This detail of Cassandra's river from a view by Surgeon Edward Walsh was drawn from Fort Niagara, shown in the right foreground, on April 20, 1812. Source: William L. Clements Library.

CASSANDRA'S BURNING

by Adriana Maxwell

Cassandra, Age 7, 1800, Youngstown NY.

 “Do you want to take the tiller?”

Did I?  It was a scary proposition. My father’s dinghy, the Swallow, was big and heavy. My seven year old body had a world that didn’t extend much past what I could reach, or where I could run and somehow I knew that when I took the tiller it was the giant leap for me. 

Boats were what the trappers and the traders used to arrive from all sorts of places and then carry smaller boats past the fort and up over the falls and into the wilderness, and they carried some of them back with tall tales of giant bears, fierce Indians, and cold winters.  When they arrived from over the falls, they often needed a doctor and my father would hear fantastic tales of the wild west and one needed a boat to be in those stories. 

So I scampered over and sat beside father with the big tiller between us.  His arm was resting comfortably on it while I reached up to put my hand on it, near his.  The light wind pushed the heavy boat up and down the Niagara River that warm day.

If there was any wind at all, it usually seemed a leisurely sail up the river and a fast and furious ride back to the dock by the fort where my father kept the boat tied up, or often dragged up on the bank.  Going upriver, with the sprit sail full under the guns of the fort, then on up the back eddy to Youngstown and beyond, he would usually stick close the shore, taking advantage of the back eddy and avoiding the stronger current in the middle. 

Coming back, he would most often swing the boat around and head for the current and going upwind would tack out to the middle of the river, catch the current, tack, and then angle the boat back to the shore.  Tacking was always an exciting moment, when all things one would be comfortable about the boat and its perfect balance would be upturned in a confusion of flapping sails, tilting decks, and changing scenery.

The boat would heel somewhat going upwind, and whoever was on board would be urged to “take the high side” to try to settle the boat down.  If the wind shifted north, it was sometimes a wet ride back, because the wind could push the lake into the river and kick up waves and spray.  In the summer this was a wonderful feeling, but in the early spring and late fall it was a reason to bundle under the oilskins or as I liked to do as a small child, huddle behind father who could shelter me from the wind and spray and keep me comfortable.  Picnics on the boat were always best going downwind.

Sitting in the boat I could hardly see over the gunnels but over the years sailing in the Swallow with father, I learned to sail the ever smaller boat.  As I look back, the instructions he gave came over years but I still remember snippets of the first time I heard them.  As I gained experience they became second nature to me but that didn’t stop father from repeating the lessons over the years.  I didn’t mind.  

“See that line in the water? It separates the heavy current going this way from the light back eddy that goes that way.”

“Coil the lines so that when we tack, we don’t have chaos on the boat”

“Don’t pinch to close to the wind.  Let the current change the apparent wind direction and help you get home.”

“Be patient, it’s not becoming of a lady to row a boat. Let’s have lunch and give the wind a chance to rest too.”

“The wind is lighter over on the Niagara side.”  That’s silly; I remember thinking, “Why is the west bank of the Niagara river called the Niagara side and the East called the lower side?”

Over the years father helped me learn how to push the yawl around the river.  He would use it to visit the sick on both sides of the shore, and to make the long trek as needed up the shores to Lewiston and Queenston when the weather was good.  He preferred his own conveyance to the intermittent cross river ferry and the bumpy, hit and miss stage coaches that connected Newark with Queenston and Fort Niagara with Lewiston.  If he was going to have to take “that damned Gidding’s ferry" over to Newark, walk into town, then hope that either Mr. Fanning or Mr. Hind were running their coaches up the road the eight miles to Queenston.   As the only regular physician in the area, Father was known well enough that he was able to hitch rides which was more reliable than the ferry or the irregular and expensive stage coaches.  Everybody wanted to have a physician in their debt.

As I got older, the thwarts got smaller, the gunnels got lower, the tiller moved down to a comfortable height, and the big heavy yawl became more of a nutshell to me.

Alas, father became less and less useful for blocking the spray and wind on those windy tacks back down the river, until I was squeezed out of the small, safe space between father and the stern. I learned to wear the oilskin properly and to enjoy the wet. 

But the Swallow did give me my freedom. I never ventured to Montreal, where I was sure they had a factory that made frontiersmen, and I didn’t follow the long trains of carts that carried the supplies up the road, past Niagara Falls and onward into the unexplored lands.  I did learn to sail the yawl, and after a while ventured solo in it, planning grand high seas adventures even if I rarely left the river. 

I’d pace the ferry, wave and smile at Mr. Gidding’s puffing oarsmen, and sail effortlessly past the workhorse of a boat that provided the connection between Youngstown and Niagara. I’d run out to meet a tall ship coming in from Kingston with a load of supplies or a fresh batch of soldiers for the fort.  I’d drift up the back eddies all the way to Lewiston and drift down the current again snacking on peaches, and strawberries, and sweet cakes.

As I grew out of childhood it was pointed out to me that while it was perfectly acceptable for young girls to play in boats, it was far less seemly for young ladies to do so.  The rivermen were a rough lot, and “it was no place for a lass.”  But father loved the boat and I loved the freedom and the things I heard from other’s mothers, I did not hear from him so I continued to sail and make friends with the people on the river.