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."