| Show RODE OYER NIAGARA ON BACK LN N Y mail kail and express when blondin the ropewalker rope walker carried a man on his shoulders ders on a wire rope stretched over niagara falls in 1869 he achieved instant and lasting fame his courage and daring are praised to the skies even now but the nerve of the he man who made the trip on the frenchmans French mans shoulders has of late years excited no particular comment after the lapse of a generation this man has been found in chicago where he has told the story of his great ride his name is henry M colcord he was a professional athlete in 1859 18 59 and was a fellow member of the ravel Kavel troupe with blondin when he made his first trip over niagara colcord was 26 years old when the troupe disbanded blondin proposed to colcord that he should cap all his previous feats by going to the falls and making the ascension that is what the profession called the long rope walk blondina Blon dins ambition was said mr colcord to go across the falls and not across the river his idea was to anchor one end ead of the rope at goat island with the old terrapin tower long since removed as the support on the american side and then to extend the rope across horseshoe falls through the mist to table rock where it would be securely anchored on the canadian side mr porter was the owner of th the land eland and he be would not give his consent we worked a whole year to get the rope fixed in that way but failed in the end finally we put the rope about half way between the old bridge and niagara nia g a a falls across whites pleasure gro grounds ands there it was that anat we made our first ascension the guy ropes were not protected w when hen we made our first crossing the people bad access to them and as there were large sums of money staked on the outcome the temptation to pull these topes ropes by those betting against blondin was very great in the middle of the rope there was a space of forty feet not supported by guy lines I 1 had to dismount three times from blondina Blon dins shoulders and stand on the th e rope e with wi th my hands touching on his shou shoulders ders before we reached this spot this rope was strung feet over the river and was 1900 feet in length and neit neither her of us knew the action of that forty feet without th the guy lines blondin had crossed the river river before but not with any weight it was the man on his back that gave the affair its great import blondin said to me harry whatever I 1 do in crossing that forty feit feet don dont it you do an anything y th n sit perfectly passive on my back ast just be dead dont try to balance while I 1 am walking on that space when blondin had walked over ten foot of that forty with me on his back he suddenly lost his balance he could not recover it he started to run an on one side of the rope clear to the first guy line a distance of thirty feet no sooner did his foot touch the guy line than it broke and he had to run to the next one another twenty feet when he got there he caught his balance and said to rde irie get etoff off quick I 1 dismounted and stood there quietly with my hands lightly touching his shoulders until he got ready to go on now heres the deanin meaning of blondina Blon dins hurry he had not got half halff way across the rope before he was aware that somebody was pulling the guy line he say one word to me about it for if he had as sure as I 1 am alive toda today to da day I 1 should have been scared to death bais this incident shows his coolness he expected that every guy line he would pass would be pulled in this way and that he would lose his balance every time he reached one of these lines I 1 never dreamed that under the circumstances any man could be guilty of such a dastardly act as that before we reached the shore I 1 dismounted seven times and it took us thirty five minutes to get cross across a the first season blondin did not get much he depended largely upon contributions but then afterward he took my advice and the last two seasons he made ato 0 mr colcord acord has been painting portraits since 1863 and now at 59 years of age abejie aie has a quiet studio in chicago |
