A VERY, VERY BAD IDEA

 

I suppose there is no any way of knowing exactly when the idea was born, but at some point in early 1881 it occurred to New York City actress Miss Jennie Rhett that she needed to stand out from the chorus. My guess is that she read a newspaper story about two young women who had recently fallen off an excursion barge into the East River. 

And from that chance news story, and from her own ambition, the actress hatched a very bad idea. Miss Rhett searched amongst the piers of the lower east side of Manhattan until she found the young swimmer who had saved the two women. He was handsome, smart and just as ambitious as she was, and Irish too. And that was when I suspect that this very bad idea took its very first steps to reality.

Some time later Miss Rhett was discovered off Coney Island Beach near the new Iron Pier (above), floundering in the sea. Just in the nick of time a tough young Irishman pulled her to safety. Later, in front of a small crowd and a reporter, Miss Rhett presented the young man with a “gold locket” in gratitude for his bravery.  

The reporter did not think to ask what a young Irishman from the Bowery was doing swimming at Coney Island.  In any case, it was a small news story. And sadly it does not seemed to have propelled Miss Jennie Rhett to the stardom she sought. After this publicity stunt she disappears from our story.  

But the young Irishman, who was already billing himself as the "King of the Newsboys!" had learned an important lesson, and we will hear from him again.

New York City in the 1880’s was the kind of place where any idea seemed possible, even fame and fortune for those surviving on their wits in the Bowery or "Hell’s Kitchen".  Even a very bad idea. The twin towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, begun in 1870 and nearing completion, were the highest structures in New York City.  But as tall as they were, they still seemed somehow human in size.

Standing at the foot of the Brooklyn tower it is still possible to feel the audacity of a world, still powered largely by horses and humans, which had dared to make the 5,989 foot long unsupported throw across the open expanse of the East River.  So it was not surprisingly that the next step in the evolution in this very, very bad idea should leap into some lunatic’s mind even before the great bridge had been completed.

One night in 1882 a young man was detained by bridge employees on the unfinished center span of the Brooklyn Bridge.  He was in the process of undressing. Eager not to be seen as a common pervert, the young man identified himself as “Professor” Robert Emmet Odlum, from Washington, D.C.; a self described well known and well named swimming instructor and author of pamphlets on diving.

"Professor" Odlum told the police he had made a $200 bet that he could safely dive from the unfinished bridge.  After explaining to Mr. Odlum that he could not hope to survive the 175 foot drop, the “Professor’s” mother was notified and he was put on a train back to Washington. 

The New York City police made a note to never admit Mr. Udlum (above) onto the bridge again, even after it opened in May of 1883. It was at this point in the evolution of the very, very bad idea that chance intervened, in the form of a love-sick 22 year old bar maid in far off Bristol, England.

On  8 May, 1885,  Miss Sara Ann Henley received a note from her boyfriend breaking off their engagement.  In a fit of pique Miss Henley walked half way across the Clifton Suspension Bridge (above), high above the Avon River Gorge, and threw herself off.  

As she plummeted the 245 feet toward oblivion her crinoline petticoats caught the air like a parachute and slowed her descent. 

She was even more fortunate when she splashed down into shallow waters along the shore, where her landing was softened by thick forgiving mud. She was badly injured, but she lived. Her extraordinary survival made all of the English papers, and was picked up and republished extensively in America.

A week after Miss Henley’s great fall the New York police got word that ‘Professor’ Odlum had been inspired to give the Brooklyn bridge another “go”. They alerted the toll collectors, and on Sunday afternoon, 19 May, 1885 (ten days after Miss Henley’s plunge) a toll collector reported a suspicious cab lingering on the bridge. Police officers found it parked against the railing, half way across the span. But it was a decoy.

While they were searching that cab, hidden within one of a pair of "vans" further back on the bridge, "Professor" Odlum appeared out from beneath the covered flatbed wearing a swimsuit emblazoned with his name. He clambered over the railing and before the cops could reach him, threw himself into space.

Imagine the "Professor's" surprise when he discovered that the cops had been right. He entered the water feet first (as was the accepted diving position at the time) and shattered every bone in his frame from heel to skull. He was pulled from the river unconscious and died a half hour later. His friends shipped his body home, but ten days later Robert’s sister came to town,  demanding the coroner explain what had become of her brother’s liver and heart. She never got a satisfactory answer, but my guess is they had both been reduced to jelly by the impact. A little math shows that “Professor” Odlum hit the water going sixty-three and a half miles an hour. At that speed water is almost as fluid as cold concrete.  But it was Robert Odlum’s tragic foolishness that was the catalyst for the return of the Irish hero to our story of the very bad idea.

He was 23 years old by this time, making his living as a newsboy and a bookie amongst the denizens of the Bowery.  Like a certain actress he had worked with, Steve Brodie now needed to escape the chorus; except in his case the chorus was a cacophony of poverty. The story that he later told police was that a friend, James Brennan, had dared him on a $100 that he would not jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.  But I doubt that Mr. Brennan had ever seen $100 at once in his life.

Steve Brodie claimed to have made the leap on Friday afternoon,  23 July, 1886. Mr. Brennan claimed to have witnessed the jump. There was even a sworn affidavit from a barge captain who had pulled the daredevil from the river. 

Sceptics said Brennan had thrown a dummy off the bridge while Brodie had swum out from shore, but it didn't matter if the story was true or not. Overnight, daredevil or spinner of tall tales, everyone in New York City knew the name of Steve Brodie, the man who jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brodie parleyed his 15 minutes of fame into his own bar, with a little theatre in the rear where he re-enacted his alleged dramatic plunge into the East River several times a week for the tourists. In 1891 promoters built a Broadway melodrama (“Mad Money”) around his dive,  and a musical in 1894, (“On the Bowery”).

And on the wall next to a painting of his fabulous plunge, was displayed the following homely, “Cursing and swearing don’t make you any tougher in the eyes of people that hears you. Steve Brodie".  Of course, Steve's success at selling the idea, did not make it any better of an idea.

In 1895 Mrs. Clara McArthur, married to a disabled railroad worker and mother of a young daughter, jumped off the bridge at 3:30 in the morning. She was seeking a share of Steve Brodies’ pot of gold for her destitute family. The desperate Clara was wrapped in an American flag. She had water-wings strapped under her arms and a punching bag tied to her back to keep her afloat after landing. Her socks were filled with sand to keep her feet below her head (again, the accepted, best attitude to enter the water).

But Clara landed on her side, spreading the impact over the length of her entire body. That is what saved her life. The shock ripped the water wings under her arms to shreds. She struggled to the surface, but the punching bag kept flipping her over onto her face, and the heavy socks kept pulling her down. After struggling for several long seconds, Clara finally passed out, face down in the water. Two men in a rowboat waiting under the bridge finally managed to pull her to safety. She never made a dime from the effort, even though she had several reliable witnesses that she had actually made the jump. The Victorian public simply didn't want to know the details of a woman forced to risk her life to provide for her family. Clara McArthur is one of only ten people (two of them women) known to have actually jumped off the bridge since the 1881, and who survived the impact with the East River.

Steve Brodie is not counted as one of those ten. He was always an agreeable fellow. If he had money, his friends and family shared in it. He gave generously to charity his entire life. But it is extremely doubtful that he actually made the jump. He tried to extend his fame by claiming to have leaped off a railroad bridge in upstate New York, and later claiming to have gone over Niagara Falls wrapped in inner tubes and metal bumpers. The Niagara stunt, real or not, almost killed him.

He settled in Buffalo, New York, and operated a bar there for a few years before his asthma forced him to move to San Antonio, Texas, where he died in 1901 of complications of diabetes. Steve Brodie was all of 38 years old. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery, in Woodside, Queens, New York. Thankfully the very, very bad idea of jumping from the bridge for fame and fortune died with him.

The longest living survivor of all these daredevils was the accidental one. Sara Ann Henley (above), the woman who tried to commit suicide in 1885 by jumping 240 feet off the Clifton Suspension bridge, finally earned her angel’s wings in 1948. She was 84 years old, married, but with no children, perhaps because of injuries sustained in her fall into the Avon River Gorge. 

Every year since that bridges' opening in 1864, two to four lost souls (90% of them men) uses the bridge to commit suicide, until 1974 when barriers were installed. Such silly feats, for fame or to seek escape are never good ideas. But jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge went further. It was a very, very bad idea.

- 30 -

A MAN OF GRAVITY, Sam Patch Defies Death

I believe Sam Slatter started the fall of Sam Patch in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. A spinning mill was opened there in 1789, powered by the 50 foot falls of the Blackstone River. But it was a financial failure until Samuel Slatter arrived from England a year later.  His head was filled with the patents and hi-tech systems England was trying to keep secret, and he assured the mill owners that if they made him a partner, “If I do not make as good yarn as they do in England, I will...throw the whole of what I have attempted over the bridge” But if Samuel Slatter was offering his actual suicide or merely an alliterative death, it is clear there something about that bridge 50 feet above the falls, inspired men of vision to a leap of faith.  Sam Slatter did make good yarn and his mill became ground zero of the American Industrial revolution.

“Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs”.
Horace Walpole, 17^th century art historian

At six years of age Sam Patch was abandoned by his alcoholic father, Greenleaf Patch. At seven he joined his siblings tending to the spinning mules in Mr. Slatter's mill. The boy's position as a “doffer” required him to scuttle between the working looms, replacing bobbins and redirecting errant shuttles. Work began at five in the morning,  and did not end until half past seven in the evening, six days a week.  The usually exhausted Sam was lucky not to be disabled by the un-shielded whirling belts and flying equipment inches from his head and hands, and eventually he was promoted to weaver with a weekly salary of $2.50. Summers, during his half hour lunch breaks, Sam often threw himself off the bridge into the cool water of the tidal pool at the foot of the falls. Each plunge was a brief moment of weightless freedom, an escape from his pitiless existence.

“Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.”
Wilfred Owen, 20^th century poet

In 1824, in a unified action, the mill owners in Pawtucket demanded that workers accept a simultaneous 25% cut in wages and loss of half their 1/2  hour lunch break. In response Sam Patch, who by now had fourteen years experience in the mill, helped to organize the first workers strike in America. The owners were forced to back down, but they then systematically removed as many of the “trouble makers” as they could. Sam was driven out of Pawtucket. Twice Sam tried to run a mill of his own, and twice his addiction to whiskey, possibly a self medication for injuries suffered on at his job. spoiled his chances. By 1826 he had found work as a loom supervisor at the Hamilton cotton mill in Patterson, New Jersey, powered by the 70 foot high falls of the Passaic River. He was now an abusive alcoholic himself, “an angry and not particularly admirable” man, known to box the ears of the young duffers working under him.

“Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

On the Western shore of the Passaic falls there was an island of escape, called the Forest Garden. It was wild terrain used as a picnic ground by the mill workers, until 14 August of 1827 when it was purchased by Timothy Crane, owner of a grist and saw mill on Van Houten Street in Paterson. Crane then transformed the idyllic spot into a private park, complete with an upscale tavern/restaurant, “The Cottage on the Cliff” and scenic walks, beer gardens and well manicured versions of nature. He even planned a bridge across the falls, to restrict access to only those who could afford the two penny toll.  The bridge was assembled on shore and on Sunday, 30 September 1827, Crane staged a grand celebration as the bridge was pushed out across the falls. A small crowd gathered to either cheer the endeavor, or - the disenfranchised mill workers, stood about watching their picnic grounds stolen by a wealthy boss and owner. And then who should step out on a rock outcrop above the falls but a weaver, proudly dressed in his white linen uniform. It was Sam Patch.

“Somebody ought to tell him his ambition is showing.”
Harry Essex  20th Century American Screenwriter

The police, who were patrolling the crowd, were horrified. The drunken Sam had been locked up in a basement all morning, to keep him away from the ceremony. Somehow he had escaped and they were worried that he might start a riot. Sam indeed shouted out to the crowd, but he did not call for violence. He announced that Timothy Crane had indeed done great things, but now Sam Patch would do great things as well. William Brown, a wittiness, remembered, “He walked back a few yards, turned, and took little run to the brink of the cliff, and jumped off, clearing the rocks (by) about ten feet.”

“Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself  And falls on the other side”

William Shakespeare, 17^th century playwright

He hit the water feet first, as was his style, and for several seconds the crowd was convinced he had died on impact.. He did not. He bobbed to the surface, and was greeted by almost universal cheers. Afterward he told the newspapers, “I am perfectly sober and in possession of my proper faculk ,aities”. The citizens of Paterson were impressed - – except of course for Timothy Crane, who had the feeling his thunder had just been stolen by a drunken lout. And it had.

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” 
Dr. Carl Sagan, 20^th century American scientist

Crane tried to get it back. On Wednesday,  4 July^, 1828,  Crane  announced a fireworks display to be held above his exclusive Forest Garden. But that afternoon Sam Patch did it again, leaping off the same rock and plunging 77 feet into the water. The newspapers reported the words of wisdom from the “Yankee Jumper”; "Some things can be done as well as others."  It was a bit confusing, but that just encouraged more people to talk about Sam's amazing, death defying leaps, which had yet again upstaged Mr. Crane's ostentation. And Sam Patch did it a third time, on Thursday, 19 July. Then on 11 August,  1828, in Hoboken, New Jersey, he fell 100 feet from the mast of a sloop, and splashed down into the Hudson River. The paying crowd was only 500 in Hoboken, but the New York newspapers had begun to take notice of “Patch, the New Jersey jumper”, the working stiff risking his life to make a living.

“Ambition if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others.”

Susan Sontag

By 1830 there were four million factory workers in America, and their lives were genuinely miserable. Barely ten miles from Paterson, among the 150,000 citizens of New York City, 10,000 were in debtors prison – half because they owed less than $25. One in five of the metropolis's citizens were receiving “public assistance” either from a church or the government. Clearly the industrial revolution was not benefiting very many in America. Food prices were rising, and if you fell ill you could not earn the $500 a year required for a minimal diet. The average life span was barely 33 years, because so many got sick so young.  Every day workers risked their lives to earn a living, toiling in unsafe factories, working past exhaustion day in and day out. They were the fodder for the Industrial Revolution, fuel to be expended making the rich men, richer yet.. And now they had a hero of their own, a man who knew from experience the quiet desperation of their lives, the risks they took every day to feed themselves and their families.  And if he was a drunken bastard, well, nobody is perfect.

“Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.”

Buddah

Sam Patch's next opportunity arrived in the form of an invitation from businessmen in the city of Niagara Falls, New York. They had recently discovered a cave which protruded from beneath an outcrop under Goat Island, which divided the American Falls. Seizing upon the cave's official opening for tourists on 5 October, 1828,  the businessmen  had scheduled a series of black powder blasting around the gorge and a kamikaze voyage of a two masted schooner over the falls. A dive by the Yankee Leaper off a 125 foot ladder leaning against the backdrop of the falls at the exit of the “Cave of the Winds” seemed to be a perfect fit. And they only had to pay him $75 for the stunt.

“I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”
George W. Bush. American President

The only problem was Sam was now suffering from bouts of delirium tremens, and he missed his jump-off date.  He apologized in a one sheet broadside to those who had not yet left town, and assured them “...on Wednesday, I thought I would venture a small Leap...of Eighty Feet, merely to convince those that remained to see me...I was the TRUE SAM PATCH, and to show that Some Things could be Done as well as Others...” . Ten thousand showed up to see if he would finally make the leap.  He did, coming down feet first into the whirling white eddies below the falls, and then did it again on Saturday, 17 October, this time in a pouring rain storm. As he climbed out of the river after the last jump, Sam greeted the adoring crowds with the words “There’s no mistake in Sam Patch!”

“The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition.”
Sigmund Freud

Sam was a hit. The businessmen in Rochester, New York, immediately booked him to leap from atop the 99 foot high falls of the Genesee River, in their town. And on Friday, 6 November, 1828,  Sam fell to fame. The response was so positive, that Sam scheduled another leap on the following week, Friday, 13 November.  During the week a 25 foot high platform was constructed atop the falls, making this drop his  highest yet, 125 feet in total. It was publicized as “Higher Yet! Sam's Last Drop”.

Hasty climbers have sudden falls

Italian Proverb

There were 8,000 witnesses along the banks of the Geneseese River, just about everybody in town. .

As he climbed the ladder, some would later say Sam Patch staggered a bit. He had taken at least a single glass of brandy before ascending that ladder. And once atop the tower, Sam shouted down to the crowd. “Napoleon was a great man and a great general. He conquered armies and he conquered nations, but he couldn't jump the Genesee Falls. Wellington was a great man and a great soldier. He conquered armies and he conquered nations, but he couldn't jump the Genesee Falls. That was left for me to do, and I can do it, and will.”

“Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.”

Emile M. Cioran 20^th century Romanian philosopher and Nazi apologist.

He began his plunge as usual, straight as an arrow. But then his arms drifted up, away from his sides, he began to lean, and he entered the water at an angle. There was a huge splash. And when the water calmed, there was nothing. Sam Patch was no more, dead before the age of 30.

"Ambition never comes to an end."

Yoshida Kenko 14^th century Japanese Buddhist Monk and poet.

They dragged the river, but did not find his remains. Then, on  17 March, 1829,  5 miles downstream, near the river's joining with Lake Erie, farmer Silas Hudson paused to let his horses drink from the river, and was started to see a body under the ice, jammed against the shore. They identified the corpse by the black scarf around the neck and the frozen features. They buried Sam Patch the Daredevil near where they found his body, in the Charlotte Cemetery, on River Street. His original marker read simply, “Sam Patch – Such is Fame” A later marker, paid by donations in the late 1940's, got his birth date wrong. And it said he had “leaped to his death over the upper falls”, as if he had committed suicide.  And “suicide” implies Sam had a choice. But that was the entire point of Sam's life. He never really did. In America, working class people, never really do.

“Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!”

Walter Savage Landor 19^th century English Poet.

- 30 -