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.
DOCTEUR GENDRON
In 1660, another, and a most interesting reference to our Cataract appeared in print; written by one Docteur Gendron. It does not appear that he ever saw it, but he seems to have learnt a good deal about it; of course he learnt it from the Indians; moreover, he learnt it from Hurons, who dwelt in more or less proximity to it; from men who, no doubt, themselves had seen it. He learnt it from the same source, not improbably from the same men, from whom Fathers Ragueneau and Bressani had gotten their less comprehensive knowledge of it—for he had a special reason, in the line of his profession, for learning about it. He had written home to France concerning it, at least three years before Ragueneau, at least seven years before Bressani, had done so. And, curiously enough, at the very time when Docteur Gendron wrote his letters, Fathers Ragueneau and Bressani were also in that Huron Country. It is, therefore, more than reasonably certain, that all three of them being Europeans, all three living among the Hurons,—whose territory was not large, through which news of the presence of white men in those days traveled fast,—that they must have known each other, not only as acquaintances, but as intimates. The Priests had their headquarters at the Home of the Huron Mission, and the Docteur would, for every reason, take up his residence in that same Indian Village. Those three men,—with the exception of Champlain, the earliest known chroniclers of the existence of Niagara Falls,—were doubtless near neighbors and close friends, in the Huron Country, in the wilds of Canada, over two hundred and fifty years ago.
Niagara in Early Days, by Thomas Cole.