The Cradles

The Cradles. British military engineering eases the ascent from the river to the top of the Escarpment.. Originally, Seneca porters carried goods and boats up the Escarpment for the French and the british. In 1750, Swedish traveler Peter Kalm reported that 200 Seneca were employed in carrying on their backs packs of bear and deer skin and that he saw four men carry a birch bark canoe five fathoms long up the Escarpment. He reported that the Seneca referred to the way that he porters clambered up the escarpment on their hands and knees as Duh'jih'heh'oh meaning "to walk on all fours." The porter were paid 20 pence for each pack they carried or were given blankets, coats, stockings, and other items for their labor., After the British occupied the Niagara region they attempted to improve the movement of goods up the Escarpment first by grading the Gully and then by creating a mechanical device to move materials up from the Lower Landing. Several individuals, including John Montressor, a British lieutenant of the engineers, are credited with building a carrying device for moving goods up and down the Gully between 1762 and 1764. The Cradles, as they were called, were actually carts or sleds drawn by ropes along wooden rails. To manage the slope, the rails were in three stages. The first stage raised the carts from the river up the Gully to the top of the bank, approximately 50 feet, and terminated near this marker. The second stage changed direction ninety degrees to the south and began the ascent up the Escarpment. The third and last stage began half way up the Escarpment, on a natural shelf and terminated at the crest of the ridge. Because a large number of men were needed to operate the winches that pulled the cradles, the second and third stages were abandoned during the Revolutionary War.