Gas Lights and Gingerbread

     Who wrote Upstate Echoes, Slim Fingers Beckon, The White Woman and Her Valley, Bloomers and Bugles, Stagecoach Towns, The Towpath, Gas Lights and Gingerbread and Rochester Sketchbook?
     Have you ever read the delightful, quaint, easy-to-read short sketches about Rattlesnake Pete, Red Emma, Blind Tom, Buffalo Bill Cody, Sam Patch and Frogleg George? Most were Rochester characters, famous in their time. On a bet, Sam Patch, a Rhode Island native, jumped over Niagara Falls in 1829 and survived. Then he went to Rochester, jumped High Falls and survived. Disappointed over the small amount of betting money he received, he jumped over High Falls again. His body wasn't found until the following spring.
     These characters, various histories and place names will draw you into them, as the author weaves an artful web of entrapment in each short sketch.
     Twenty-three compact volumes comprise the series of regional history and folklore created by Rochester journalist-poet-author Arch Merrill from 1945 to 1972. Some are available in paperback at Amazon. But I would look for them in used book stores. Try the Book Barn of the Finger Lakes on Route 13 northeast of Ithaca.