In confirmation of the Doctor's statement that articles were brought to Niagara, for the purposes of trade,--in 1903 there was opened an Indian Mound, on top of and close to the edge of the Mountain Ridge, some three and a half miles east of the Niagara River, on the Tuscarora Reservation, in the town of Lewiston, Niagara County, N.Y. It was a Burial Pit; and a Peace Burial Pit; more than probably dating from 1640, which was the last date of the ten-year Ceremonial Burials observed by the Neuters, who then owned and occupied all this Niagara Region; for before the expiration of the next ten year period, the Neuters had been annihilated by the Senecas. In it were found nearly 400 skulls, and the bones of probably an equal number of bodies, some articles of copper (made by the French, and proving trade with them), many hundreds of shell beads, and other articles of Indian make, among them some made from large Conche Shells, such as are found on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and curiously enough three or four large, unbroken, Conche Shells. These latter, it is fair to assume, were brought nearly 2,000 miles, to Niagara, there to be traded for those "Erie Stones" (and they were brought unbroken, so that their buyer could cut from them gorgets and other ornaments of the shape and size that suited his fancy), thus proving, that for some years, no one can pretend to say how many, perhaps centuries before Docteur Gendron wrote the second known reference to Niagara, the fame of the Cataract was widely known among the Indians of North America; even beyond the far-off, sunny lands, inhabited by the Arkansaws; clear to the mouths of the Mississippi, "The Father of Waters," and along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
So it was a Physician, in a letter written from an unnamed place in the wilds of Canada, to a friend, of whose name we are ignorant, in France,--the contents of which letter were, in a few years, to be published to the World,--that was, in date the second, though in print the fourth, man ever to refer directly to Niagara Falls.
Yet, it is not surprising that it should have been so, for almost every instance in History tells us that, so far as newly discovered lands are concerned, it is the Explorer, or Empire-Builder, who first penetrates them, and the Priest soon follows the explorer, and the Physician soon follows the Priest. And that was exactly the order which was followed in the explorations of the Great-Lakes-Region of North America.