Le Sieur Gendron, of whom we know nothing more than is contained in the
printed letters, noted before, passed away many a year ago; but at this
late date, some two and a half centuries after his death, a lover of
Niagara, in his search for and his collecting of early books that in
any way refer to its famous Cataract, secured a copy of De Rocoles'
"America, the Third Part of the World," 1660, which contains the first
publication of Docteur Gendron's interesting letters from, and about,
the Huron Country, in Canada. Therein he found this remarkable
reference to the Waterfall,--which was quoted verbatim from the good
Docteur's "hasty letter," by the State Historian of King Louis of
France,--and is thereby enabled to add an hitherto unknown link (which
turns out to be the second) in the chain of the earliest references to
Niagara Falls; and so, both in History and in Medicine, to assign to
good Docteur Gendron, a place (next alongside of the great Founder of
Quebec) in Niagara's Temple of Fame. For the Sieur Gendron probably
wrote from actual knowledge; he had probably, through some Huron
emissary, secured some of those "Erie Stones," that "Petrified Spray of
the Falls" in trade, at Niagara; he had doubtless tried the healing
qualities thereof on some of his Savage Patients--and let us hope that
this Niagara Remedy proved efficacious, and justified its wide-spread
reputation. At any rate, in recording its uses, and its distribution by
"Trade," and by probably himself using it in his Practice--limited then
to the Huron Indians; and the few Frenchmen (perhaps a score or more)
who then made their headquarters at the Home of the Jesuit Mission to
the Hurons,--he showed, even as many a good Physician of later days has
done, that he was a believer in, and user of, every one of Nature's
Remedies, as furnished by her to man, and in their simplest forms; and
if that Niagara product benefited his savage patients (mainly because
they had faith that it would do so) surely the good Docteur earned his
professional fee--which he probably had to take in trade--that is, in
furs.
Niagara, meaning thereby the Niagara Frontier, or, more properly, that
portion thereof which extended from Lake Ontario to about two miles
above the Falls (which included Fort Niagara, and the whole of the
famous Portage around the Cataract) even in Aboriginal days, before the
first Fort Niagara was built, when the Indians applied the word
Onguiaahra to the same territory, by reason of its accessibility, its
central location, its Portage and its "Erie Stones," was widely known
as a "Center of Trade." When the French became the masters of this
region its main importance lay in its portage; and the same is true of
it under British rule; and also under United States ownership, down to
1826, when the Erie Canal was completed.
And during all those three periods it was indeed a Trade Center. For
over it passed on their westward way, all the soldiers, French,
British, and American, who built or won, and garrisoned every fort and
trading post in the West. All the cannon, equipments, arms, ammunition,
clothing of all kinds, tools, most of the food (all of it save the fish
they caught, the game they shot, and the few vegetables they raised)
which sustained life in the poorly-fed garrisons in those far off posts
on the upper Lakes; most of the necessities, everyone of the
luxuries,--every pound of coffee, of tea, of sugar, of tobacco, of
salt, of flour, of dried and salted meats, every bit of medicine, every
gallon of rum;--all those and many other articles had to go to them,
annually, by "way of Niagara." There was no other feasible way of
transporting goods to the West. In fact there was no other way, save by
the Ottawa and through the Georgian Bay; and on the Ottawa, there were
forty-two portages, whereas via Niagara there was but the one. And
under both French and British rule, Niagara was a great Center of
Trade, in furs, and an enormous trade it was. Both the military and the
commercial trade of half a Continent flowed by its doors; and both,
going eastward and westward, required unloading and transporting over
its seven miles of portage.
At one time, in 1764, when provisions were being forwarded to the West
for the use there of Gen. Bradstreet's Army, it is recorded that over
5,000 barrels of provisions alone lay at Fort Schlosser, the upper
terminus of Niagara's portage, awaiting shipment to the West. By
Niagara also went--had to go, for besides being the only feasible
route, it was the only safe way, for it had military protection,--all
the traders, with their boat loads of cheap merchandize; men who spent
months at a time in journeying among the tribes in the Northwest,
trading their wares for valuable furs; all of which peltries, in turn,
they had to bring east "by Niagara."
With the opening of the Erie Canal, in 1826, all that portaging
business at Niagara disappeared; and Niagara, that is the territory
immediately adjoining the Cataract, became a famous Watering Place;
which character it has ever since retained, and always will retain.
In the early days of that scenic glory it still preserved a tinge of
its ancient aspect, as "An Aboriginal Center of Trade." For many years
Indian bead-work was one of the main attractions offered in the Bazaars
there. And the elder generation of visitors will recall the familiar
sight of aged Indian Squaws, and dusky Indian Maidens, who daily,
during the season of travel, sat at various points along the route of
the tourist--on the steep banks of the road leading up the hill to Goat
Island, beneath the trees, close to the rapids, on Luna Island,
alongside the path leading down the bank on Goat Island to old Terrapin
Tower, and at various points around the Ferry House, and what is now
Prospect Park--offering for sale, crude bead work, pincushions,
mocassins, etc.
Often a pappoose, strapped to the board which formed the back of its
picturesque but doubtless uncomfortable cradle, gazed stolidly at the
pale faced visitor, as the cradle leant up against the foot of a tree,
or swung suspended from some low-hanging branch. The "Braves" at home
then made the toy canoes, the bows and arrows, the quivers, the war
clubs and tomahawks, which the squaws also disposed of to tourists as
souvenirs of Niagara.
Those "Squaw Traders" were a most picturesque feature of Niagara, and
the fact that those descendants of a passing Race now seldom or never
sit by the roadside and offer their wares directly to the visitor is a
distinct loss to the artistic environment of the Cataract.
In those days also some enterprising genius devised the scheme of
manufacturing trinkets--such as watch charms, seals, etc.,--out of that
Niagara gypsum, or "Petrified Spray of the Falls"; thereby
unconsciously reviving the Aboriginal Trade in that substance, which
Docteur Gendron had so early recorded--only this time without any
pretension that it possessed any healing qualities--but that trade was
neither so famous nor so wide spread, nor so long continued, as the
original.
The projectors of the Village at the Falls of Niagara, named it
Manchester, in the belief that by reason of its water power (and they
then contemplated the use of only a fractional part thereof--not enough
to have offered any danger of "Ruining Niagara") it would develop into
a manufacturing center which should rival its British prototype.
To-day, through its hydraulic developments, mainly devoted to the
generation of electric power, Niagara has again become a really great
Center of Trade. How great this locality is destined to become--when
the stupendous works, now either in operation or under construction,
shall have been completed up to the limits of their rights--whether
that enormous development (over a million horse-power on both sides of
the river, equal to one-quarter of the total estimated power of
Niagara) shall build up a great International Manufacturing Community
within close sight of the ever-ascending spray cloud; or whether the
most of that power shall be utilized at far distant points, and Niagara
be known commercially rather as the Producer of Power than as itself an
Enormous Center of Trade--Time alone will tell. But, however great or
less that growth shall be--by reason of its power, of its central
location, of its accessibility, of its more than a million annual
visitors--it will always be, what it is to-day, what it was in
"Aboriginal days," a "Center of Trade."