It Was a Mudball Attack!!

From the April 29, 2012, Buffalo (NY) News.com "Lewiston boys' attack on warship with mudballs authenticated by letter" by Richard E. Baldwin, News Niagara Reporter.

Lewiston boys built a homemade cannon out of a log and rolled mud into the shape of cannonballs according to a local folk legend.  Now, the Historical Society of Lewiston says it has evidence that this actually happened and that a British schooner reversed course and retreated down the river after seeing it.

They have a copy of an 1865 letter by Alexander Miller, who was 15 years old in 1810 when he led his friends on the "Mudball Attack."  He and a dozen boys built a makeshift fort on the bank of the Niagara River and cut down some maple trees and turned them into ten cannons.  They then brought up barrels of clay from the river bed and fashioned them into cannonballs and let them dry after which they stacked them.

When Miller ordered his boys to fire, two split apart and two others dislodged, but two "mudball cannonballs" splashed into the river by the schooner and it turned tail.

Legend has it that British officers later came to Lewiston to complain but were told the boys were simply firing a salute.

Not Sure How They Fired Anything From a Log, But a Good Story Nonetheless.  --Brock-Perry