Erie Stones or pierres Erienes are rocks used in First Nations (Native American) traditional medicine. Francois Gendron, the French Jesuit surgeon at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons mission, first described its use in the 1640s in letters later published in 1660. Gendron described the sources of these stones as being at the base of Niagara Falls and that a local Native American group settled there and traded this item to other First Nations communities. The ointment created from this rock was said to help the healing of "wounds, fistulas and malignant ulcers".