Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper

Rochester officials could not recover Sam Patch’s body, and rumors that the jump had been a hoax spread quickly. Many believed that he had swam to safety and hidden until crowds dispersed. A few days after the fatal leap, a letter apparently signed by Patch appeared on the door of a Rochester tavern, promising a triumphant reappearance a few days later. Although a crowd showed up on the designated day, Patch was nowhere to be seen. A few weeks later, a long letter appeared in a Boston paper written by a man claiming to be Patch. The letter claimed that Patch had stood safely in the crowd while a dummy wearing his clothes and weighted with rocks was tossed over the edge. The real Patch apparently waited in the crowd to feel his fans’ grief before leaving Rochester forever.

Stories persisted for years, even after Patch’s corpse was found seven miles away near Lake Ontario in March 1830. Although his face was badly damaged, his distinctive jumping clothes were still recognizable. Patch was buried in a small plot near the spot where his body was found. His epitaph read “Sam Patch—Such is Fame” (162).

Johnson notes that Patch was famous for only the last few years of his life and that his fame after death was much more significant. References to Sam Patch appeared in all types of media throughout the 19th century, from newspapers and magazines to farmers’ almanacs, minstrel shows, and stage plays. His slogan, “some things can be done as well as others” (66), became a popular saying both in earnest and as a joke. His very name became a gentle oath that allowed Americans to swear without swearing. For much of the 19th century, his name was inescapable.

Sam Patch was one of America’s first modern celebrities. For a man like Patch to become famous in the 19th century was unlikely. In the United States, ideas about fame came primarily from the classical world. Like the ancient Romans, 19th-century Americans believed that fame was achieved through military, religious, or social accolades, and that it was reserved primarily for gentlemen. Johnson points to George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette as examples of respectable fame, and the upstart politician Aaron Burr as an example of inappropriate fame-seeking. Fame was not supposed to come to men like Sam Patch, born into obscurity in a family that could not stop losing money. Nor was it expected to come for something as unruly as waterfall jumping.

Johnson notes that, in the 19th century, Americans were in the process of crafting new identities: as individuals, as states, as political parties, and as a nation. The widespread fame of celebrities like Sam Patch contributed to identity-making by demonstrating the variety of possibilities open to an individual. In the process of shaping themselves, these celebrities also became commodities. As products of literature, stage plays, and newspaper stories, celebrities were reshaped and reimagined to fulfill specific purposes. Johnson argues that because celebrity has the status of folklore in America, the differences between Patch’s real life and the Patch represented in posthumous media sources are mostly irrelevant.

In the 1830s and 1840s, American democracy was changing in important ways. The expansion of the voting public led to the creation of two major political parties, the Democrats (led by President Andrew Jackson) and the Whigs (led by Jackson’s political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay). These political groups understood and used the legend of Sam Patch in very different ways. The wealthy East Coast elites who mostly comprised the Whig party dismissed Sam Patch as an ambitious, unruly, and uneducated fool. In the months following Patch’s death, mock elegies were printed in Whig literary magazines written in the voice of his uneducated and uncouth fans.

The Whigs were especially disdainful of what they saw as Patch’s inappropriate desire for fame, and often depicted him choosing waterfall jumping at random in an attempt to find fame. Other writers used his name as a stand-in for reckless decision-making, comparing Patch to drunk balloonists, overeager soldiers, and arrogant generals. In later years, Sam Patch became a Yankee stock character in the form of Colonel Stone’s Hiram Doolittle Jr. In these mocking texts, writers use phonetic spelling to portray Patch as both uneducated and fame-seeking.

The Whig party was primarily comprised of elite East Coast residents and shared many cultural references. The Democrats, on the other hand, needed to unite a diverse group of voters ranging from New Hampshire to Indiana. As the party struggled to find a coherent voice, Sam Patch emerged as a model of All-American manhood. He was portrayed most famously by the actor Dan Marble, who was given an amateur script about Patch while on tour in Buffalo.

After debuting the show in Buffalo, Marble toured as Patch across the Western United States. In these informal western theaters, Marble adapted the character of Patch to suit his audience’s tastes. By the time the show arrived in New York, the character of Patch was an amalgam of American stereotypes, such as Southern frontiersmen, Eastern mill workers, and riverboat captains. Most famously, American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne defended Patch’s fatal jump, writing that men throughout history have thrown away their lives without achieving Patch’s fame. Democratic President Andrew Jackson, who claimed to know horses better than men, named his horse Sam Patch.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, memories of Patch faded, although two modern novels have been published about him. In the towns where Patch’s most famous jumps occurred—Pawtucket, Niagara, and Rochester—locals continue to honor his memory in the present through commercial enterprises. In Rochester, his name is attached to a gift shop, canal boat, and local beer.