Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper

Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper (2003) is a biography and cultural history written by American historian Paul E. Johnson. The book centers on the life of Sam Patch, a 19th-century American mill worker and folk hero who became famous for his daring jumps off waterfalls. Johnson examines Patch’s jumps in New Jersey and New York within the context of environmental and social changes in 19th-century America. Major themes in the book include class conflict, industrialization and landscape change, and the ethics of celebrity culture.

This guide is based on the 2011 Hill and Wang e-book edition.

Summary

The preface introduces the difficulty of writing a biography when so few historical records survive of Sam Patch’s life. Sam’s father, Greenleaf Patch, was born into a relatively prosperous family. However, as a result of his father’s debts, Greenleaf entered adulthood with no property. In 1788, Greenleaf married a pregnant 17-year-old named Abigail McIntire. Abigail’s father allowed the newlyweds to raise their family on his property, but family disputes led to their eviction by 1798.

In 1807, the family moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where Greenleaf, now addicted to alcohol, abandoned the family. Abigail Patch sued Greenleaf for divorce and established her own household. She bought a small home, where she lived with her daughter and granddaughters for the rest of her life.

Sam Patch started working at Samuel Slater’s mill at a young age in order to support his family. Although depressed, Patch became a boss spinner, a respected and difficult role in the mill. Like many working boys, Patch jumped from the roofs of mills into the Pawtucket Falls for recreation and to impress his peers.

In his early 20s, Patch moved to Paterson, New Jersey, a mill town on Passaic Falls. The falls were dominated by Timothy Crane’s Forest Garden, a commercial park aimed at elite day-trippers and accessible only by Crane’s tolled bridge across the falls. Patch’s first recorded jump in Paterson was on the opening day of the bridge in 1827. Patch explicitly framed his jump as a great act to match Crane’s commercial enterprise. Patch and Crane’s rivalry reflects the tension between two views of nature in their day: the role of nature as a playground to be enjoyed equally by all, or as an unruly space of unrealized financial gain.

Johnson argues that Patch’s jump was an act of self-assertion and agency. Patch’s final jump in Paterson was announced the same day mill owners announced an unpopular schedule change. His jump was followed by mass strikes and industrial action, and Patch was likely blacklisted from work in the mills. He reappeared in July 1828 to jump 100 feet off a boat’s mast into the Hudson near Hoboken, New Jersey.

In 1829, Sam Patch jumped twice at Niagara Falls. The spectacle was observed by Colonel William Leete Stone, a New York editor who traveled to the falls as a part of his cultural and spiritual education. Patch’s personal journal reflects a conscious attempt to construct an aesthetic experience. Stone’s reporting reveals his long-time disdain for Patch, who he saw as an example of the new, uncouth American man. Writing in the character of Hiram Doolittle, a well-known stock character, Stone depicts Sam Patch and the people who came to watch him as uneducated rustics unable to appreciate the aesthetic nature of the falls.

Niagara locals had a very different view of the falls, understanding them either as the site of decades of border wars or as a deadly and inescapable force of nature. For these spectators, Patch’s jumps were an extension of the danger inherent to the environment. Patch’s jumps at Niagara demonstrate his growing showmanship, as he promoted himself more aggressively and agreed to press interviews.

Patch’s final stop on the jumping tour was Rochester. In the 1820s, Rochester was known as a city of commerce and progress. The town was built around the Genesee River, which fed the Erie Canal and powered local mills and factories. Americans celebrated Rochester’s explosive growth, while British tourists mourned the loss of wilderness. Patch lodged at the Rochester Recess, a tavern known as a hangout for the town’s so-called sporting men—working-class men who enjoyed hunting, fishing, drinking, and gambling. The walk from the Recess to Genesee Falls would have taken Patch along the canal through Rochester’s poorer districts: Although the canal brought prosperity to Rochester, it also brought violence.

A crowd of nearly 10,000 people watched Patch’s jump on November 6, 1829. The jump was so successful that Patch planned a second on Friday the 13th. Patch was visibly drunk when he appeared at the falls that day, and he delivered a strange speech before jumping. Halfway through the fall, Patch’s body seemed to spasm. He was killed on impact.

For years after Patch’s death, rumors swirled that it had been a hoax, and letters appeared in newspapers written by men claiming to be Patch. His body was found in March of 1930, and buried near Genesee Falls. Johnson argues that Patch was one of the first true American celebrities: He wanted to be famous, and he achieved his goal. In the years after his death, the two major political parties—Whigs and Democrats—understood Sam in very different ways. The East Coast elites of the Whig party mocked Patch as a vulgar upstart and used him as a stand-in for reckless decision-making. For the Democrats, trying to unite a diverse group of voters, Sam Patch became a model American. American author Nathaniel Hawthorne defended Patch’s jump, writing that other men throw away their lives without achieving Patch’s fame. President Andrew Jackson named his horse Sam Patch. In Pawtucket, Niagara, and Rochester, residents have kept Patch’s memory alive in a typically American way—through memorabilia.