|
The
Albion Falls are located in the southernmost tip of the King's
Forest Park property. This area is also known as Albion Mills
or the village of Mount Albion. Albion Falls was once seriously
considered as a possible source of water to supply the city of
Hamilton. Rocks from the Albion Falls area were used in the construction
of the Royal Botanical Gardens' Rock Garden.
Lover's
Leap
The
ravine at the Albion Falls has a legend of the Lover's Leap. The
story is this: Early in the nineteenth century young Jane Riley,
disappointed in love with Joseph Rousseau, stood at the top of
a steep cliff not far from thundering Albion Falls and flung herself
to the bottom 100 feet below. The steep drop has since been dubbed
"Lovers' Leap" and many tales have grown up about the
suicide. The event is recorded in two lines (which are all that
are available) of a poem written by a certain Slater at the time
of the sad occurrence:
Alas,
poor Jane Riley,
for Joseph she did die
By jumping off that dizzy brink
full sixty cubits high.
Joseph's
mother said: "Let the blame rest on my shoulders". Some
years later, when in apparently good health, she suddenly shrieked:
"Jane's hand is on my shoulder," and fell dead on the
floor. Jane had evidently taken her at her word.
There
is another version of the story that is told: A young woman of
the neighbourhood had fallen in love with a young farmer, a near
neighbour. But the young man did not love the girl. To make things
worse, he fell in love with another girl and married her. This
drove the heroine of this story to distraction. One morning she
walked out with a young lady companion. She said not a word to
indicate her awful purpose; but, when she arrived at the precipice,
she leaped into the abyss and disappeared from the view of her
horror stricken companion. Some men who were working in the ravine
below saw her fall. They said that as the unfortunate girl plunged
swiftly down feet foremost, her clothing formed a parachute and
checked her fall. Finding that she was dropping too slowly to
accomplish her suicidal purpose the girl reached down, collapsed
the parachute and went down like a shot upon the rough and broken
rocks below. When the men reached her, they found her poor mangled
body still alive, but she was unconscious, and although she lived
an hour, she never spoke again.
In
the 1940's, there was a fatal accident at Lover's Leap. A young
girl died when a light truck left the road, went through the fence,
and plunged to the valley below.
~
Information from the Special Collections at the Hamilton Public
Library
|
