A lot of people believe the superstition that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. So today we’re talking about someone who had a very unlucky Friday the 13th, right here in Rochester – Sam Patch. He was the first famous American daredevil, earning the nicknames “The Jersey Jumper”, “The Daring Yankee” and the “Yankee Leaper”.
Patch was raised in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and grew up working as a child laborer at a cotton mill. When he wasn’t working, he entertained the other boys by jumping off the mill dam into the river below. By his early 20s, he was working at a mill in Paterson, New Jersey and jumping from higher and more daring spots. He started attracting crowds for his well-advertised stunts, like jumping off the 70-foot Passaic Falls, off bridges, factory walls, and ships’ masts.
In the fall of 1829, Patch was the star attraction at an event designed to draw visitors to Niagara Falls. Patch jumped from a height of over 80 feet over the falls into the Niagara River. He repeated the feat a second time on October 17 that year in front of a crowd of 10,000 people. He gained nationwide fame and his name became a household word.
Shortly after, Patch came here to Rochester to challenge the 94-foot High Falls. On Friday, November 6, 1829, a crowd of 7,000-8,000 gathered to watch him attempt the feat. He went out onto a rock ledge in the middle of the falls, and first threw his newly-acquired pet bear cub into the river below. When the bear swam safely to shore, Patch successfully jumped in after it.
This first jump didn’t generate as much money as Patch had hoped. So he decided to repeat the stunt a week later, on Friday November 13. This time he wasn’t so lucky. He increased the height of the jump to 125 feet, and for some reason wasn’t able to achieve his normal feet-first vertical entry into the water. The crowd heard a loud impact and Patch never surfaced. Initially there were rumors that he was hiding out in a cave at the base of the falls, enjoying the excitement he had created. But his frozen body was found in the ice in Charlotte the next spring. He was buried in Charlotte Cemetary.
In the years following his death, Patch’s legacy continued to grow. He was a popular folk hero in poems and stories and was the subject of theatrical plays. President Andrew Jackson even named his horse Sam Patch in his honor. Today of course, he is the namesake of an Erie Canal tour boat in Pittsford.
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