in a barrel several times and rescued numerous people from the river. Died while trying to one up dear old dad.
- Roger Woodward, 1960. Not a daredevil or attempted suicide but a kid who got swept over. Roger was seven years old at the time, and he's the first person known to have gone over the falls unprotected and live. (He'd been in a small boat that developed engine problems and capsized upriver.) Observers speculated that he'd survived because his life jacket and light weight brought him back to the surface quickly after the initial plunge.
- Nathan Boya, 1,000-pound steel-frame sphere covered in rubber and sheet metal, 1961. Survived.
- Karel Soucek, metal and plastic barrel, 1984. Survived. Killed the following year attempting a 180-foot barrel drop into a water tank in front of 45,000 at the Houston Astrodome.
- Steve Trotter, two plastic pickle barrels surrounded by inner tubes and covered with a tarp, 1985. Survived; repeated in 1995 with Lori Martin. First coed team.
- Dave Munday, aluminum and plastic barrel, 1985. Survived; repeated in 1993 in a converted diving bell. First person to go over twice.
- Peter DeBernardi and Geoffrey Petkovich, ten-foot steel barrel, 1989. Survived. First team.
- Jessie Sharp, kayak, 1990. Presumed dead, body not found.
- Robert Overacker, jet ski, 1995. Died. Rocket-assisted parachute deployed at brink of falls as planned, but wasn't tethered to his back.
- Kirk Jones, 2003. Second known person to survive the falls without a floatation device. Probable suicide attempt.
- Unidentified Man. March 11, 2009. Survives jump with grievous injuries. Probable suicide attempt.
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