Niagara, queen of wonders; a graphic history of the big events in three centuries along the Niagara frontier, one of the most famous regions in the world, including early explorations, early fascinating literature, early wars, and the first and greatest electrical power development, a discussion of and data pertaining to the large subject of the conservation of natural resources, of nation-wide interest, together with the creation and the development of the city of Niagara Falls

Front matter

Mmt

MA ue<?n Q

E-T- WILLIAMS

Preface

To the people of the Niagara Frontier, one of the most famous, prosperous and promising regions in the United States, in which I was born and have always lived and where four generations of my family have lived, this book is dedicated. The facts warrant it and my impulse is to make "Niagara — Queen of Wonders" the finest and most comprehensive publication ever issued relating to a single community. Nature has A\Tought here its most marvelous work. With such an inspiration, man has accomplished here, with Nature as his handmaiden, some of the greatest achievements of any age. Therefore, while the book pertains to a locality, its contents are of nation-wide and world-wide concern. The illustrations are among the best specimens of the engraver's art and the subjects are incomparable.

The text is fascinating and of tremendous import. First the absolutely unique early history of the Niagara Frontier beginning with the struggles between the French and English for its control. The region has been under three flags. The Lilies of France, the Roses of England and the Stars and Stripes have all played a large part here. The romantic experiences of early explorers stage large along the Niagara River. The commerce of the unsalted seas of the United States was born here. This was the principal battleground of the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The Imperial State of New York exercised here its power of eminent domain, and it made free to all mankind forever the enjoyment of the world's greatest natural spectacle. Then science stepped in and without injuring the scenic spectacle converted Niagara's mighty moving flood to the largest use of human kind. The first and greatest electrical power development on earth has its site at Niagara and no man can forecast how much greater it will be as science advances. The progress of the past quarter of a century has been beyond the dreams of the greatest optimist. The details are related in this book, coupled with the fascinating history of the pioneer days when deNonville peered through the primeval forest, Hennepin caught the first white man's vision of the mighty

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iv PREFACE

cataracts, and LaSalle built the first ship to sail the upper lakes. The native red man started from these shores on his sorrowful journey toward the setting sun.

The City of Niagara Falls was erected here to become in less than a quarter of a century the chief industrial community of the early Genesee country herein described, outside of Buffalo and Rochester. In many ways the eyes of the civilized world are turned toward Niagara Falls. In scenic grandeur, in entrancing historical events to which the mystic chords of memory lead, in various lines of industrial effort in which the electric furnace plays large part, and roseate promises for a great future worthy of the highest aspirations of man, Niagara, like the name of Abou Ben Adhem, leads all the rest.

THE AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I The World's Greatest Natural Spectacle Compared with Numerous

Other Exalted Scenes. Peerless Niagara was not

Created for Beauty Alone

NIAGARA ! Magic name ! Most sublime spectacle on earth. The contemplation of the handiwork of Nature is a matter of comparison. We conjure up in our minds a picture of some famous spectacle, and then when we actually see it, we may be disappointed. Imagination and reality do not always harmonize. For instance, Norway is in the Arctic Circle, and the conclusion would naturally be that the climate is like that of Greenland, but, as a matter of fact, Norway is one of the most wonderful countries on the globe, not only because of its magnificent scenery, but because Nature saves it as a habitation for the race by sending thither the mysterious gulf stream, which crosses the Atlantic Ocean for five thousand miles and fulfills its mission transforming, by its still, warm breath, an otherwise barren region.

Throughout the world there are marvelous creations of Nature that inspire admiration and awe. The Grand Canyon of Colorado; the marvelous Yellowstone Park; the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; the Palisades of the Hudson; the 33,000 islands of the Georgian Bay; the Thousand Islands and the Laurentian Hills of the St. Lawrence River that carries the waters of our five unsalted seas; the classic Mediterranean and ^gean Seas; the Headlands of the Plains of Ancient Troy; the Land of the Alhambra; the Sands of the Desert of Sahara; the Sacred Coast of Palestine; the Grecian Islands, consecrated by Homeric legend; the Bosporous, most attractive harbor in the world, uniting the Orient and the Occident; the Grand Canal of Venice; the Cedars of Lebanon; the Mount of Olives; the Dead Sea; the Wilderness of Judea; Egypt, the oldest born of time; the Sacred Mountain of Japan, Fuja-Yama; the glorious harbor of Hong Kong; Greenland's icy mountains; India's coral strand; the Ganges, which surpasses all other rivers in sanctity; the Mississippi, "Father of Waters"; the Himalayas, "Halls of Snow," loftiest range of mountains on the globe; Mount Everest, highest single peak in the world; the castlebordered Rhine; the Black Forest of Germany; the awe-inspiring grandeur of the stupendous Norway gorges; the Jordalsnut, a gigantic, silvery feldspar thimble-shaped mountain in Norway; the imposing Romsdalhorn; the Jungfrau, queen of Alpine heights; Mount Blanc, monarch of mountains; the frowning Matterhorn; the Alpine waterfall, Geissbach; and monstrous glaciers creeping out from their icy lairs.

The procession of Nature's marvels throughout the universe, which charm, mystify, and inspire the almost inexpressible admiration of mankind, is almost limitless. When all have been seen and described, the traveler, the writer and the lover of nature pauses in contemplation of the greatest, the most beautiful and the most famous of all, the Cataracts of the Niagara, and their companion wonders, the Rapids and the stupendous Gorge. To this shrine of Nature have come pilgrims from every civilized country on the globe, and their number from the time that the primeval forest, inhabited only by wild beasts, the fowls of the air and the red man surrounded this spectacle, until the twentieth century, when man has harnessed some of the almost limitless power that has gone down to the sea unused, is countless millions.

Sprang forth the light with quickening ray.

And brooding darkness fled away.

And thus Niagara's race began

Without the voice or aid of man !

Its flowing waters crowned with spray,

Have never faltered on their way."

The glories of Niagara have reached the uttermost parts of the earth. The mighty ocean and the pleasant land; the moun-

NIAGARA— QUEEN OF ^YONDERS 3

tains that tower above the plains; the other rivers that run down to the sea; Gibraltar, the Matterhorn, and the blue expanse of the Mediterranean — all the works of the Omnipotent, whether land or sea, and all that in them is, become of secondary importance when the highest work of creation — man — gazes upon the world's greatest cataracts and fully realizes their potentialities. By the same token the six great aqueducts and the splendid architecture of ancient Rome; the massive pyramids of Egypt; the man-made glories of ancient Greece; all of the stupendous accomplishments wrought by the brain and hand of man in the century last past are exceeded by the significance of the results of Niagara harnessed. No man can measure what it means to this and succeeding generations. It initiated and chiefly maintains the electrical age.

Who shall say that there was placed in this favored region peerless Niagara for beauty alone .'^ Niagara's purpose is twofold : beauty and utility clasp hands, as it were, and move forward to the goal of human happiness; mankind is uplifted spiritually and immensely benefitted materially. And Niagara flows on forever !

The Niagara frontier is a beauty spot world renowned. It is the greatest illustration of the futility of painting the lily and gilding refined gold. In the ages that are past, it was the abode of

"The poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind."

More than two hundred years ago, French missionaries explored it, and Father Hennepin first viewed the Mighty Thunderer, while LaSalle built the first ship to sail the upper lakes. One hundred years ago it was the chief theatre in a great war, and bloody battles were fought at Fort Erie, Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Queenston between contending armies speaking the same tongue. Today the swiftly flowing flood that forms the boundary between the two great nations has been harnessed by the genius of man, and the Niagara frontier is the site of the first and greatest electrical power development on earth, just as the Anglo-Saxon race prepared to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of peace between English-speaking peoples. Today we furnish a striking illustration of the fact that "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.'* In the reflected glory of a mighty past, we live in a splendid present and move forward to a destiny the magnitude of which no man can measure. What man has done in the conservation of natural resources of the Niagara frontier spells achievement, fulfillment, courage, hope, devotion, sacrifice, inspiration, beauty, faith, opportunity, effort, success and compensation.

Francis Lynde Stetson, the eminent New York lawyer, and a leading official of The Niagara Falls Power Company, eloquently portrays the Niagara Falls and Rapids when he says :

"To souls sensitive to the beautiful and the sublime, the plunging torrent has appealed by the stateliness of its streams, the brilliance of its boisterous rapids, and the deep glassy green of its silent foreboding brink, as well as by its drop into the seemingly infinite depth, from which there comes to him who listens the note of the welcoming abyss, deeper than the diapason of any organ's pipe. To most, the first impression, and to many the enduring impression is that of awe, in which the subjective mood prevails, and a certain sense of personal danger dominates all other thoughts of this mighty moving flood, pouring resistlessly down through the gorge, which, for itself, it has forced through multiplied strata of rock of many ages. Danger there certainly is, and death in this resistless, remorseless tide has been found and also has been sought by hundreds; but notwithstanding its appalling aspect, it is through this very sense of resistless power that the Falls speak to minds of great dignity and selfrestraint, and lead them to observe as did Mr. Carter of New York, in his characteristically fine oration at the opening of Niagara Park, that the 'sense which responds to this magnificent motion is the sense of power.' "

For more than two centuries these cataracts have enjoyed a world-celebrity as a stupendous natural spectacle. So far as is known, the first white man to see them was Father Louis Hennepin, a French missionary, in 1678. Previous to that the native Indian with his "untutored mind" was the only one to contemplate the Falls. In exploring the St. Lawrence River in 1603, Champlain heard of the Falls from the Indians, and referred to them in his published report in a very indefinite way, but he never saw them. He can be credited with the first announcement to the world of the existence of Niagara Falls. After

Father Hennepin saw them in 1678, their fame spread, and as civilization advanced, they came to be more and more the wonder and admiration of the world, until now it is estimated that over 1,500,000 people come to view Nature's greatest handiwork every year. Much has been written and said about Niagara. The language has been searched for extravagant or eloquent words to depict the grandeur of the spectacle. It has been the wonderment of sovereigns and rulers of lands, civilized and uncivilized; of persons high in official position; of countries Christian and heathen ; of characters of celebrity in art, in literature and in science, in almost every language spoken and written. Poets have exhausted their muse, and prose writers have utilized their most grandiloquent phrases to reflect their impressions of bounteous Nature's most magnificent gift to mankind.

Chapter II

The Struggles Between the French and English for the Control of the Niagara Frontier

IN the Massachusetts historical collection is found a "Description of the Country between Albany and Niagara in 1792." The writer is anonymous, and begins his article by saying that "I am just returned from Niagara, about five hundred and sixty miles west of Boston." Speaking of the Genesee country later in the article, he says:

"Taking a view of this country altogether, I do not know such an extent of ground so good. Cultivation is easy, and the land is grateful. The progress of settlement is so rapid that you and myself may very probably see the day when we can apply these lines to the Genesee country:

" 'Here happy millions their own lands possess, No tyrant awes them, nor no lords oppress.' "

"Many times did I break out in an enthusiastic frenzy, anticipating the probable situation of this wilderness twenty years hence. All that reason can ask may be obtained by the industrious hand, the only danger to be feared is that luxuries will flow too cheap."

The Genesee country is described in the "Documentary History of New" York" as "the most westerly part of the State of New York, and is situated between three degrees fifty minutes longitude west from New York, and between forty-two degrees and forty-three degrees fifteen minutes north latitude. Its greatest length from east to west is one hundred and twenty -five miles, and its greatest breadth about ninety-five miles, containing nearly five million acres. It is bounded south on the north boundary of Pennsylvania; north by the southern shore of Lake Ontario; west by the eastern boundary of Presque-Isle (a flourishing settlement in Pennsylvania) eighteen miles; northwest by the southeast shore of Lake Erie, seventy miles; west by the Straits of Niagara upwards of thirty-seven miles; and east by a meridian line running due north from the north boundary of Pennsylvania, at the eighty-second milestone, to the south shore of Lake Ontario."

Standing upon an eminence overlooking a period of nearly three hundred years since it was first known to the white man, we can see that the early writers only scratched the surface as to the possibilities of the so-called Genesee country. Within its boundaries numerous trenchant historical scenes have been enacted, and the general progress of mankind has always been most fully exemplified. Very frequently our locality has been in the vanguard in those things that make for the advancement of humanity.

As a partial explanation of why the English and the French struggled for the control of this region may be cited excerpts from Imlay's "Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America." Referring to the Genesee tract, he says:

"But the peculiar advantages which distinguished these lands over most of the new settled countries of America are these following: 1. The uncommon excellence and fertility of the soil. 2. The superior quality of the timber, and the advantages of easy cultivation, in consequence of being generally free from underwood. 3. The abundance of grass for cattle in the woods, and on the extensive meadow grounds upon the lakes and rivers. 4. The vast quantities of the sugar maple tree, in every part of the tract. 5. The great variety of other fine timber, such as oak, hickory, black walnut, chestnut, ash of different kinds, elm, butternut and basswood, poplar, pines and also thorn trees of a prodigious size. 6. The variety of fruit trees, and also smaller fruits, such as apple and peach, and orchards in different places, which were planted by the Indians, plum and cherry trees, mulberries, grapes of different kinds, raspberries, huckleberries, blackberries, wild gooseberries, and strawberries in vast quantities; also cranberries and blackhaws, etc. 7. The vast variety of wild animals and game which is to be found in this country, such as deer, moosedeer, and elk of a very large size, beavers, otters, martins, minks, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, bears, wildcats, etc., many of which furnish excellent furs and peltry. 8. The great variety of birds for game, such as wild turkeys, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, plovers, heath fowl, and Indian hen, together with a vast variety of water fowl on the rivers and lakes, such as wild geese and ducks of many different kinds not known in Europe. 9. The uncommon abundance of very fine fish, with which the lakes and rivers abound; among which are to be found excellent salmon of two different kinds, salmon-trout, of a very large size, white and yellow perch, sheephead, pike, succors, and eels, of a very large size, with a variety of other fish in their different seasons. 10. The excellence of the climate in that region where these lands are situated, which is less severe in winter, and not so warm in summer, as the same latitudes nearer the sea. The total exemption from all periodic disorders, particularly the fever and ague, which does not prevail in the Genesee country on account of the rising grounds and fine situations. 11. The vast advantages derived from the navigable lakes, rivers and creeks, which intersect and run through every part of this tract of country, affording a water communication from the northern parts of the Grant by the Genesee River one way, or by the Seneca River another way, into the great Lake Ontario, and from thence by cataraqui to Quebec, or by the said Genesee River, the Oneida Lake and Wood Creek to Schenectady on the Mohawk River, with only a short land carriage, and from thence to Albany, with a portage of sixteen miles," etc.

Of course, many of the attractions and inducements for this region mentioned above disappeared with the advancement of civilization and the congestion of population. The prizes of the chase are almost entirely gone. Some of the kinds of fish mentioned above are still in the streams, but the primeval forest is gone and there is comparatively little timber in the old Genesee country now. There could not have been many peach orchards or apple orchards at that time, but there is in our locality now one of the greatest fruit belts in the world. What is now the County of Niagara contains as many or more apple trees than any other county in the United States. All kinds of fruit that are grown in this climate are abundant here.

What is now known as the Niagara Frontier does not contain the same area as the old Genesee country. It is virtually that territory lying between Lakes Erie and Ontario, and it is a narrow strip generally understood not to extend eastward farther than the boundaries of Niagara and Erie counties. What has been quoted above was written at a comparatively late date. This region received much attention considerably more than one hundred years previous to the year 1792. Quotations have been made as above to show some of the reasons why the French were so anxious to be in possession of this region. The other reasons were of military character, the Niagara River flowing down from Lake Erie and into Lake Ontario formed a strategic military point. That is why a fort was built at the mouth of the Niagara River on the banks of Lake Ontario, and its strategic importance explains why that fort has been under three flags, the French, the English, and the American.

Within the walls of old Fort Niagara there are relics of two and one-half centuries. The United States government has a reservation there of one hundred and eighty-eight acres, and maintains a portion of the army there at all times in the modern buildings; but at the extreme point where the Niagara River enters Lake Ontario are the structures of the ancient fort. In 1669 LaSalle, the French explorer, who constructed at the village bearing his name, just south of the city of Niagara Falls, the Griffon, the first vessel to sail the upper lakes, built the first structure other than an Indian wigwam ever erected on the Niagara Frontier. Again in 1678, the year that Father Hennepin, LaSalle's associate explorer, saw Niagara Falls, the first white man to gaze upon the mighty cataracts, LaSalle built there Fort Conti. That fort was destroyed, and in 1687 deNonville built another fort called after himself. That fort was destroyed by the Seneca Indians the next year. The French, in 1725, erected a stone structure, the foundations of which remain, and are credited with being the oldest existing masonry west of Albany. The French enlarged the fort, but were supplanted by the British in 1759.

Fort Niagara was the center of the history of the middle part of North America for over one hundred years, and during the eighteenth century its commandant, whether EngUsh or French, was the most important man west of New York. In 1770 Major Wynne reported that "Niagara is, without exception, the most important post in America, and secures a greater number of communications, through a more extensive country, than perhaps any other pass in the world." Honorable Peter A. Porter has since added that "no one spot of land in North America has played a more important part in the control, growth and settlement of the great West than the few acres embraced within its fortifications. Its cemetery is the oldest consecrated ground west of Albany." The French rule ended there in 1759. Of course, the British occupation ended there at the close of the War of 1812.

In 1678 Father Hennepin described the great cataracts as a place where "a vast and prodigious cadence of waters falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner in so much that the universe does not afford its parallel." Two hundred and forty years later, in the light and life of the twentieth century, in words that are halting and feeble beside the mighty forces of Nature and of man, in the strength that comes from perfect union, we pay our tribute to the Falls of Niagara! Grandest of Nature's scenes ! Noblest of all the works of creation in earthly spectacles. Millions of people from all over the civilized world have gazed upon the great cataracts with wonderment and awe. By the genius of man, beauty and utility have been united. Sentiment and usefulness march side by side, and delight and serve the human race. The one has inspired reverence and admiration; the other is the vanguard of progress. The one is sublime; the other is unequaled. The one is the greatest inspiration of artists and poets; the other is the origin of man's most superb accomplishment.

In one of the letters written in 1792 found in the papers relating to western New York, the writer speaks of the town of Sodus "situated on a bay of the same name, which is well known as the best harbor on the south side of Lake Ontario. Few or none, even on the seacoast exceed it for spaciousness and beauty. The extent of the bay, from north to south, is about six or seven miles, and from east to west, from two to four miles. The grounds around the bay rise considerably high, and the ^ntrance is not above half a mile over." Farther along the same writer says: "The first view of this place, after^passing through a timbered country twenty-eight miles strikes the eye of the beholder as one of the most magnificent landscapes human fancy can picture, and the beauty of the scene is not infrequently heightened by the appearance of large vessels navigating the lake. At the sight of these immense bodies of water, the mind of a reflecting man must be struck by admiration. With only the interception of the portage of nine miles at Niagara Falls they may be navigated to the westward at least two thousand miles."

Champlain made an expedition to northern New York in 1609 and to western New York in 1615. He made a map indicating remarkable places represented by all the letters of the alphabet, and then by number up to ninety -six. Number eighty was described as a "very high waterfall at the head of Sault (qu. Lake) St. Louis; descending which various sorts of fishes become dizzy. (Niagara.)"

Upon this subject Honorable Peter A. Porter, the historian of the Niagara Frontier, in a recent pamphlet entitled "Landmarks on the Niagara Frontier," says:

"Frenchmen had been on the Niagara River before 1640. Brule, Champlain's interpreter, was in western New York in 1615, but was never on our river. French traders or coureurs de bois, had been there perhaps before, no doubt soon after, that date. Father Daillon was there in 1626. Father Breboeuf and Chaumonot were there, on their mission to the Neuters, in 1640. But all these sought either trade as individuals or the spread of the Gospel. In 1669, however, there came to this region a man primarily on a voyage of discovery, and, as a result, seeking control of the western Indian trade; but necessarily he sought the resultant control by France over the Indian tribes and their territory, and such control meant fort building. In company with deGasson and Gallinee, and their joint party, LaSalle in that year passed the mouth of the Niagara River, went as far west as the end of Lake Ontario; then, accompanied by a few men, turned back, ostensibly to return to Montreal, leaving the Fathers to proceed to and winter on the north shore of Lake Erie. Of LaSalle, during the next two years, we know little, only that he reached the Ohio in 1670, and made a trip on Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan in 1671. My own belief is that he and his small party went from the western end of Lake Ontario to the Niagara River, of whose importance as the 'great river of the Neuters' he had heard, and whose mouth he, no doubt, as he passed it shortly before, recognized as a desirable point for trade and as a base of supplies.

At its mouth, I think, he spent the winter of 1669-1670. For here, according to the oflBcial report of deNonville (made in 1686), he built 'Logements' or quarters in 1668. This date is clearly an error, and should be 1669, for LaSalle was never in the Niagara region until 1669. The destruction of these 'quarters' of LaSalle's by the Senecas, in 1675, was given by deNonville as one of the main reasons for his expedition against them in 1678. In building quarters for himself and his party in an unknown and semi-hostile country, LaSalle doubtless made them defensible from attack. Hence, in 1669, on the site of Fort Niagara, LaSalle built the first white man's house on the frontier. It was a temporary fort and I include it in my list of forts, and name it Fort LaSalle. In 1670, de Courcelles, governor-general of Canada, is said to have recommended to his government the erection of a regular fort on the Niagara River. If so, he was probably instigated by suggestions made to him by LaSalle, after the latter returned to Quebec that year. In 1673, LaSalle himself was again in Quebec, and that year Frontenac, then governor-general, a personal friend of LaSalle, and without doubt at his request, recommended the erection of such a fort, and renewed the recommendation the following year. In 1678, LaSalle, finding that the French Government paid no attention to the project of a fort on the Niagara, arranged to build it as a private venture, in connection with his projected western explorations and for the building of forts where he thought necessary in connection therewith, for which he had obtained oflficial consent in 'Letters Patent.' In December of that year, the advance party of his expedition, under command of LaMotte, in a brigantine of ten tons, entered the Niagara River; and some days later, near the site of Lewiston, they built a cabin, surrounded with palisades, which, though intended for a 'fort,' under the name of a 'magazine,' they felt compelled, in order to allay the suspicions of the Senecas, to call 'an Habitation'. For the purpose of giving a distinctive name to this structure, the first one on the river that is recorded as being 'palisaded,' or protected, I have assumed to call it Fort Hennepin,

EARLY NIAGARA HISTORY IS

after the priest and historian of the expedition, who helped to construct it. It seems, perhaps, incongruous to name a fort after a priest; but Hennepin was a very worldly Father, took a prominent part in furthering the commercial features of the expedition, and, by publishing the earliest detailed description and picture of Niagara Falls, has associated his name forever with this region, so it may be pardoned.

"In January, 1679, LaSalle obtained the consent of the Senecas to the erection of a storehouse at the mouth of the river, and a few daj^s later, in the presence of Conti, Hennepin and LaMotte, he traced out on the high bank there, the outlines of the structure, to which he had two months earlier promised to give the name of 'Fort Conti.' It consisted of two blockhouses, forty feet square, built of logs, and connected by palisades. It stood on the point of land now embraced within the limits of the earthworks of Fort Niagara; but in the following August, through the carelessness of the sergeant in charge, this first pretentious defensive structure on the Niagara was reduced to ashes. It was the first distinctly so-called 'fort' built by white men west of Frontenac. To LaSalle must be given all the credit for the first 'fortifications' of this frontier. He first saw the needs and benefits of it, and through oflBcial channels had urged it upon the French government. When he could get no assistance in that direction, he accomplished it at his own expense. Seven years later, France recognized most decidedly the desirability of a fort at this point. In 1687 deNonville, after defeating the Senecas in the Genesee Valley, led his army to Niagara, where, in July of that year, on the site of the burned Fort Conti, he constructed a fort of 'pales with four bastions,' which he named himself, 'Fort de Nonville.' He left in it a garrison of one hundred men, with provisions for eight months. No sooner had his army started eastward than the Senecas who, though defeated, had not been subdued, besieged it, maintaining the siege all winter. In the spring its garrison, then reduced to a dozen men, was reinforced. On the erection of the fort, the British had promptly demanded its demolition, and the Senecas, at British instigation, refused to consider negotiations with France for a treaty of peace so long as it existed. So, in the summer of 1688, deNonville, under compulsion, gave orders for its destruction. The French excavated it, having first torn down the