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The
Albion Falls are located in the southernmost tip of the King's
Forest Park property. This area is also known as Albion Mills
in the village of Mount Albion.
Albion Falls was once considered as a possible source of water to supply the city of
Hamilton, but this wouldn't come to pass. Other than being historically a dark place, this area is virtually wiped off the map thanks to the modern development of the East Mountain and the Red Hill Expressway.
The Lover's
Leap
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The
ravine at the Albion Falls has a legend of the Lover's Leap.
Early in the nineteenth century young Jane Riley,
disappointed by love-losed with the dashing Joseph Rousseau, stood at the top of
a steep cliff above the thundering Albion Falls and flung herself
to the bottom 100 feet below.
The drop has since been dubbed
"Lovers' Leap" and many mentions of the suicide have popped up over the decades. Such as a poem written by a certain Slater at the time:
Alas,
poor Jane Riley,
for Joseph she did die
By jumping off that dizzy brink
full sixty cubits high.
It was commonly known in the village before the death of Jane Riley that her love for Joseph was never returned. The womanizing Rousseau was seen about town with many woman, including a local prostitute. Somebody did catch Joseph and the prostitute in the local church having relations on a pew. But Jane passed all the rumours off as gossip.
The one thing that truly hurt Jane was that Mrs. Rousseau, Joseph's mother, never liked the girl. Felt Jane was beneath a man like her Joseph and throughout the "relationship" she was very vocal to anybody who would listen.
Nobody was sure what sent Jane Riley over the edge, but everyone tried to ignore it when she would wander the woods, hair dishevel, talking to herself about love.
And then one morning she
arrived at the precipice with a friend. Jane leaped into the abyss before her
horror stricken friend could stop it.
Some men who were working in the ravine
below saw her fall. They said that as the unfortunate girl plunged
swiftly down feet first, her long dress formed a parachute and
slowed her fall.
Finding that she was dropping too slowly, Jane reached down and collapsed
the parachute and went down onto the rough and broken
rocks below. When the men reached her, they found her still alive but unconscious, and although she lived
an hour, she would never speak again.
Mrs. Rousseau felt enormous guilt for Jane's death. She was heard to say, "Let the blame for her death rest on my shoulders".
Some
years later, when in apparently good health, Mrs. Rousseau shrieked:
"Jane's hand is on my shoulder," and fell dead to the
floor.
The dark past of Albion Mills
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Hamilton was a city of the mob in the early 1900's. We were to Canada what Chicago was to the United States. We even had our own Al Capone... a man named Rocco Perri.
The mobster's of that day had arguments and misunderstands just like today. It was important to have a place, open and sparsely populated where the product of these arguments could be dumped. This was Albion Mills.
Bodies were found in the woods around the falls often, but one would stand out to the Hamilton Police and their growing case against Rocco Perri.
The decayed and mutilated body of Fred Genesse was found by hikers in the woods near the falls. The police tracked the murder back to an abandoned cabin nearby. They tried, but evidence was sparse. They decided to meet the man head on.
Detectives from the Hamilton Police visited Rocco Perri and Bessie Starkman at their home on Bay Street South. During the interview, Rocco was asked if he had any knowledge of the death of Fred and 17 other suspicious disappearances.
Rocco knew the police didn't have evidence because they were there asking him straight out, and in true Perri style, he stayed cool and simply answered, "I think a woman was involved. Wouldn't be the first time a man went to his death because of a woman."
That was the 1920's, and only about 20 years later one of the most gruesome discoveries in this country's history would turn up on a shallow hill in Albion Mills. Some children were playing in the woods when one noticed what could be a dead animal lying in the bushes. Not liking the look of it, the kids ran to get their parents.
The parents knew right away when seeing the animal was wearing a shirt. They had found a human Torso, one that would be later linked to the famous murderess, Evelyn Dick. The torso was her husband's and she would eventually get acquitted in his murder. But like O.J., very few believed she was innocent.
The police would get her to jail with a second charge of manslaughter related to Evelyn's newborn son, found encase in cement, in a suitcase of her family home on Carrick Avenue (in Hamilton's East End).
Then 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.
Just some examples of why Albion Mills was a dark place historically, but like all historical loses in the city, it will be greatly missed.
Resources:
- Special Collections at the Hamilton Public
Library
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