Page 101 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript Americana - Sale 2310 - April 16, 2013

212 ● (NEW YORK—NIAGARA.) Porter, Augustus. To Capitalists and
Manufacturers. Engraved map and printed circular letter, 2 pages (10 x 8 inches) on one
folded sheet; minimal wear. Niagara Falls, NY, January 1847 [300/400]
Porter offers the rights to build a raceway and canal bypassing Niagara Falls. The attached map
by Peter Emslie is dated December 1846, and shows the canal route through downtown
Niagara Falls. The canal was built and remained in operation through the 1880s.
212
213
ONLY COPY OF THE FIRST AMERICAN
BOOK DEVOTED TO THE FALLS?
213 ● (NEW YORK—NIAGARA.)
Travellers’ Rough Notes, on Niagara
Falls. 32 pages. 16mo, original plain wrap-
pers, detached and moderately worn;
moderate foxing.
Black Rock, NY: Smith H. Salisbury, 1827
[1,200/1,800]
The first 12 pages of this curious little pamphlet
are devoted to “Rough Notes of an Old Traveller,”
which compare the anonymous author’s 1797 visit
to Niagara Falls with another visit in 1827. The
second and final chapter is a charming and humorous
account of the falls titled “Dick Wildfire’s
Narrative,” signed in type “Rich: Wildfire” and
dated 14 June 1827. Neither of these sections
appears to have been published elsewhere.
This pamphlet is not listed in Dow’s comprehensive
Niagara Falls bibliography, nor does he list any
earlier American prose books or pamphlets devoted
solely to the Falls (Maude’s “Visit to the Falls of
Niagara” had been published in London in 1826,
while Alexander Wilson’s poem “The Foresters”
had appeared in 1818). Not in Sabin, Shaw &
Shoemaker, Severance’s Buffalo Imprints (which
includes other Black Rock imprints), or WorldCat.
No other copies known at auction, and quite possibly
unique.