"Many of our Frenchmen, who have been here in the Huron Country, in
the past made journeys in this Country of the Neutral Nation, for
the sake of reaping profit and advantage from furs, and other
little wares that one might look for."
And in all probability some of those Frenchmen had reached the Niagara
River, in their trade with the Neutrals, before Father Daillon crossed
its stream.
Niagara was then, as it is now, the geographical center of the eastern
one-third of North America; it was the center of population among the
many and widely distributed Indian Tribes; it was the most accessible,
the most easily reached place, from all directions, in America. Indian
trails led toward it from all points of the compass; it was easily
accessible by water from every quarter--and, by canoe, was the Indians
preferred means of transportation.
It was thus easily reached by the tribes on the east and northeast by
Lake Ontario; by the tribes on the north by Lake Simcoe and the portage
to Toronto; by the tribes in the great west and northwest (covering a
vast territory) by all the upper lakes; by the tribes in the southwest
by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Alleghany rivers; by the tribes
in the southeast by the Susquehanna River. Even in aboriginal days--by
reason of its central location, its portage, its position as a Center
of Trade, and its "Erie Stones"--Niagara was the best and most widely
known spot on the Continent; even as--for other reasons--it is to-day.
Father Ragueneau, in a letter written from the Huron Country, in
Canada, in 1648, and published in the "Jesuit Relation" of 1649, makes
the second known direct printed reference to the Falls themselves, when
he writes,--
"Lake Erie, which is formed by the waters from the Mer Douce [Lake
Huron], discharges itself into Lake Ontario, over a Cataract of
fearful height,"
which description was, word for word, the same as is found in a letter,
written not later than 1645, from that same Huron Country, by Docteur
Gendron, but which was not published until 1660.
The third direct printed reference to our Cataract was in a letter,
written by Father Bressani, from that same Huron Country, in 1652, and
published the following year. He wrote,--
"Lake Erie discharges itself, by means of a very high Cataract,
into a third lake, which is still larger and finer, called Lake
Ontario."
Thus, up to 1660, the Jesuit Fathers, Ragueneau and Bressani, were the
only persons, except Champlain, who had made any direct printed
reference to Niagara's Waterfall; like him, neither of them ever saw
it;--the three known men, who first mentioned in print what is to-day
the best known Cataract on Earth, wrote from hearsay,--and none of them
gave it a name.
Sanson, who, in 1650, had issued a map of North America, largely
following those of Champlain, but improving on their accuracy (though
not indicating Niagara), in 1656, issued one of New France or Canada,
whereon he both correctly places our Waterfall, and, for the first time
in Literature or Cartography gave it a direct name, marking it "Ongiara
Sault." Much information about Canada had no doubt been made public in
France--by Missionaries and Explorers, with the Government's
approval--during those half-a-dozen years.
Hennepin, in 1683, was the first person to use the word "Niagara,"
which has been the accepted name ever since; though more than a hundred
different ways of spelling it have been found. And from Hennepin's
time,--by every known form of pictorial reproduction; during the last
forty years by photography more than all other forms put
together--Niagara has been the most pictured and therefore the best
known spot on earth.