The winter of 1875 was intensely cold. The singular figures represented in the illustrations--the eagle, dog, baboon, and others--are exact reproductions of the real chance-work of the frost of that season. The long-continued prevalence of the south-west wind fastened to every object facing it a border or apron of dazzling whiteness, and more than five feet thick. The ice mountain below the American Fall, reaching nearly to the top of the precipice, was appropriated as a "coasting" course, and furnished most exhilarating sport to the people who used it. A large number of visitors came from all directions, and, on the 22d of February, fifteen hundred were assembled to see the extraordinary exhibition.
In the coldest winters, the ice-bridges cannot be less than two hundred and fifty feet thick. The ice-bridge of 1875 formed on the 6th and 7th of May, was crossed on the 8th, and broke up on the 14th--the only one ever known in the river so late in the spring.
[Illustration: COASTING BELOW THE AMERICAN FALL]
Judge Porter--General Porter--Goat Island--Origin of its name--Early dates found cut in the bark of trees and in the rock--Professor Kalm's wonderful story--Bridges to the Island--Method of construction--Red Jacket--Anecdotes--Grand Island--Major Noah and the New Jerusalem--The Stone Tower--The Biddle Stairs--Sam Patch--Depth of water on the Horseshoe--Ships sent over the Falls.
In preparing this narrative, the writer has had the good fortune to listen to many recitals of facts and incidents by the late Judge Augustus Porter and the late General Peter B. Porter, whose names are intimately and honorably connected with the more recent history, not only of this particular locality but of the Empire State.
Judge Porter, after having spent several years in surveying and lotting large portions of the territory of Western New York and the Western Reserve in Ohio, came from Canandaigua to Niagara Falls with his family in June, 1806, where he continued to live until his death, nearly fifty years afterward.
General Porter settled as a lawyer at Canandaigua in 1795, removed to Black Rock in 1810, and to Niagara Falls in 1838.
In 1805, the two brothers became interested with others in the purchase from the State of New York of four lots in the Mile Strip lying both above and below the Falls.