INTRODUCTION 



For years it has been the desire of the Commissioners of the 

 State Reservation at Niagara to make the park around Niagara 

 Falls a center of information concerning the history of that 

 great natural spectacle. Unfortunately, however, means were 

 not available for the building up of a complete, or even exten- 

 sive, Niagara Falls library on the Reservation. It is true that 

 from the beginning the records of the commissioners have been 

 faithfully kept and such material as has come to hand has been 

 carefully treasured, filed and cataloged, so that the archives 

 in the Administration Building on the Reservation are a verita- 

 ble storehouse of information concerning the Reservation, the 

 Reservation movement, and the struggle of the last thirty years 

 for the preservation of the Falls and the surrounding scenery. 

 The annual reports of the commissioners also abound in informa- 

 tion of all sorts and contain many valuable articles by writers of 

 note. But none of the material mentioned goes farther back than 

 1 879, whereas there are some 250 years of written history of the 

 Falls previous to that date. 



The writer realized that the public libraries at Niagara Falls 

 and Buffalo and the historical societies in both these places had 

 accumulated a wealth of rare material, while various individuals 

 in the vicinity had valuable collections of greater or lesser 

 extent. He could not help feeling, however, that very few of the 

 millions who make their hurried pilgrimage to the wonder of the 

 western world ever trouble to avail themselves of these facilities, 

 if, indeed, they ever dream how fascinating and old and vast the 

 literature of the Falls is. It seemed a pity that it should be so. 

 But how to put the quaint and often fantastic accounts by the 

 earliest writers, the innumerable descriptions by travelers, the 

 literary and scientific masterpieces having to do with the Falls, 

 within reach of the sight-seeing and pleasure-seeking tourist and 



1 



