What do you think?
Rate this book
Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper
The true history of a legendary American folk hero
In the 1820s, a fellow named Sam Patch grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, working there (when he wasn't drinking) as a mill hand for one of America's new textile companies. Sam made a name for himself one day by jumping seventy feet into the tumultuous waters below Pawtucket Falls. When in 1827 he repeated the stunt in Paterson, New Jersey, another mill town, an even larger audience gathered to cheer on the daredevil they would call the "Jersey Jumper." Inevitably, he went to Niagara Falls, where in 1829 he jumped not once but twice in front of thousands who had paid for a good view.
The distinguished social historian Paul E. Johnson gives this deceptively simple story all its deserved richness, revealing in its characters and social settings a virtual microcosm of Jacksonian America. He also relates the real jumper to the mythic Sam Patch who turned up as a daring moral hero in the works of Hawthorne and Melville, in London plays and pantomimes, and in the spotlight with Davy Crockett-a Sam Patch who became the namesake of Andrew Jackson's favorite horse.
In his shrewd and powerful analysis, Johnson casts new light on aspects of American society that we may have overlooked or underestimated. This is innovative American history at its best.
In the 1820s, a fellow named Sam Patch grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, working there (when he wasn't drinking) as a mill hand for one of America's new textile companies. Sam made a name for himself one day by jumping seventy feet into the tumultuous waters below Pawtucket Falls. When in 1827 he repeated the stunt in Paterson, New Jersey, another mill town, an even larger audience gathered to cheer on the daredevil they would call the "Jersey Jumper." Inevitably, he went to Niagara Falls, where in 1829 he jumped not once but twice in front of thousands who had paid for a good view.
The distinguished social historian Paul E. Johnson gives this deceptively simple story all its deserved richness, revealing in its characters and social settings a virtual microcosm of Jacksonian America. He also relates the real jumper to the mythic Sam Patch who turned up as a daring moral hero in the works of Hawthorne and Melville, in London plays and pantomimes, and in the spotlight with Davy Crockett-a Sam Patch who became the namesake of Andrew Jackson's favorite horse.
In his shrewd and powerful analysis, Johnson casts new light on aspects of American society that we may have overlooked or underestimated. This is innovative American history at its best.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
28 people are currently reading
178 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
March 24, 2020
Another of my semi-random reading choices.... Sam Patch was one of the first dare-devils, and an early example of someone who chased fame for its own sake. His claim to fame was jumping into pools below waterfalls. This included jumping into the pool below Niagara falls, not from the top, but from a platform maybe 100 feet high. (I'm too lazy to look up the exact figure.)
There isn't really very much to say about the man himself. But his story serves as an excuse to talk about America in the 1820's, about which there is much interesting to say. We were still less than 50 years from the writing of the Constitution, and things were not going exactly to plan. America was becoming much more democratic than republican (in the original senses) with a populist Andrew Jackson soon to become president. (His favorite horse was named Sam Patch.)
Most of Patch's life took place around the Erie canal. Cities were springing up taking power from rivers and waterfalls to create industries. Land was being "improved" by chopping down all the trees. Desperate people who failed as farmers, as well as immigrants and children, took factory jobs in horrible conditions. Sam Patch was doing fairly well for a while as a mule spinner* but eventually made a celebrity of himself as a jumper.
The upper crust looked down their noses at him. They appreciated waterfalls for their majesty, and the new cities for their conquest of nature. The rabble preferred booze and rougher entertainment, such as watching a ship full of animals (including two bears and a chained eagle) plunge to their deaths over the Niagara falls, and Sam Patch was just the ticket for them.
The author really makes the history come alive, so recommended for that. One of many things I learned was about the "milita fancies". In part due to the 2nd amendment, militias were a big thing. Men were required to take unpaid time off work, buy their own uniforms, and participate in militia training. This was unpopular. Men started showing up to training brandishing brooms instead of guns and in fancy dress, including in one case a man with a live goose strapped to his head. (Take that Bjork!)
Short, informative, and loads of fun.
* I will not define mule spinner. Go look it up!
There isn't really very much to say about the man himself. But his story serves as an excuse to talk about America in the 1820's, about which there is much interesting to say. We were still less than 50 years from the writing of the Constitution, and things were not going exactly to plan. America was becoming much more democratic than republican (in the original senses) with a populist Andrew Jackson soon to become president. (His favorite horse was named Sam Patch.)
Most of Patch's life took place around the Erie canal. Cities were springing up taking power from rivers and waterfalls to create industries. Land was being "improved" by chopping down all the trees. Desperate people who failed as farmers, as well as immigrants and children, took factory jobs in horrible conditions. Sam Patch was doing fairly well for a while as a mule spinner* but eventually made a celebrity of himself as a jumper.
The upper crust looked down their noses at him. They appreciated waterfalls for their majesty, and the new cities for their conquest of nature. The rabble preferred booze and rougher entertainment, such as watching a ship full of animals (including two bears and a chained eagle) plunge to their deaths over the Niagara falls, and Sam Patch was just the ticket for them.
The author really makes the history come alive, so recommended for that. One of many things I learned was about the "milita fancies". In part due to the 2nd amendment, militias were a big thing. Men were required to take unpaid time off work, buy their own uniforms, and participate in militia training. This was unpopular. Men started showing up to training brandishing brooms instead of guns and in fancy dress, including in one case a man with a live goose strapped to his head. (Take that Bjork!)
Short, informative, and loads of fun.
* I will not define mule spinner. Go look it up!
February 29, 2012
A FANTASTIC book, which I would recommend to almost anyone interested in Jacksonian-era history, landscape studies, drinking culture, the social costs of industrialization, or the history of celebrity. Johnson's book is a wondrous work of history, but reads like a novel; it is one of the most pleasurable books I've read in a long time. [spoilers from this point!]
It tracks Sam Patch, 1820s-30s America's famous waterfall jumper, through his short, booze-soaked, but illustrious career. Not a true biography, it's actually smarter and more important than that--answering the nearly-unanswerable question of why Sam Patch jumped, and why Americans were so obsessed with his jumping. (It has to do with several things: finding the natural sublime within the accelerating industrial machine; acting against and through the bourgeois/upper class commodification of the landscape; the excitement in realizing a working-class man could gain celebrity in a democratizing America; among several other meanings.)
I learned several things about Jacksonian culture here, in addition to several rather astounding little facts: I didn't know that proprietors of the hotels around Niagara Falls in the 1820s regularly dynamited parts of the rock face to make money and impress visitors (and even more interestingly, people weren't really all that impressed! Lucky they seemed to have stopped rather quickly). I also find it fascinating that Sam Patch kept a pet bear and paraded it around (and sadly hurdled it off of waterfalls too). The pet bear thing was even more popular than I knew--Lewis & Clark and other explorers brought cubs back from their trips for sitting presidents decades earlier, but it appears to have been a somewhat regular novelty.
Inspiring as a work of history and a work of art. Read this book!
It tracks Sam Patch, 1820s-30s America's famous waterfall jumper, through his short, booze-soaked, but illustrious career. Not a true biography, it's actually smarter and more important than that--answering the nearly-unanswerable question of why Sam Patch jumped, and why Americans were so obsessed with his jumping. (It has to do with several things: finding the natural sublime within the accelerating industrial machine; acting against and through the bourgeois/upper class commodification of the landscape; the excitement in realizing a working-class man could gain celebrity in a democratizing America; among several other meanings.)
I learned several things about Jacksonian culture here, in addition to several rather astounding little facts: I didn't know that proprietors of the hotels around Niagara Falls in the 1820s regularly dynamited parts of the rock face to make money and impress visitors (and even more interestingly, people weren't really all that impressed! Lucky they seemed to have stopped rather quickly). I also find it fascinating that Sam Patch kept a pet bear and paraded it around (and sadly hurdled it off of waterfalls too). The pet bear thing was even more popular than I knew--Lewis & Clark and other explorers brought cubs back from their trips for sitting presidents decades earlier, but it appears to have been a somewhat regular novelty.
Inspiring as a work of history and a work of art. Read this book!
December 2, 2025
read for history 404.
read in one day. a social history book disguised as something else. while johnson clearly states this isn’t a biography of sam patch, i personally cant get behind using a name as the title. a false advertisement of a biography. it irks me, i’m sorry.
goes into the ebbs and flows of the emergence of the middle class in america. how urban (more so suburban) areas in america developed, especially in the labor sector. then there’s the american individualism that every american feels to distinguish themselves from the british.
lackluster ties of sam patch, in my opinion. the narrative didn’t feel consistent. detail was sparse except for two occasions. plus, the chronology had me messed up. it typically wasn’t anything major, per say. but he definitely could’ve shifted things around and perfectly foreshadowed what was to come. maybe i’m being too stylistic.
read in one day. a social history book disguised as something else. while johnson clearly states this isn’t a biography of sam patch, i personally cant get behind using a name as the title. a false advertisement of a biography. it irks me, i’m sorry.
goes into the ebbs and flows of the emergence of the middle class in america. how urban (more so suburban) areas in america developed, especially in the labor sector. then there’s the american individualism that every american feels to distinguish themselves from the british.
lackluster ties of sam patch, in my opinion. the narrative didn’t feel consistent. detail was sparse except for two occasions. plus, the chronology had me messed up. it typically wasn’t anything major, per say. but he definitely could’ve shifted things around and perfectly foreshadowed what was to come. maybe i’m being too stylistic.
April 22, 2012
This story looks at the effects of industrialization on the working class in America through the life of the dare-devil of the time: Sam Patch. It can be pretty dry in parts, but all in all it does a magnificent job of showing how industrialization had an effect on alcohol use, women's roles, and the rise of the middle class. I highly recommend reading this.
December 24, 2022
"Some things can be done as well as others."
Long before Evel Knieval, the young United States became enamored with a daredevil with the tailor-made name of Sam Patch. A poor working-class mill worker in New England, Patch began jumping from great heights over waterfalls in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York State. He met his end during his final jump in Rochester in 1829, at the tender age of thirty. But the forces of American mythology were just beginning to have their way with his memory.
"Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper," by Paul E. Johnson, is an insightful and entertaining look at the short life of Patch, and the ways in which his story reflects the general history of change that was occurring in America at the time (aka the dawn of Jacksonian democracy and the turning away from desires among American aristocrats to continue to embrace European ways of culture and government). And on the whole, it's pretty enjoyable, if a light read. Part of this is due to the constraints on Johnson with regards to Patch, who left no written record of his life or thoughts (most Americans didn't sit around writing about themselves unless they had the means to afford to do so at that time). So this is less of a biography than a social history, and it's very well done.
Johnson reconstructs the story of Patch's short life, from his childhood of poverty thanks to an itinerant father who couldn't hold onto a dollar to his apprenticeship in the mills of New England, where he worked long, tedious hours for what little his bosses felt like paying him. Patch's claim to fame was made when he showed up the plans of a local bigwig at the unveiling of a bridge in 1827, and it wasn't long after before he began his quest for fame as a leaper from great heights into bodies of water. Patch was no mere "hey y'all, watch this" sort of bigmouth; he practiced the best ways to jump and ensure that he wouldn't lose his life in the process.
As his fame grew, he began to imbibe more alcohol (like his father before him), and eventually he found himself unable to keep from taking a fatal plunge in Rochester, New York, on November 13, 1829 (a Friday the 13th, no less). His body wasn't found for months, but legends of his survival persisted even after its discovery. He was a convenient moral lesson for those who decried such stunts, but he was also celebrated by those who saw his leaps as intrepid assertions of American democracy (Andrew Jackson named his favorite horse "Sam Patch" in the daredevil's honor). Patch's short life and claim to fame are testaments to the ways in which we build up people in our culture, and sometimes how the legend becomes the fact.
I think this was a very well-done book about a difficult subject (difficult in the sense of "not a lot to work with" in terms of story or sources). If you enjoy stories of daring people performing dangerous stunts (or conversely you enjoy stories of folks doing potentially dumb things for fun and profit), "Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper" might be right up your alley.
Long before Evel Knieval, the young United States became enamored with a daredevil with the tailor-made name of Sam Patch. A poor working-class mill worker in New England, Patch began jumping from great heights over waterfalls in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York State. He met his end during his final jump in Rochester in 1829, at the tender age of thirty. But the forces of American mythology were just beginning to have their way with his memory.
"Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper," by Paul E. Johnson, is an insightful and entertaining look at the short life of Patch, and the ways in which his story reflects the general history of change that was occurring in America at the time (aka the dawn of Jacksonian democracy and the turning away from desires among American aristocrats to continue to embrace European ways of culture and government). And on the whole, it's pretty enjoyable, if a light read. Part of this is due to the constraints on Johnson with regards to Patch, who left no written record of his life or thoughts (most Americans didn't sit around writing about themselves unless they had the means to afford to do so at that time). So this is less of a biography than a social history, and it's very well done.
Johnson reconstructs the story of Patch's short life, from his childhood of poverty thanks to an itinerant father who couldn't hold onto a dollar to his apprenticeship in the mills of New England, where he worked long, tedious hours for what little his bosses felt like paying him. Patch's claim to fame was made when he showed up the plans of a local bigwig at the unveiling of a bridge in 1827, and it wasn't long after before he began his quest for fame as a leaper from great heights into bodies of water. Patch was no mere "hey y'all, watch this" sort of bigmouth; he practiced the best ways to jump and ensure that he wouldn't lose his life in the process.
As his fame grew, he began to imbibe more alcohol (like his father before him), and eventually he found himself unable to keep from taking a fatal plunge in Rochester, New York, on November 13, 1829 (a Friday the 13th, no less). His body wasn't found for months, but legends of his survival persisted even after its discovery. He was a convenient moral lesson for those who decried such stunts, but he was also celebrated by those who saw his leaps as intrepid assertions of American democracy (Andrew Jackson named his favorite horse "Sam Patch" in the daredevil's honor). Patch's short life and claim to fame are testaments to the ways in which we build up people in our culture, and sometimes how the legend becomes the fact.
I think this was a very well-done book about a difficult subject (difficult in the sense of "not a lot to work with" in terms of story or sources). If you enjoy stories of daring people performing dangerous stunts (or conversely you enjoy stories of folks doing potentially dumb things for fun and profit), "Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper" might be right up your alley.
November 27, 2024
I read this one several years ago. It did not change my life, but it was interesting and very enjoyable. The author takes the story of Sam Patch (1799-1829), who made some money in the northeastern USA jumping from the top of waterfalls into the pools below them, and places the story in its context in Jacksonian America.
In his career Patch jumped from the top of the Great Falls in Paterson, New Jersey, Niagara Falls, and the High Falls on the Genesee River in Rochester, New York.
He had a fairly short life but enjoyed a few years of nationwide acclaim.
I would recommend the book to anyone looking for a book that combines historical analysis with a strange but enjoyable story.
In his career Patch jumped from the top of the Great Falls in Paterson, New Jersey, Niagara Falls, and the High Falls on the Genesee River in Rochester, New York.
He had a fairly short life but enjoyed a few years of nationwide acclaim.
I would recommend the book to anyone looking for a book that combines historical analysis with a strange but enjoyable story.
June 3, 2023
While Mr Johnson stated from the outset that this was not (and could not be) a biography of Sam Patch, I was still hoping for more of Sam. Don't get me wrong, I love social history as much as the next gal, but there were too many tangents Mr Johnson chose to take the reader on, so unfortunately, Sam gets lost in the shuffle. Frankly, the parts about Sam would make for a compelling long article, but trying to lengthen his story out in an entire book is a stretch. Overall, this book wasn't what I'd consider bad; just not what I expected.
March 25, 2025
Read for an American history class, was not bad but maybe just not something I was interested too much in. A main critique I had for this book was the structure at times, it jumped around quite a few ideas at once and was not always chronological (especially at the chapter Niagara). Much details outside of Sam Patch could have been spared in my opinion as well. However, I enjoyed this book as a commentary of America transitioning to an industrial period, as well as social changes that will shape the American identity seen through the small lens of the story of Sam Patch.
January 12, 2025
It's a quick read but amusing. If the author left it as just Patch's story, it would be a lot shorter but the addition of American historical contexts makes the character more relevant. Otherwise, he is just a drunk who jumps over waterfalls.
November 7, 2017
A very good microhistory that allows an amazing insight into the time. not to mention the intriguing and well planned storyline about a guy that jumps off waterfalls
August 31, 2018
Good slice of US history
Very specific in its focus and informative on the development of American culture in the early 19th century. Give it a read
Very specific in its focus and informative on the development of American culture in the early 19th century. Give it a read
October 12, 2018
Good book.
Read
June 8, 2020HIS 17A
Read
October 6, 2020Study of life in the early 1800s in the North East area of USA.
Much more than just about a man jumping off waterfalls.
Much more than just about a man jumping off waterfalls.
Read
June 21, 2022Relevant for Rhode Island
Read
November 4, 2023good story and interesting perspective on the industrial revolution. i read this for school and definitely skipped and skimmed a lot, though...
January 2, 2025
read for school but tbh very enjoyable. really good work of history this is what you dream will happen when you go to an archive
February 6, 2025
Required reading for my american studies class about the history of capitalism
August 1, 2025
Controversial
I enjoyed reading about this little known figure who captured quite quite a few headlines in his day. Was he a fool or a folk hero?
I enjoyed reading about this little known figure who captured quite quite a few headlines in his day. Was he a fool or a folk hero?
August 7, 2025
history 133a book that was actually super silly and interesting but its non fiction
February 9, 2019
Sam Patch is a legend where I grew up, so I find the history interesting. The repetitive narrative however makes for dull reading.
August 4, 2014
A biography on the life of America's first dare-devil, Sam Patch. In the 18020's Patch worked a mill and traveled in the Northeast jumping from waterfalls and becoming something of a celebrity. The author uses Patch's life, that of his family and the people he meets to demonstrate the beginning of commericalzation what he sees as the destruction of the small yoemen farmer and simple craftsmen. What really intersted me aboue this book was when the author began to talk about art and mastering a set of skills to turn something like jumping off of waterfalls into a respected art. He compares this to Sam's other "art" as a millman who works a spinning mule as both being complex and having a "set of rules" that are required and need to be mastered. Just interesting when he begins talking about that and how at the time it was a method for men to assert themsevles as strong people in the community.
October 30, 2011
Really there is something else going on here. This is not really a book about a famous jumper. This book is a short biography about the America of the 1820s. Some chapters and scenes from the eloquent narrative are almost perfect. The description of the mill town of Paterson brings to life the beginning struggles to capitalize on two of this country's great assets: nature and labor. Sam Patch becomes a emblem of the rights of the workers and the man's right to unfettered wilderness as a place of retreat and refreshment. As we follow Patch from Paterson to Niagara we see him (drunkenly) walk into a world where commerce has already won (Are the tourists bored? Lets launch a ship full of animals over the falls!). Sam jumps and stumbles through class's cultural warfare and onto Rochester, pet bear in hand. And into legend which seems to sink and rise through our history.
February 4, 2011
Felt a bit padded at times -- historians can be good at spinning grand narratives out of scraps of historical evidence, drawing on subsidiary information. But this big-picture pageantry was overdone in places here, as in the step-by-step description of the streets of Rochester. Perhaps the Patch story can't quite bear as much historical explanatory weight as Johnson wants it to support, or perhaps the links are too casually and quickly drawn here. Still, I think it will be a good teaching book about Jacksonian America at the survey level, a novel approach to some key themes of the period (early industrialization, democratization of American politics), and perhaps the book's flaws themselves will make good fodder for discussion.
November 5, 2010
I liked this book. Historical novels aren't really my forte, but I enjoyed the story of Sam Patch. I wish that the author had given more of Sam's actual story instead of going onto so many tangents, as with the chapter about Niagara where he gives such a detailed description of the falls and of the perception of the falls. I didn't really care about the subjects of his sidebars, and would have preferred to keep the focus of the story on Sam. However, on the whole I enjoyed this book, and found its subject, Sam Patch, the famous jumper, fascinating.
February 26, 2023
Reread. Still wonderful. Shows how local, residual, alternative culture is turned into popular, commodified, dominant culture. Johnson constructs a rounded character for Sam, despite the dearth of autobiographical sources. He lets Sam tell us about our society and how it has changed. Love this book! 2017
Third time reread all the way through. I've taught this book many times, but rereading it is still such a pleasure. 2023
Third time reread all the way through. I've taught this book many times, but rereading it is still such a pleasure. 2023
December 25, 2014
Micro-history at its finest. Johnson tells a narrative of the industrial revolution, the rise of modern celebrity, and Jacksonian Democracy all through the story of famous daredevil Sam Patch. Easy to read and engaging, highly recommended.
May 16, 2015
I don't know how many times one can use the word sublime and get away with it. Paul Johnson, sir, you did not simply get away with that overuse. Not my cup of tea but then again what historical book is.
June 30, 2007
I liked to picture Adam Sandler as I was reading this
October 1, 2008
Great writing. Occasionally Johnson's comments are condescending, but it's all part of the experience.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews