Historically, waterfalls have served two purposes. First, they have been engines of economic development, literally powering mills and factories by turning the wheels and gears of industry. The industrial revolution, both in England and the United States, grew up around these cascades. Second, waterfalls have been objects of wonder, inspiring awe at their thundering majesty.
Waterfalls define Rochester, and from the Pont de Rennes one gets a spectacular view of High Falls, a waterfall that over the course of the city’s history High Falls has been admired for its beauty and valued for its power.
Long a fishing ground of the Seneca Indians, white settlers began exploiting it to power flour mills. In 1812 when the United States and Great Britain waged war throughout this area of New York, this wilderness land hosted only a few scattered inhabitants. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, changed all that. By 1829 the population of the city had grown to 9,000 and it was hailed as a modern wonder, the Young Lion of the West. People flocked to the town, abandoning washed-out farms in New England and dim prospects in Ireland and Germany to seek their fortunes in this boom town.
The town also attracted a fortune-seeker of another kind, the famous waterfall jumper Sam Patch. As the historian Paul Johnson narrates in his biography of the legendary leaper, he was a working-class hero who gained fame and notoriety jumping over waterfalls in the new mill towns of Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Patterson, New Jersey before earning even greater renown by conquering Niagara Falls. In November of 1829 he staggered into Rochester and announced his intention to jump over what we now know as High Falls.
As Johnson notes, Patch represented a bumptious, free-wheeling, riotous side of Rochester’s working-class community that many of the town’s sober and earnest elites disliked and distrusted. Patch settled in a tavern (the Rochester Recess on Exchange Street) where he held court while making plans for his jump when he wasn’t engaged in bouts of heavy drinking. On Friday, November 6th at 2:00 PM he leapt from the edge of the falls, disappeared into the turbulent waters, and then bobbed to the surface and swam triumphantly to shore. The crowd–that witnesses claimed was up to 10,000 people equaling the population of Rochester at the time–roared its approval at his triumph.
After his success, Patch declared his intent to jump again, this time on Friday the 13th. Once again crowds gathered, this time even larger than the first. Patch upped the ante by having a platform built to make the jump even higher. As he climbed the platform it became apparent, however, that he was drunk. His dive showed none of his usual grace and he hit the water hard, dying instantly. He disappeared under the water and to the horror of the crowd never emerged. Only many months later was his body recovered.
Pont des Rennes did not exist at that time. It was built in 1891 as the Pratt Street Bridge and uses what is known as a Warren truss construction, meaning it is designed as a series of equilateral triangles that evenly distribute the weight. It closed to traffic in 1977 and was converted to a pedestrian bridge in 1982, when it was renamed the Pont de Rennes in honor of Rochester’s sister city in northwest France. It marked the start of a decades long attempt to turn the High Falls area into an entertainment district, an effort that has never quite taken off. Certainly nothing has been able to recapture the city’s excitement over the mighty leaps of Sam Patch.
Still, the area is beautiful. Ursula, Abigail, and I had a lovely time exploring the extensive industrial remains in High Falls when we visited on Father’s Day.
The view on both sides of the bridge is magnificent, and when we crossed we had the chance to get to get a closer look at the next two bridges that cross almost directly above the falls. But that’s material for the next post!
Bridges of the Genesee River 
Nice one, JP!
Sent from my iPhone
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