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 6
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The pleasing anticipations of the previous sen- tence were not fulfilled. The contractors had guaranteed the bridge to stand for a year and a day. It lasted just three months longer than that, giving way on the 22d of May, 1820, not be- cause there was any weight upon it but by reason of the springing upward of the arch, which was not sufficiently braced to prevent it. The disap- pointment was great, but the disaster did not pro- duce apathy. Another bridge was at once built upon piera, on a lower level and a little south of the former one. A few years later still another was put up, which lasted till 1835. By that time Carthage had lost its identity by absorption and took no further interest in the matter, so that for more than a score of years the river, with its gorge, was a barrier at that point. The city erected in
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
1856 another suspension bridge on the site of th? first at a cost of $25,000, which in April, 1852, was carried down by the great weight of snow upon it. The present bridge is mentioned else- where, as well as others in the city that are now standing.
OTHER BRIDGES.
Of those besides the ones already alluded to that had their day and have passed away there was one put up by Andrews, Atwater and Mumford, a toll bridge, a little south of the present Central ave- ne, at what was then called Bridge street, but the street was closed up ou both sides about ten years later and of course the bridge, which never amounted to much, went with it. The first aque- duet for the Erie canal was completed in 1823, two years before the water was turned in through- out its whole length, at a cost of $83,000; its enst- ern end was a few rods north of where the present viaduct turns southward, the western termination was on the site of this one; it was constructed of red sandstone, with coping and pilasters of gray limestone ; the blocks at the bases of the piers were trenailed to the solid rock, in which they were sunk, and each colunm was so cramped and ce- mented as to present the strength of a single piece; it was 801 feet long, built on eleven arches. Pri- vate enterprise put up a bridge ut Court street, cutting the street through to the Pittsford road at the same time and also erecting the Rochester Honse on the southwest corner of Exchange street and the canal, so as to draw travel in that direc- tion : another bridge was built there in 1858, at a cost of $12,000, which was partly torn away by the flood of 1865, but was repaired aud remained till the present one took its place. In 1838 the first Andrews strect bridge was put there by private capital; it was succeeded by one of iron in 1857, which cost $12,000 and stood for thirty-six years. The first Clarissa street bridge was built in 1840 to serve as an avenue to Mt. Hope cemetery, which had been dediented two years before; it was built of wood, with high walls on the outside and parti- tion walls between the roadway and the footpaths : a much better bridge, costing $15,000, was Inid down in 1862.
LIFE SPRINGS UP.
After the first year, which was mainly one of expectation, the new settlement began to grow an] it expanded rapidly. The year 1813 saw the open- ing of the first store, built by Silas O. Smith arel conducted by Ira West; of the first school in the neighborhood, taught by Huldah M. Strong, who afterward married Dr. Jonah Brown, and of the Fitzhugh and Carroll mill-race, back of the pres- out Erie railway station, which, with Brown's race, at the head of the high falls, three years later, and the Johnson and Seymour race on the east side, with the dam across the river-both be- ing constructed in 1817 at a cost of $12,000-in- sured the prosperity of Rochester with its un. equaled water privileges. There improvements were fitly succeeded by the building of the "old red mill" by the Elys and Josiah Bissell and the cotton factory in Frankfort, both in 1815, and the "yellow mill" on the east side by William Atkin- son two years later. In 1815 the mailing facilities were greatly increased by the substitution of a stage from this place to Canandaigua, driven by Samuel Hildreth of Pittsford, for the old horse- back conveyance, and that twice a week instead of only once. On October 8th of that year the first wedding occurred, that of Delia, daughter of Ham- Iet Serantom, to Jehiel Barnard, who had previ- ously opened the first tailor shop. The first cen- sus was taken in Derember, showing a population of 331. In 1816 Rev. Comfort Williams was in. stalled as pastor of the First Presbyterian church, the society having been organized the year before that and the building for worship erected in 1817 on the west side of Carroll (now State) street. 0: the present site of the small gray stone building that was used by several successive banking cor- porations and is now occupied by an express com- pany. In 1816 also the first newspaper was estab- listed here, a weekly named the Rochester Gazette published by Dauby and Sheldon and afterward Ww Edwin Serantom, who called it the Monroe Re- publican : it was subsequently merged in another journal.
THE AFFAIR AT CHARLOTTE.
Before this time an incident occurred. not in Rochester but very near it and always considered
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
as connected with the place, so that it excited the greatest interest and formed the absorbing topic of conversation, besides being frequently repro- dueed in narration, poetical, historical and dra- matic. The war of 1812 did not cause much alarm in the first year, but in June, 1813, Sir James Yeo, the British admiral, came to the mouth of the river with his fleet, landed at Charlotte and seized some provisions without resistance. This cause-l a fear that worse might happen in the future, ant so, hy direction of General Peter B. Porter, the commander of the forces in Western New York, a company of dragoons was raised in this locality under the command of Major Isaac W. Stone of Brighton, with Francis Brown and Elisha Ely of Rochester as captains, rather a disproportionate number of officers, since the total enlistment num- bered only fifty men. At Charlotte they found awaiting them a part of a regiment from some- where under Colonel Atkinson and also a company from the towns of Gates and Greece under Cap- tain Rowe. These others seem to have gone away or to have retired into the background, for when the British landed under a flag of truce two days later it was our little squad by which they were confronted and with the chiefs of which the parley was held.
A demand was made for a surrender of all the provisions and military stores at Charlotte, with the promise that if this were done there would be no attack upon any of the settlements. As to the reply that was made, authorities differ, the more prosaic saying that Major Stone answered that the publie property was in the hands of those who would defend it, while other writers, of a more Inrid temperament, have it that it was the bold Captain Brown who made the laconic response : "Blood knee deep first." It is, of course, the latter version that has always been imbedded in popular tradition, which does not prevent it fromn being the true one. If so, the English officer must have had a fine sense of humor, for he retired withont more words. The next day General Porter, having arrived, took command and had an opportunity to make a similar refusal to a second demand. Then the fleet sailed away, after firing a few harmless cannon balls into the village as a parting salute. Why a landing in force was not made by Admiral Yeo is a matter of conjecture, for he could easily have overpowered and captured that little hand- ful of volunteers. Probably he thought that they were hat the mask for some larger body.
It is now time to turn to the growth of the surrounding region, which had been rapidly fill- ing up.
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CHAPTER IV
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY.
The First Deed Recorded-The Twenty-Thousand- Acre Tract-The First Settlers-Visits of Trac- elers-The Tory Walker-King's Landing and Hanford's Landing-Charlotte and Pittsford- Unsuccessful Experiments-Development of the County.
RECORDINO OF EARLY DEEDS,
The primacy of Rochester and its predominance as a commercial center did not begin and were not even anticipated till long after several settlements had been made at different points in what is now Monroe county, and even those did not take place till after Canandaigua had become quite populous and other villages in adjoining counties were thrifty and prosperous. A land office having been opened by Oliver Phelps at Cananadaigua in 1783 (which is said to have been the very earliest of- fice opened in America for the sale of her forest lands to settlers), the first deed of our land was recorded there, as the seat of Ontario county (as all other deeds were till Monroe was established), on September 16th, 1790. It did not run from either Phelps or Gorham, but it stated that the title of the grantor rested on a conveyance from the first-named, which, for some reason, was never put on record. This deed, from Joseph Smith to James Latta, conveyed, for the sum of one hundred and seventy-five dollars, practically what is now the village of Charlotte, though the terms of the instrument are not so precise as they ought to have been. The second deed recorded, a month later,
was from Phelps and Gorham to Ebenezer Hunt, Robert Breck, Quartus Pomeroy, Samuel Heu- shaw, Samuel Hinckley, Moses Kingsley and Jns- tin Ely. It conveyed, for the sum of six hundredl pounds, 20,100 acres, less the hundred acres pr4- viously given to Indian Allan, which were ex- pressly reserved in this document. This was th? "Twenty-Thousand-Acre tract," as it has always been called, and it embraces most of the west half of Rochester and of Gates as well as a small part of Greece. Beginning from a point on the river bank between the Holy Sepulcher and Riverside cemeteries, the northern boundary runs due west about seven miles, thenee south about five miles along the western edge of the towns named, thence east to the river, which it strikes a little north of Clarissa street bridge, the stream being the east- ern boundary of the tract. The deed to Robert Morris, mentioned in a preceding chapter, was recorded on the following day.
THE LUSKB AND THE SHEFFERS.
In that same year of 1789 the permanent set- tlement of Monroe county was begun. Caleb Hyde and others, of Lenox, Massachusetts, made the fifth purchase from Phelps and Gorham, and of their new possession fifteen hundred arres near the head of Irondequoit bay, were set off for John Lusk, though just how he obtained his title is not ascertainable. At any rate he came here in the summer of that year, accompanied by his son Stephen, fifteen years old, and a hired man, all of them crossing Cayuga lake on a raft, while their cattle got across by swimming. Having reached
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
their domain they settled down in the southern part of it, which is now Pittsford, built a log cabin and sowed twenty acres with wheat. They got the seed from Ebenezer Allan, having, for its transportation, to cut a road through the woods to Red creek, to which point it was carried in a canoe. Their only visitors were a few friendly Indians, but after the natives came the inevitable fever and ague, which disabled them for several weeks 8: that the whole party returned to Massachusetts be- fore the winter set in, though they came back here in the next spring, bringing the entire Lusk household with them for good.
Having deposited the Lusk family on the east 'side, we will turn to the west. Toward the close of 1789 Peter Sheffer, then eighty years old, came Gp here from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, together with his two sons, Peter and Jacob. Ile bought In- dian Allan's well-cleared farm, of nearly five hun- dred acres, at what is now Scottsville, for two doi- lars and a half an acre, and settled down at once, so that he may be considered the pioneer of the west side, for Allan was too nomadic to count as a real resident. Peter Sheffer, junior, married, în 1790, Elizabeth Schoonhover, whose family had settled at Dugan's creek in the spring of that year ; on the 20th of January, 1793, their first child was born, Nancy, who became the wife of Philip Garbutt; in 1795 Jacob Sheffer died; in 1797 Peter put up the first frame dwelling-house in all that region, getting the nails and other iron from Geneva, while the lumber was procured from Al- lan's saw-mill. In that house and in that year the first town meeting on the west side of the river was held, Josiah Fish being elected supervisor. Soon after the sale of the Twenty-Thousand-Acre tract, in 1790, the whole of the state of New York between the Genesee and the Niagara had been made into the town of Northampton, so called be- cause aix of the seven grantees of that land lived in Northampton, Mass. In 1802 the whole terri- tory, which had previously been a part of Ontario county, was made into Genesee county and Northampton was divided into four towns, but it was not till 1808 that it had shrunk, by further subdivisions, inside of what is now Monroe county.
FOREIGN SIGHT-SEERS.
It is pleasing to note that about this time several distinguished travelers, most of them French.
passed through this region, attracted mainly by the fame of the tremendous cataract at Niagara, and two of them at least gave to the world in their published works their impressions of the new country. Chateaubriand, poet and philosopher, came along in 1790, and Talleyrand three years later, when he was self-exiled for his own safety during the Reign of Terror, but there is no reason to suppose that he came any nearer than Mt. Mor- ris, where he stayed for some time. In 1795 tha Duke de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt journeyed up here from Bath on horseback, and his mind, acute and observing, was filled with admiration at the progress that had been made in the development of the Pulteney estate. In his "Travels through the United States of North America, the Country cf the Iroquois and Canada" he describes minutely the manners, customs and mode of life of the in- habitants, and the following extract from that book, though previously given by the present writer some years ago, may well be repeated in this place :
"The dwellings of the new settlers are commonly at first set up in a very slight manner ; they consist of huts, the roofs and walls of which are made of bark, and in which the husband, wife and children paas the winter, wrapped up in blankets. They also frequently construct houses of trees laid upon each other, the intersections of which are either filled up with loam or left open, according as there is more or less time to fill them up. In such buildings as have attained some degree of perfec- tion there is a chimney of brick or clay, but very often there is only an aperture in the roof to let out the smoke, and the fire is replenished with the trunks of trees. At a little distance from the house stands a small oven, built sometimes of brick, hut more frequently of clay. Salt pork and beef are the usual food of the new settlers: their drink is water and whisky, but there are few families un- provided with coffee and chocolate."
For the sole purpose of seeing the Genesee falls the duke of Orleans (afterward King Louis Philippe), with his brothers the duke of Mont- pensier and Count Beaujolais, came here in 1797, escorted from Canandaigua by Thomas Morris, the son of Robert. The whole party was entertained at the house of Orange Stone, who, as well as his brother Enos, had come out here from Lenox in 1790, located and built a tavern near the "big rock and tree" on East avenue in the town of Brighton. That ancient landmark, the site of Indian councils
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
in former days, continued in a state of preserva- tion till three or four years ago, when the tree, already weakened by age, was blown down in a gale of wind and the rock was in imminent danger of being broken np for macadam, which desecration was averted by the patriotic efforts of the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution.
William Hencher was the next settler on the west side after the Sheffers (with the possible ex- ception of the Schoonhovers), though there was an interval of four years between them. Having par. ticipated in Shays's rebellion in Massachusetts he Hled from that state, coming here in August, 1791. Stopping for a few days in the hut of the tory Walker* at the month of the Genesee, he crossed the river, kept on to Long pond and there built some kind of a habitation, the first dwelling on the shore of the lake between the Genesee and the Ni- agara. There he resided with his family, but for three years he lived in fear of the Senecas, who had gone west to fight on the side of their fellow- savages, and who, if their crushing defeat by Gen- eral Wayne had not broken their spirit, might have returned and massacred many of our people. It was not till then that Hlencher made up his mind to pay the second time for his six hundred acres, the mortgage on which, made by the pre- vious owner, had been foreclosed by Oliver Phelps
KING'S AND HANFORD'S LANDING.
The shadow of Phelps continued to be pro- jected over this region, and therefore it continues to darken these pages. In some way not clearly explained he managed to get back one half of the Twenty-Thousand-Acre tract and then he induced several of his old townspeople in Suffield, Con- necticut, to come on here and look about. Two of them, Gideon King and Zadock Granger, por- chased of him three thousand merce each on the west side, about half way between Rochester and Charlotte, on a spot that seemed an ideal place for a settlement, with a large platean slightly above the river and with depth of water sufficient for
large lake vessels to come up and land there. Early in 1797 Gideon King put np a large house there for himself and his family, near the top of the high bank, and graded the roadway down to the lower level, where he began the construction of n dock. He died in the following year, a grandchild of his was born there in 1799 and a year later one to Zadock Granger. The place was known as King's Landing for some time, but in 1809 all the members of the original families who had survived the incessant attacks of fever and ague-the Gen- esee fever, as it was. commonly called-movel away.
Seven Hanford brothers from Rome, N. Y., treu came to the place, bought a large part of the land. built several warehouses near the dock and erected, on the bank above, the Steamboat Hotel, a well- known stopping-place for many years for travelers by the Ridge road. These improvements gave to the place the name of Hanford's Landing, an ap- pellation that remained long after the second sct of settlers had passed away and every evidence ol human occupation had been obliterated.
CHARLOTTE.
No villages were incorporated in the county till a long time after this, but the settlement at the mouth of the river on the west side was the oule that from the beginning gave evidence of perma- nence and importance that was not disappointed Samuel Latta, the son of James, mentioned above, located there soon after his father's purchase, one of his first acts being the erection of a warehouse, and he was soon joined by others who contrib- uted to the prosperity of the community. It was early perceived that the lake traffic with Canada must be eventually of considerable magnitude and that stimulated the building of many vessels there of which the first was the schooner Experi- ment, in 1809, after which there were many others both sailing vessels and river steamers. When Robert Troup became the agent for the Pulteney estate, in 1801, this settlement was named after his daughter, Charlotte, and that name, after some temporary changes, it still bears. In 1805 the harbor was made, by act of Congress, a port of entry, under the title of the port of Genesee, Mr Latta being properly appointed collector, and the light-house was built a few years later, though au- thorities differ as to the date.
*This William Walker had served on the British side during the Revolutionary war, not as a regular soldier, but as a spy. He was with the Senecas during Sullivan's campaign, but noth- ing is known of him after that till the close of the war, wben he wandered into this locality and for some years lived alone on the Irondequoit side of the river, supporting himself by fish- ing and hunting, until, having got into some difficulty, be moved away to Canada. Too insignifienal to be molested, he was generally despised and no one had any intercourse with him. He was in no true sense either a pioneer or a settier of Monroe county.
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CLIFFS OF THE GENESEE-SENECA PARK.
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HISTORY OF ROCHESTER AND MONROE COUNTY.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
Pittsford was in every way the leading town on the east side. Most of what is now the eastern part of Monroe county was organized into the dis- trict of Northfield in 1789; five years later it was made a town without change of name, the first town meeting being held in what is now Pittsford in 1796, when Silas Nye was chosen supervisor. Two years before that the first school in the county had been established there, taught by Mr. Bur- rows; in 1802 a school-house was built at Ironde- quoit landing, and in 1804 Miss Willey taught some classes in Ogden, that being probably the first pedagogical instruction on the west side of the river. As to the first church in the county, that is a matter of uncertainty but the likelihood is that this honor, also, should be given to Pittsford, where a log house was built in 1799, that was used as a town hall and a place of worship, Rev. J. H Hotchkin preaching there for some time. A Con- gregational church was organized there in 1809, with Rev. Samuel Allen as pastor. The west side of the river had to depend for a long time upon the circuit-riders of the Methodist church, who generally used the log house of George W. Willey in Ogden for that purpose, and one of those preachers, Rev. Ebenezer Everett, became the first settled minister of that region. Scottsville, on the west side, had as steady a growth as Pittsford on the east. Oliver Allen built there at a very early duy a woolen mill, which was run successfully by his descendants till a few years ago.
TRYONTOWN AND CASTLETON.
More than one spot had been thought of, before Rochester came into being, as the center of grav- ity for the metropolis of the Genesee valley that was sure to arise in the future. Many looked with favor upon a location on Irondequoit creek, about three miles from the bay, and there Judge Tryon, of Lebanon Springs, built in 1799 a store, which was stocked with goods brought from Schenectady and which is said to have been the first emporium of that kind opened within the present limits of the county, though it is rather hard to see how the many settlers could have got along before that without something of the sort. Shortly after that a public house was erected, kept by Asa Dayton, a
tannery was put up and a local court was estab- lished which seems to have acknowledged no su. perior jurisdiction. But the decline was almost as rapid as the rise, the lake traffic went to the river instead of the bay, stagnation ensued, the storehouse was torn down in 1818 and that was the end of "Tryontown." A little later another abortive venture was made, this time on the west side, where the rapids are still rippling and where Colonel Isaac Castle had built a tavern, whence the prospective city was called Castleton, or "Castle Town." It was at the foot of navigation on the upper Genesce and at the head of the long portage from the lower falls, but those advantages could not overcome the inclination of people to go some- where else and the end of the matter came soon.
CARTHAGE.
A more ambitious experiment, one that lasted much longer and that secmed much more likely of success was that at Carthage, the site of the famons bridge described in the foregoing pages. Its origin was much later than that of the places just men- tioned, but as it is the only other one. with the exception of Hanford's Landing, that ever bade fair to be the rival of Rochester, it may as well be mentioned in this connection. Elisha B. Strong may be considered as the real pioneer, though Caleb Lyon and indeed several others had been there before that, but their residence was only temporary. Mr. Strong, who came there from Windsor, Connecticut, in 1816 and in company with Elisha Beach purchased a thousand acres, made every effort to establish a real village. To this end not only were houses erected, but a tavern was built, kept by Ebenezer Spear; several stores were started ; a school was opened, kept by Jedu- thun Dimick, in 1818; one lawyer, Levi H. Clark, had his office there; Strong and Albright put up a flour mill with four run of stones at the upper step of the lower falls, and Franklin street was laid out at that peculiar angle simply for the pur- pose of diverting traffic from the Pittsford road and preventing its going to the Four Corners. One thing more was necessary to complete success, which was to join together the broken ends of the Ridge road and span the gorge of the river, 80 Strong, Beach and Albright, with Heman Norton, built the great bridge and the others which fol-
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