New York singing star Mary Testa depicts Bay City's famed daredevil Annie Edson Taylor in an off Broadway musical. Century After Annie Taylor's Niagara Plunge, She Makes Off Broadway Bigtime
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Anna Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old Bay City dancing teacher, according to the New York Times, was the first person to go over Niagara Falls and live.
However, it took more than a century for the widow of Civil War veteran David Taylor to receive the fame she deserved, and so desperately desired.
Now her story is memorialized in an off-Broadway musical, documented in film and radio productions.
Annie and her managers tow the padded four and a half foot high barrel to the Canadian rapids of Niagara Falls.
Surviving the precipitous fall Oct. 24, 1901, was made possible by her perhaps foolhardy courage and a sturdy barrel made in the Bay County village of Salzburg, not yet part of Bay City.
The barrel was designed by Annie herself in her apartment at 126 Washington Avenue. It was made by the Bay City Cooperage Co., managed by Anthony Piechowiak.
She was not accompanied by her cat, Iagara, on her daredevil trip as sometimes reported. The cat made its own trip earlier in the aforementioned Salzburg barrel, and survived.
She had declared she would take with her in the barrel a bottle of sherry wine, a bottle of smelling salts and a biscuit, all padded against breakage as was the inside of the barrel.
Miss Taylor became one of Bay City's most famous persons by surviving the bobbing voyage through the whirlpool Canadian rapids and the vertical fall of 159 feet to the white foaming waters below the abyss.
Ironically, the feat was accomplished on her 63rd birthday. At that time she achieved a modicum of fame that never led to fortune. Now that fame is multiplied astronomically with a new off-Broadway musical, "Queen of the Mist," based on her adventure at Niagara more than a century ago.
A 3.21 minute clip from Playbill.com about the musical is posted on bay-journal.com, describing the production as "incredibly moving and exciting."
The musical, starring Tony Award nominee Mary Testa as Annie, the female daredevil, has been filmed for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The production features music, lyrics and a libretto by Michael John LaChiusa, five-time Tony Award nominee.
Reviewer Rob Hartmann of Stagebuzz.com comments: "Ms. Testa channels a holy madness: she dominates the piece as a woman unshakably convinced of her own rightness, voracious for approval and acclaim (and money), yet who is unable to articulate her own experiences to the satisfaction of a fickle public."
"Queen" was produced by the Transport Group as part of its Twentieth Century Project under direction of Jack Cummings III. Major funding was provided by the Shen Family Foundation of New York. The musical had a one month extended run at The Gym at Judson Memorial Church, Washington Square, New York City.
"Queen of the Mist" will also have an original cast album on the Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records label slated to be recorded Jan. 3.
The show's billing rhapsodizes: "Navigating both the treacherous falls and a fickle public with a ravenous appetite for sensationalism, this unconventional heroine vies for her legacy in a world clamoring with swindling managers, assassins, revolutionaries, moralizing family, anarchists and activists. Convinced that there is greatness in her and determined not to live as ordinary, she sets out to battle her fear and tempt her fate. Queen of the Mist is the story of a single great fall, and how one woman risked death so that she could live."
In fact she had told a Bay City Sunday Times reporter that she needed money to pay off a mortgage on a Texas ranch: "I might as well be dead as remain in my present condition." She denied it was a suicidal attempt, declaring herself "too good an Episcopalian for self-destruction, fully realizing what that would mean in the hereafter."
The sad saga of Annie Edson Taylor, born Oct. 24, 1838 in Auburn, New York, ended with her death April 29, 1921 in the Niagara County Infirmary, Lockport, New York. She is buried in the "Stunter's Section" of Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, NY.
On July 5, 1887 the Queen Victoria Park Commission took over jurisdiction of the land along the Niagara River Gorge and the decision was made to address the many tragedies that had occurred at the Falls due to stunts and daredevil acts. The Commissioners decided to prohibit rope and wire walkers from anchoring their ropes and wires on the gorge wall.
As recently as 1976, the Commission studied the question of tightrope walks across the Niagara Gorge, jointly reviewing this issue with representatives of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
Their recommendations noted that the original purpose for establishing The Niagara Parks Commission was to remove the increasingly carnival atmosphere adjacent to the Falls. After consideration of items such as allocation of resources, environmental impact and public safety, both organizations denied permission for these events.
In November 1996, The Niagara Parks Commission denied a request for a proposed skywalk by Jay Cochrane. Commission Chairman Gary Burroughs announced "The net effect of this type of event is to encourage less qualified individuals to perform stunts or feats that put not only themselves at risk, but also those who may be involved in their rescue."
The Niagara Parks Commission prohibits stunting on all of its properties under the authority granted under Regulations of the Niagara Parks Act. Stunting now carries a maximum fine of $10,000.
Following is a chronology from the mid-1800s to 1951, of attempts to go over the Falls in a barrel or some other device, to go through the Class 6 rapids of the Great Gorge, or to walk across on a tightrope. Some of these stunters were successful, others died in their attempt:
STUNTERS AT THE FALLS (As reported by Niagara Parks Commission; not a complete list)
Mrs. Annie Taylor, a 63-year-old schoolteacher, decided that a trip over Niagara Falls was her way to fame and fortune. On October 24, 1901, assistants strapped her (along with her cat as seen in this photo) into a special harness in a barrel. A small boat towed the barrel out into the main stream of the Niagara River and the barrel was cast loose.
The rapids first slammed it one way, then the other, then came the drop and a bone-wrenching jar so violent that Mrs. Taylor was sure she hit rocks. Seventeen minutes after the plunge, the barrel had been tossed close enough to the Canadian shore to be hooked and dragged onto the rocks. Mrs. Taylor was dazed but triumphant and being the first person to conquer the mighty Falls of Niagara, she found the fame she sought so desperately. But fortune was a bit more elusive. Twenty years after her brush with death at Niagara, she died destitute.
Bobby Leach, an Englishman, successfully made a trip in an all-steel barrel on July 25, 1911, and then spent 23 weeks in hospital recuperating from numerous fractures and other injuries. Fifteen years later on a lecture tour in New Zealand, he slipped on an orange peel, broke his leg and died of complications from the injury.
The next barrel stunter to try the Falls was also an Englishman, Charles Stephens. When his heavy oak barrel hit water after the drop over the Falls on July 11, 1920, Stephens went out the bottom. He was killed and only one arm was recovered.
Jean Lussier, a native of Quebec, designed a six-foot rubber ball composed of 32 inner tubes and a double-wall steel frame. One of the biggest crowds on record saw the stunt on July 4, 1928. The ball took some hard knocks in the rapids but the skip over the Falls was perfect. About one hour after entering his ball, Lussier stepped ashore none the worse for wear. For many years he displayed his ball at Niagara Falls and sold small pieces of the inner tubes for souvenirs at 50 cents a piece.
On July 4th, 1931, George Stathakis, a Greek chef from Buffalo, went over the Falls in a 2,000-pound contraption of wood and steel. He survived the plunge over the Falls only to die after becoming trapped behind the curtain of water for 22 hours. He had enough oxygen for only three hours.
In the summer of 1951, Red Hill Jr. planned to go over the Falls in a flimsy contrivance he called the "Thing" that consisted of 13 inner tubes held together with fish net and canvas straps. On August 6, Hill and the "Thing" headed into the rapids. It was tossed into the air, upended, thrown from side to side and bounced off rocks. It was starting to disintegrate even before it reached the Falls. When the drop came, the "Thing" disappeared into churning water at the base of the Falls. Seconds later what was left floated into view. The following day, Hill's battered body was taken from the river.
A destitute Annie, spurned by fame, turned to selling memorabilia on the streets of New York to survive financially.
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