USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > History of Rochester and Monroe county, New York, from the earliest historic times to the beginning of 1907 > Part 5
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CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNING OF ROCHESTER.
The First Buildings .- The Mills at the Falls- -The Mill Stones-Indian Allan-His Career of Blood and Crime-The Maryland Proprietors -Purchase of the Hundred-Acre Tract-Set- tlers at Other Spots-The First Dwelling in Rochester-The Mail and the Postmasters- The First and Other Bridges -- Increasing Ac- tivity-The First Newspaper-War with the British at Charlotte.
THE MILLS AND THE STONES.
It has been seen that Oliver Phelps got his millyard on the west side of the falla, in spite of the original opposition of the Indians, and he kept his promise to them bv causing to be erected, in 1789, a saw-mill and a grist-mill close to the river, on the south side of the present Rare street, between Aqueduct and Graves street, near to where there was a per- pendicular fall fourteen feet high, which then descended about where the aqueduct now stands. It was then called the "upper fall," but since its disappearance that name has been applied to the more lofty cataract, which in those early days was known as the "middle fall" and is thus given upon some old maps. As these were the first buildings erected in Monroe county, it is worth while to note their history. They were put up by Indian Allan, who will be alluded to more particularly hereafter, who invited all the residents of the Genesce valley to come to the raising. Allan's farm was in Scottsville, and the mill irons were
floated down the river in canoes from there, having been brought to that place from Conhocton. The timber for both mills was hewed on the spot. The compensation for this work has generally been sup- posed to be one hundred acres of land located just here, but, as that would really have been of in- commensurate value, it is probable that Allan also received the farm on the creek that bears his name, some five or six hundred acres in extent, the deed to which shows evident incorrectness of date.
Allan and his family lived in the grist-mill for a year or two, so that they were the first residents of what is now Rochester. The mills were then left in charge of Christopher Dugan and his wife, who was a sister of Allan. A man named Sprague was the next ocenpant, and then came Col. Josiah Fish, who lived there for some time, being engaged by Col. Williamson, the agent of the Pulteney es- tate, to become the manager of the mills in 1796. Three sides of a log house were put up against the native rock, which formed the back wall, so that they were quite comfortable, and several chil- dren were born there, who were the first of the white race to come into the world in what is no's Rochester, though that name was not then thought of. The accommodations were, however, not suf- ficient to entertain visitors, for when John Maude, an observant English traveler, came through this part of the country in 1800 he could not stahle his horse there, so he went down to Mr. King's, at Hanford's Landing, where, as he writes in his account of his journey, he "made a good breakfast of wild pigeons." Col. Fish moved back to his farm on Black creek in 1802, after which there was no regular resident there, and, although some outlying setiler would occasionally come and grind
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
his corn there free of cost, the mills soon fell into a state of dilapidation. The saw-mill was swept away by a freshet in 1803, and the grist-mill was destroyed by fire in 180 ;.
The millstones underwent several removals after that, being used in a mill on Irondequoit creek, then in one in Henrietta, then in a mill near East avenue, after which they served the ignoble pur- pose of door steps at the residence of Isaac Barnes, who was public-spirited enough to present them, on being appealed to, to the Junior Pioneer so- ciety in 1860. That association moved them to the rear of the court-house where they remained until 1874, when they were placed as the foundations for lamp-posts in front of the city hall, which had been completed in the previous year. When the present conrt-house was erected, in 1896, the Rochester Historical society caused the stones to be imbedded conspicuously in the wall of one of the corridors and placed beneath them a mural tablet indicating their signifieance.
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A WHITE RUFFIAN.
This Indian Allan, who has been mentioned, was one of the most remarkable figures in this part of the country. He had the distinction, and probably enjoyed it, of being, on the whole, the wickedest man who ever lived in this region. From sheer depravity he took up arms while he was quite young against his patriot neighbors iu the early part of the Revolution, but instead of connecting himself with the British aniny, as so many did, he allied himself with the Indians. With them he remained, except for a short time when he was with Butler's Rangers, which corps he left on account of his unwillingness to submit to restraint, till after the struggle for independ- ence was over. But it was not only on account of his association with them that he was generally known by the name that he bears, but because he became one of them in every way possible and not only equaled the savages, but surpassed them in ferocity and cruelty. He began his career by scouting with a party of them on the Susquehanna, where he entered a house where the owner, with wife and child, was asleep in the early morning. The man sprang up to defend his family, but Allan killed him with a single blow, cut off his head, threw it into the bed where the wife lay,
then seized the baby from her arms and swung it by the legs against the door until its brains were dashed out.
H18 MANY WIVES.
After the war he lived for twenty years upon the banks of our river, the name of which, in the form of Genushin, was usually applied to him by the Indians. He had married a squaw named Sally, by whom he had two children, Mary and Chloe, but in spite of that he had no difficulty in inducing a white girl named Lucy Chapman to marry him, with the full consent of her father, who probably was ignorant of the existence of Al- lan's family. There was a good deal of frietion between the two wives, and perhaps it was to procure a counter-irritant that Allan then took to himself a third helpmate, whose previous hus- band he disposed of by pushing him into the wa- ter while the three were taking a walk together. This third consort having left him he filled her place with a colored woman, whom he subs ?. quently discarded after having swindled her father out of all his money.
Finally he moved to Mt. Morris and having set- tled down there he married once more, this time Millie McGregor, a daughter of one of Butler's Rangers, but Sally and Lucy objected to this latest intrusion into the family circle, so that her husband had to install her in a separate domicile near by. Allan seems to have had less affection for Millie than for any other one of his wives, for he hired two men to put her out of the way by drowning, who took her in a boat and ran it over what was then the upper falls, but the in- tended victim swam ashore and rejoined her spouse, who made no further attempts to get rid of her. Perhaps as an offset to this unkindness he left at his death to her and her six children all his property, which was quite considerable, while his other descendants received nothing. His son by Luey he sent to school at Philadelphia, while his Indian daughters by Sally he caused to be edu- cated at Trenton, N. J., but his evil disposition found vent by robbing those girls of all their property. The sachems of the Senecas had given to them four neres of land near Mt. Morris, stat- ing in the deed that they did so out of their love for the children and because they considered them
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
members of the tribe, but their unnatural father got hold of the document and in some way swin- dled lus own daughters out of the land, so that they and their mother were left peuniless.
Having committed a number of cold-blooded murders, for which he was never punished, though they are perfectly well authenticated, Allan con- cluded to move to Canada, where he settled at. Delawaretown, with his two white wives, Lucy and Millie, Sally having been turned adrift. Strange as it may seem, the Canadian authorities gave no sign of disapproval of his polygamous ar- rangements, and Governor Simcoe gave him three thousand acres of the public land on condition that he should build a church, a saw-mill and a grist-mill. This powerful criminal, all his life beyond the reach of the law, died in 1814, leaving his memory, like that of Byron's hero, "linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes." The only good thing that he ever did was just after the close of the Revolutionary war. The Senecas, who after Sullivan's campaign were living near Fort Niagara, then occupied by the British troops, were so full of resentment against the Americans that they planned a murderous raid, with whole- sale massacre, upon the white settlements in this part of the state. Allan became aware of it and forestalled the plot by sending, surreptitiously, a belt of wampum to the commandant of the near- est American post. The officer sent back word to Niagara that the wampum was accepted and that peace should prevail. The Indians were furious when they learned of the trick that had been played, but the sacredness of the pledge prevented its retraction and the outbreak did not take place. For this isolated act of benevolence, which may have saved a thousand lives, Allan was hunted down and imprisoned and narrowly escaped with his life.
THE HUNDRED-ACHE TRACT.
In September, 1800, three landed proprietors from Hagerstown, Maryland, came riding up into this region of combined fertility and wilderness, followed by a mounted negro slave and a paek horse to carry their luggage. The foremost of these was Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, a dis- tinguished citizen, who was born in Westmore- land county. Virginia, on the 21st of February,
1752. Having removed to North Carolina in early life he became prominent as a member of different state conventions, justice of the peace, lieutenant- colonel of militia and, in 1726, deputy commis- sary general of military stores for the Continentai army in North Carolina, with the rank of colonel ; after the Revolutionary war he moved to Hagers- town, where he became postmaster, sheriff, county judge, president of the bank, member of the Mary- land legislature and presidential elector; in 1810 he moved to Dansville, N. Y., in 1815 to East Bloomfield and in 1818 to Rochester, having iu the meantime been a presidential elector from this state; he was the first clerk of Monroe county, a member of the legislature and president of the Bank of Rochester, the first in the village; he died May 17th, 1831, universally respected. The other members of the party were Colonel William Fitz- hugh and Major Charles Carroll. They were men of great influence in the different places where they lived, but as they never resided in Rochester, or even in this county, it will not be necessary to give here any sketch of their lives.
All three of these persons made quite extensive purchases of lands on the Genesee flats, and three years later, having come up here for the pur- pose of making payments, they were induced by the land agent to visit this locality. A more dis- mal and dreary spot could not have been found. The mills were in ruins, which added to the scene of desolation, and the only living things among the tangle of briars and underbrush were rattle- snakes and porcupines. But the prospectors, un- deterred by these revolting features of the land- scape, were attracted hy what they readily per- ceived to be the advantages of the upper falls and purchased one hundred aeres that had been given to Indian Allan for his work mentioned above. The contract was signed by all the parties in in- terest November 8th, 1803 (not 1802, as has been incorrectly stated by some writers) and the fun- dred-Acre tract became the nucleus of what was to be the city of Rochester. The price agreed upon was $1,250, to be paid in five annual installments. The original source of title, and therefore the foundation of all titles to land within that space, was not a deed itself, for no such document was ever recorded and it is evident that Phelps made only a verbal agreement with the mill-builder, which would be in accordance with his usual
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Buffalo
Street
St.
Carroll
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Msson St.
ORIGINAL ONE HUNDRED-ACRE . TRACT .
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
practice in leaving a loophole for himself. The instrument is simply an assignment by Allan, in 1:92, of his interest to Benjamin Barton, with power given to the assignee to demand the execu- tion of a regular deed from Phelps and Gorham. The document, which is now in the possession of the Reynolds Library, bears the signature, "E. Al. lan," as though the writer was ashamed to employ his full Christian name of Ebenezer, by which no- body ever knew him. Barton seems to have found no difficulty in obtaining his deed, and he prompt- ly sold the land to Samuel B. Ogden, by whom it was soon transferred to Charles Williamson, as agent for Sir William Pulteney, so that it became absorbed in that great estate and was a part of it till the purchase of Rochester, Fitzhugh and Carroll. The river was the eastern boundary, its southern line began at a point about four hundred feet south of Court street (or near the foot of the Erie railroad train shed) and ran due west to a point near the corner of Spring street and Cale- donia avenue, its west line ran thence to a point near the corner of Center and Frank streets, and its north line ran due east to the river, which it reached a little north of where the foot of Market street would be if extended.
EARLY SETTLERS,
Before any lots were sold in the Hundred-Aere tract a few settlers had located within the limits of what is now the city. About 1797 a man named Farewell built a cabin on Luke avenne, near the present State Industrial school, which he sold two years later to Jeremiah Olmstead, who moved in and raised crops there, so that he may be con- sidered, in one sense, the first permanent settler in Rochester. In 1807 Charles Harford, an English- man, erected a block-house on State street, near Lyell avenue, and built a mill in the next year on the same side of the river, just sonth of the high falls, so that for a few years he did all the grin :- ing for this neighborhood. On the west side of the river Enos Stone. junior, of Lenox, Mass., had built, in 1810, a log cabin, and later in the same year a larger house on what became South St. Paul street and is now South avenue, near Court, in what was then the township of Boyle, afterward Brighton, though not a part of Roches- ter till many years afterward. That house, which
was probably the first frame dwelling erected with- in the present city limits, was subsequently re- moved to Elm street, where it remained till five years ago, when it was torn down. In the same year Isaac W. Stone purchased of Enos Stone (no relation) a lot on the corner of South avenue and Main street and built a frame house, in which he lived with his family for several years.
THE PLANTING OF ROCHESTER.
Colonel Rochester, after moving to Dansville, rode down here very frequently, surveying and laying out the lots himself, one-quarter of an arre in each. The title having finally passed from Sir William Pulteney, the first lot was sold No- vember 20th, 1811, to Enos Stone, for fifty dol- lara, though the ruling price for other pieces was a little less, and all with the condition that the purchaser should erect a house on his land with- in a year. The highest price obtained was two hundred dollars, which exceptional amount, paid by Henry Skinner of Geneseo, was due to the fact that the lot was on the line of the "new state road," being on the side of the present Powers block, at the corner of Main and State streets. On this lot Mr. Skinner built a house-only a log cabin, it might be called, but it was well con- structed, roofed with slabs from Enos Stone's saw- mill on the east side of the river and sufficiently commodious for a large and growing family -. for Hamlet Scrantom of Durham, Conn., who moved into it in May, 1812. That was the first house erected in what was then Rochester, for by that time the proprietors of the tract had agreed to name the place after the real pioneer. One of the sons of this first family was Edwin Scrantom, who throughout his adult life was a frequent writer for the local press, so that much of the information relating to those early times is still derived from those communications; another son was Hamlet D., who became mayor of the city, and the descendants of other children still reside here.
THE POST-OFFICE ..
Another family came near to getting ahead of the Scrantoms. Ahelard Reynolds came here from Pittsfield, Mass., in April, 1812, bought two lots
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
where the Arcade now stands, contracted with car- penters to put him up a two-story frame house, went. back home, came here again in the autumn, put up a smaller house on his other lot, and final- ly moved here in February, 1813, bringing with him his family, consisting of his wife, young son, William A., and his sister-in-law, Huldah M. Strong. In their new home another son was add- ed, Mortimer F., on December 2d, 1814, and he was the first white child to be born in what was then Rochester. For several years the head of the family carried on the business of a saddier, to- gether with that of a tavern-keeper, all in the same house, while one room of it was used as the post- office. Before his final migration hither he had been appointed postmaster through the influence of Colonel Rochester, who foresaw that, though there was only one family here then, there would be plenty of others in time. For a short period after that the mail came regularly once a week, being brought from Canandaigua on horseback, n part of the time by a woman. The post-office has not seen many changes of location. The Areade was erreted in 1833 and the post-office was in the front part ; about ten years later it was removed to the northwest end of the hall and in 1859 to the northeast corner, where it remained till the erection of the government building in 1886. Mr. Reynolds held the position of postmaster for sev- enteen years, and was succeeded by the following- named officials: John B. Elwood, 1829; Henry O'Reilly, 1838; Samnel G. Andrews, 1812; Henry Campbell, 1845; Darins Perrin, 1849; Hubbard S Allis, 1853: Nicholas E. Paine, - 1858; Scott W. Updike, 1861 ; John W. Stebbins, 1867; Elward M. Smith, 1871: Daniel T. Hunt, 1825; Valen- tine Fleckenstein, 1887; Henry S. Hebard, 1890; John A. Reynolds, 1890; George H. Perkins, 1894: James S. Graham, 1898; W. Seward Whit- tlesey, the present incumbent, 1907.
A SLOW GROWTH.
The little hamlet did not grow much in its first year. The Serantom family had a Fourth of July celebration all by themselves in front of their log cabin, while on the other side of the river the nation's birthday was observed in a more luxuri- ons manner, under the auspices of Enos Stone, the pioneer settler of Brighton. To the open-air fes.
tivities, free to all comers, on the corner of East Main and St. Paul streets, one person brought bread, another a roasted pig, another a lamb, an- other vegetables, another pies, another a supply of whisky, but even all that magnificence did not at- tract more than twenty persons, including some travelers who were passing by. On the Rochester side the stagnation was far more complete, the reason for which is not hard to find. The whole region was malarial to the last degree, so that fever and ague abounded, everybody having one or the other most of the time, the mosquitoes and the rattlesnakes made life miserable, and the roads when they were not dusty were lanes of mud. In spite of those obstacles, which deterred people from settling here, several village lots were bought and Inid ont by Francis Brown, Matthew Brown, junior, and Samnel J. Andrews, to which was given, in honor of the first of the three, the name of Frankfort, by which the northern part of the city was generally called up to within a few years. But the thing that did more than anything else to insure the future and speedy growth of the place was the construction, in this year of 1812. of the bridge across the river at Main street. Be- fore that time the only way to get from one side of the Genesee to the other was to go up to Avon or to ford the river at this point if the person chose to run the imminent risk of drowning. The "new state road," which was always more popularly known as "the Buffalo road," had, however, recent- ly heen opened, and after much importunity the legislature was made to perceive that a bridge a: this point was a necessary link in the chain of communication over that highway It was built at a cost of $12,000, divided equally between the counties of Ontario and Genesee, but it could not have been well constructed, for it was taken down in 1821 and replaced by another, built by Elisha .Johnson, at a cost of 86,000, paid by the county. That stood, with buildings erected upon it, till 1857, when it made way for the present structure.
THE CARTHAGE BRINIE.
One famous bridge was built in 1819, which. though then outside the limits of Rochester, ha= long been within those bounds, and which, from its greut notoriety, deserves more than a passing mention. The settlement that went by the name
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ROCHESTER IN 1812.
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
of Carthage was on the east side of the river, near labor of somewhat less (on an average) than twen- the lower falls, and that advantage, together with the proximity of the Ridge road, which was then much traveled by westward bound emigrants. was supposed, or hoped, to insure the establishment of the future city at that point instead of at the higher cataract above. To promote that laudable object the bridge was built by a stock company, begun in May, 1818, and finished nine months later. No better description of it can be given than the following, taken from the Rochester Tele- graph of February 16th, 1819:
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"It is with pleasure that we announce to the public that the Carthage bridge is completed and that its strength has been successfully tested. it consists of an entire arch thrown across the Gene- see river, the chord of which is 352 and 7-12 feet and the versed sine fifty-four feet. The summit of the arch is 196 feet above the surface of the water. It is 718 feet in length and thirty feet in width, besides four large elbow braces placed at the ex- tremities of the arch and projecting fifteen feet on each side of it, thereby presenting a resistance to any lateral pressure or casualty equal to a width of sixty feet. The travel passes upon the crown of the arch, which consists of nine ribs, two feet and four inches thick, connected by braced levelers above and below and secured by nearly 800 strong bolts. The feet of the arch rest upon solid rock about sixty feet below the surface of the upper bank, and the whole structure is braced and bound together in a manner so compact as to disarm cavil of its doubts. The arch contains more than 200 tons and can sustain any weight that ordinary travel may bring upon it. Loaded teams of more than thirteen tons passed over it a few days ago and produced very little perceptible tremor. Great credit is due to the contractors, Messrs. Brainerd and Chapman, for their efforts in accomplishing this stupendons work. It was erected upon a frame called the supporter or false bridge. The Genesee flows under the bridge in an impetuous current and is compressed to the width of about 120 feet. This width was crossed by commencing a frame on each side near the margin and causing the weight behind to sustain the bents progressive- ly bending over the water, which meeting at the top formed a Gothic arch over the stream, the vertex of which was about twenty feet below he present floor of the bridge. Though now purpose- ly disconnected from the bridge, the Gothic arch still stands underneath the Roman and is esteemed by architects, in point of mechanical ingenuity, as great a curiosity as the bridge itself. The bridge contains 69,513 feet of timber, running measure, in addition to 20,806 feet of timber contained in the false bridge. All this has been effected by the
ty-two workmen, within the short space of nine months. Were this fact told in Europe it would ยท only excite a smile of incredulity. The bridge at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, which for almost half a century was regarded as the pride of the eastern heinisphere, was built in a little less than three years and was the longest arch in Europe. It was but twelve feet longer than the bridge at Carthage (admitting that it derived no support from a pier in the center), was only eighteen feet wide and of ordinary height. It was destroyed during the French revolution and no entire arch is known at present in the old world to exceed 240 feet in span. The most lofty single arch in Europe is in England, over the river Wear, at Sunderland. which falls short of the bridge at Carthage 110 feet in the span and ninety-six feet in the height of the arch. The bridge at Carthage may there- fore be pronounced unrivaled in its combined di- mensions, strength and beauty, by any structure of the kind in Europe or America. The scenery around it is picturesque and sublime; within view from it are three waterfalls of the Genesee, one of which has 105 feet perpendicular descent. The stupendous banks, the mills and machinery, the forest yielding to the industry of a rising village. and the navigable waters not 100 yards below it arc calculated to fill the mind of a beholder with surprise and satisfaction. Particularly is this the case when the utility of the bridge is regarded. It presents the nearest route from Canandaigua to Lewiston ; it connects the points at the great Ridge road; it opens to the counties of Genesee and Niagara a direct communication with the wa- ter privileges of the lower falls and the head of navigation on the river and renders the village of Carthage accessible and convenient as a thorough- fare from the east, the west and the north."
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