Niagara Falls 



1902 ing slap on the side of the head. Graham made a third and a 

 Dunlap fourth trip that summer, and then for twelve years he prudently 



rested on his laurels, watching all that was done in a sensational 

 way at Niagara. Last summer scored his fifth trip through 

 the rapids, and nearly ended his life, for he was caught in an eddy, 

 where he was held over twenty minutes. The day was very 

 warm, and when Graham finally reached the whirlpool and was 

 taken from the barrel he was nearly suffocated. 



The first double trip through the rapids was made by George 

 Hazlett and William Potts, of Buffalo, in 1886. In the same 

 year W. J. Kendall, a Boston policeman, swam through the 

 rapids to the whirlpool, protected only by a life-preserver. 



Up to this time the thirst for notoriety in the rapids had been 

 confined wholly to the sterner sex, but in the late fall of 1886 

 Miss Sadie Allen, in company with George Hazlett, made a 

 barrel trip through the rapids. 



For over fourteen years after this there was a cessation of 

 barrel trips, and in the mean time men who had ideas about life- 

 saving boats came to the front. Charles A. Percy, of Niagara 

 Falls, was the first. His boat was seventeen feet long and had 

 a beam of four feet ten inches. At each end there was an air- 

 chamber, and ensconced in one of these air-chambers Percy made 

 three trips through the rapids in 1887, on one of which he was 

 accompanied by William Dittrick. His last voyage was very 

 rough and he lost his boat. 



The next man to bring a boat to Niagara was Robert William 

 Flack, of Syracuse. He surrounded his craft, the " Phantom," 

 with mystery. It had a filling, he said, that he expected to 

 patent, and he was confident that it would prove a great money- 

 maker. Flack early met Percy, and the two entered into an 

 agreement to have a race through the gorge in the boats they had 

 made. But as Percy had been through the rapids and inspired 

 confidence in his boat — this was following his first trip — Flack 

 must first inspire equal confidence in his boat by making the 

 voyage. July 4, 1 888, was the date selected. Flack's craft was 



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