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There will be more digging at Cataract Park in Niagara Falls. That was the result of an appearance of Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Museum.
The good news is, in uncertain times when things in Washington are spiraling out of whack, the Heritage area is receiving a $73,214 grant of federal tax dollars for an archaeological dig on the site of the Cataract House.
Just a few short weeks ago, such funding was paused with an executive order by President Trump. A lawsuit forced a court ruling to determine the pause in already appropriated legislative funding was an overreach of the executive branch and funding was restored.
The grant was announced at a press conference at the museum featuring Heritage area staff, elected officials and community activists.
Among those to speak was Mayor Robert Restaino who just a month or so ago, held his own even to announce the city foreclosing upon properties on Main Street with the hope of spurring redevelopment. He did not invite anyone from the Heritage Area to that event even though their art project, including the Polly King murals on the Jenss building are the only positive development in that area over the last 30 years. It was a notable snub.
“The federal funding freeze put this grant in jeopardy,” Kennedy said, “thanks to the persistence of advocates and community groups, that freeze was lifted.”
The Cataract House was a famous hotel on the Underground Railroad. Today, it is the site of a small adjacent to the Turtle building close to the American Rapids.
Legend has it that the hotel, staffed by freed slaves, would host guests from slave states who would sometimes bring a favorite servant for a holiday and would let the servant have a day off.
Hotel staff would pass word to the visiting slave that it would be worthwhile to visit John Morrison, who ran the kitchen staff in the hotel.
Morrison would talk the terrified slave into leaving a life of servitude and starting over in Canada. In the river, below Goat Island’s Stedman’s Bluff was a boat where the soont-to-be free slave would be rowed to freedom.
An area of Cataract Hotel Park was excavated about two years ago and featured on a CBC documentary. The Heritage Area’s Saladin Allah was the local expert and was featured on “The Nature of Things” but is hard to stream online stateside. https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/the-incredible-story-of-how-black-waiters-at-a-niagara-falls-hotel-helped-enslaved-people-reach-freedom-1.6736270
Capen explained the role of Heritage Areas.
“Aside from land, air and water, a story is the oldest thing on earth,” Capen said. “There is a power to place in National Heritage Areas.”
One grant for an archaeological dig does not solve a pending fiscal crisis for the museum which is hurting because other funding issues, including $200,000 in casino compact funding not released because of a lack of an agreement between Albany and the Seneca Nation.
