USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume I > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
The Olean is a non-marine deposit. It is a continental forma- tion, deposited as part of a vast delta laid by rivers which flowed westward from some high land that has now sunk beneath the Atlantic Ocean. To the reader this explanation may appear far- fetched. No better theory has been found. There is no visible
60
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
source on the continent for such a vast quantity of crystalline quartz. The deposit is thickest in the east-central part of Penn- sylvania, thinning away west and northwest. All its characters indicate that the material was carried westward in spreading or fan-shaped form.
Geologists are discovering that some formations which were formerly supposed to be marine are really continental, having been laid on lowlands by rivers, or by storm-wash from high- lands, similar to present deposition in the Great Basin in the west. It is quite possible that some other strata in New York may belong in this class.
EROSION OF WESTERN NEW YORK.
The slow rise of western New York out of the Paleozoic inland sea did not occur at the same time for the whole of the area. Apparently the rise was first in Canada, and progressively south- ward. The Ontario district became permanent dry land while the south border of the state was yet under the shallow epicon- tinental sea. The Ontario district probably was exposed to the destructive effect of the atmosphere in early Devonian time, but the southern area was not dry land until the end of the Devonian. During that period the northern area was suffering erosion, and the materials from the destruction of the rocks was swept south- ward by the rivers of that time to form the sediments which con- stitute the rocks of the southern area, and of northern Pennsyl- vania.
Ever since Devonian time, for tens of millions of years, the entire area of New York has been exposed to the wasting effect of atmospheric agencies. In consequence a considerable thick- ness of the rock strata has certainly been removed from the crigi- nal surface, because, however slow might have been the process of erosion, the destructive agency was, as now, always active; and geologic time is long.
The destruction of the rocks is produced by contraction and expansion due to changes in temperature; to fracturing by frost ; to chemical work of the carbon-dioxide of the air; to the organic acids in the soil; to the solvent action of carbonated waters; and especially to the mechanical corrasion and transportation by wind, rain, running water and glaciers. The reader will agree that
MT. MORRIS CANYON, LOOKING NORTH (Plate 18)
MT. MORRIS CANYON, EAST WALL, BELOW "HOG-BACK" (Plate 19) Lower beds, Cashaqua; upper beds, Rhinestreet.
VIEWS IN WATKINS GLEN (Plates 20) The rocks are Portage shale and sandstone.
65
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
an average of surface erosion, at the present time, of one one- thousandth of an inch per year, or one inch in 1,000 years is not too high an estimate. The length of time since the Devonian is at least 20,000,000 years. At the above rate of erosion the depth of strata removed figures as 1,666 feet. During much of the long time since the Devonian the continent probably was higher above the sea than it is now, and the greater elevation increased the factors of erosion (precipitation, gradient, velocity and transportation of streams). The warmer climate of the Tertiary Period facilitated chemical decay, and probably increased the amount of rainfall and volume of the rivers. During epochs of aridity and of desert conditions, such as prevailed here in Salina time, the winds were effective agents of erosion and trans- portation, and the torrential rains aided stream erosion (the Grand Canyon district is an example).
Under all possible climatic and physical conditions the wast- ing of the land was constant, and an estimate of 2,000 feet of rock removed from over the Rochester district appears reason- able. A much greater thickness has been cut away to make the basin of Lake Ontario.
Such depth of erosion over the lower Genesee region implies that the Salina shales, the Onondaga limestone and the Marcellus and Hamilton beds, which now have their abrupt northern edges (outcrops) not far south of Rochester, originally extended north- ward and covered the Rochester area and Ontario lowland, and some of them perhaps reached over the site of Lake Ontario, cr even into Canada.
The important fact to be recognized is that the present topog- raphy of the region, the deep valleys and the intervening ridges and the plains and plateaus, were not the original land surface, but are the present result of the long-time erosion and down- cutting of the exposed land. When the region was finally raised out of the Devonian sea it had no features like those of today, but was only a relatively smooth plain (coastal plain), the ex- posed sea-bottom. This plain sloped gently southward from Canada across the Genesee Country to the receding sea; finally extending into Pennsylvania. Over this south-sloping plain the primitive rivers flowed southward into the inland sea.
The great basin now occupied by Lake Ontario and its bays was carved out of the upraised marine coastal plain through the
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66
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
many millions of years of continental erosion. The same is true of the Irondequoit and Genesee valleys, and of all the valleys of central and western New York. The valleys are merely trenches cut in the wasting land surface by the concentrated stream ero- sion. The broad ridges between the valleys, composed of prac- tically horizontal strata, are merely the remnants of the ancient Devonian plain. The valleys are the direct and positive effect of the land destruction, while the intervening ridges are a pas- sive or negative result. As noted above, the earlier drainage passed southward across the former sea-bottom; but in later, certainly in Tertiary time, the river-flow of central and western New York was diverted into northward flow into the great river that was carving the Ontario Valley (Ontarian River), and the river detritus was probably swept into the Mississippi basin (plate 22).
EVOLUTION OF THE PRESENT VALLEYS.
In order to explain the origin and history of the Genesee and other valleys, with their diverse and anomalous directions of flow, more particular description is necessary of the changes in western New York drainage.
Plate 22 gives a suggestion of the direction of the rivers in later Paleozoic time. It is quite hypothetic, yet there are a few wide valleys or depressions with northeast by southwest direc- tions, and with little or no relation to the existing drainage, which are regarded as relics of the more ancient, and primitive, southerly flow.
But the larger part of the present drainage, the Genesee River being the best example, has northerly direction, quite the reverse of the original, primitive flow. The reversal in flow- direction is our present problem.
With the erosion of the rocks of the wide area the rivers in the process of deepening their channels were compelled to pay attention, or to adjust themselves, to the structure and character and the varying resistance to erosion of the rock strata which they encountered.
Plate 1 is a sketch-map of the present areal geology, showing the belts of outcrop of the eroded strata of the several time periods. The shaded belts are the outcrops of the limestone
POTTSVILLE CONGLOMERATE, AT ROCK CITY, PA. (Plate 21)
69
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
strata. As described above, each belt originally extended farther north.
The primitive (consequent) south-flowing rivers crossed all these stratigraphic belts. Of course they developed tributaries, many of which flowed east or west along the outcrop (the "strike" direction) of the strata. The tributaries which occu- pied the belts of weak rocks had an erosional advantage, and sometimes extended themselves by headward cutting until they tapped and captured adjacent river systems. These originally tributary or secondary (subsequent) streams in that manner beheaded some of the south-flowing (consequent) rivers, and so became controlling or master rivers. They have been called "pirate" streams. It was in this manner that the east and west tributaries which lay in the wide belt of very thick and very weak Ordovician rocks developed into the great master stream, the Ontarian River, which occupied the great Ontario Valley. There is no doubt that the Ontario basin is an effect of erosion and not of land warping.
The Mohawk Valley similarly developed as the eastward ex- tension on the Ordovician outcrop.
Two other depressions in western New York represent belts of weak rocks, and hold stretches of east or west stream-flow. One is the outcrop of the Salina shales, lying between the two heavy limestones, in which lie parts of the Oatka, Honeoye and Ganargua creeks, and the villages of Scottsville, Rush, Mendon, Victor, Macedon, Lyons and Clyde (plates 1 and 2). The other depression is in Chemung strata, carrying the east and west stretches of the Susquehanna and Chemung rivers between El- mira and Binghamton.
It will be evident to the reader that the valleys of rivers flow- ing east or west must have had walls or slopes facing both north and south, down which flowed the tributary drainage. The great Ontarian River, lying in the wide belt of very weak Ordovician strata, became the dominating river and its broad and deep valley the dominating topographic feature, and the focus of drainage of a vast area. As the Ontario Valley deepened it correspond- ingly widened, and strong north-flowing streams developed on the south wall of the broad valley. These north-flowing rivers, the reverse in direction of the primitive flow, and termed "obse- quent" streams, extended themselves southward by headward cut-
70
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
ting into the plateau on the south, and eventually captured most of the drainage of central and western New York. Even the Susquehanna is believed to have flowed north through the Seneca and Sodus valleys (plate 22).
The remarkable parallel valleys of west-central New York were excavated by this obsequent northward drainage into the Ontarian River. In sequence from west to east these valleys are : the Tonawanda, Oatka, Genesee, Conesus, Hemlock, Honeoye, Bristol, Canandaigua, Flint, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco, Skanea- teles, Otisco, Onondaga, Butternut, Limestone and Chittenango. Other north-flowing streams farther eastward were, and are, tributary to the Mohawk. Altogether, these valleys make the most extensive series of parallel valleys in the world.
Probably many of the north-flowing streams did not continue into direct junction with the Ontarian River, but united to form east or west streams in the Salina depression. Only a few large streams cut across or breached the ridge of Niagara limestone which formed the north wall of the Salina trough. The most im- portant passes are the Irondequoit and the Sodus Bay Valley. East of Sodus Bay are smaller valleys, but so obscured by glacial drift that the ancient drainage is uncertain. Between St. David's Valley, west of Niagara, and the Sodus Valley there is only one break in the Lockport limestone ridge, namely the Iron- dequoit Valley. This was certainly the Preglacial path of the Genesee River. It must be clearly understood that the canyons of the Niagara, Genesee and Oswego rivers have been wholly cut since the removal of the Quebec Glacier.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENESEE RIVER.
The Genesee River (plate 23) is the fine example of the ancient north-flowing (obsequent) rivers tributary to the On- tario Valley. The blocking and extinguishing effect of the conti- nental glacier was not able to radically change its course. It persisted in its northward flow, and cut new channels where the old path was blocked by glacial drift.
Rising in Pennsylvania at altitudes much over 2,000 feet, it yet flows across the whole width of western New York, and has the most complex and dramatic drainage history, it is confidently thought, of any valley in the world.
The development of the river, mostly during Tertiary time, is not entirely clear. It is the product of many changes in the
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LATE TERTIARY, OR PREGLACIAL, DRAINAGE OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN NEW YORK (Plate 22) Glacial drift has so obscured the ancient river courses, especially over a wide belt near Lake Ontario, that the mapping is partially hypothetic.
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72
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
drainage, and the aggregate of several originally distinct streams. The full story cannot be read. If all the glacial drift could be removed from the valleys so as to expose the old Pre- glacial surfaces, we might hope to decipher and translate the history. However, some bolder topographic features suggest some important elements in the history.
It appears certain that the Preglacial flow of the Genesee River was northward, the same as today. The interfering and blockading effect of the advancing ice-sheet tended to change northward river flow into southward flow. Such reversing effect was successful with the Susquehanna, Chemung and Allegany rivers. Morainal damming has in places changed the path of the Genesee River, but the glacial blocking could not permanently reverse the general northward direction of flow.
It also appears certain that the Irondequoit Valley was the lower, or northern, part of the river valley. This is the only wide breach in the ridge of hard Niagaran strata anywhere within reach of the river which is comparable in dimensions with the valley at Avon and Geneseo. The course through Rochester is Postglacial and very recent.
The wide and deep Irondequoit Valley and the capacious Dans- ville Valley suggest by their form that they are very old, and the courses of ancient heavy drainage. It is probable that they were the earliest of the component parts of the Genesee system. As the Ontarian River deepened its valley the early Genesee River, in the Irondequoit Valley, did the same, tending to preserve its graded relation to its master river. This implies that the rock floor of the Irondequoit Valley must be buried under a great depth of glacial and lake deposit, for Lake Ontario is now over 700 feet deep.
The deepening of the ancient Irondequoit Valley increased its northward downslope, or gradient, with the result of increas- ing the stream velocity. And this facilitated rapid erosion, with extension of the headwaters into the highland or plateau on the south. Such headward extension enabled the river to capture other streams on the south, and so increase its volume and its power for further pirating. We must realize that the captured streams had the original southward flow, and the piracy by the energetic and ambitious Genesee turned the direction of flow from southward to northward.
daries of Rochester are shown for 1895 and 1923.
LAKE
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246
Oak Orchard
Tonawanda
Creek
Oaka (All
890 BATAV
900
LEROY 666
@ CALEDONIA 652
3 0
OEAST BETHANY
@ AVON
TO BETHANY '
GUMA
LINDEN
ATTICA 992
965 WYOMING
DALE @ #172
O GENESEO 600
CONESUS LA 619
HONEO
JOHNSONBURGO
+WARSAW
PERRY
MI MORRIS 633
HEMLOCK L 896
CANADACE L. 1092
SILVER L.
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K.
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4313
@ DANSVILLE 689
PORTAGEVILLE O 134
CHUNTS
Caltaraugus
DALTON
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Cold Creek
CANASERAGA
FILLMOREO 119
1210
@BURNS 1197
HOUGHTON Q 1209
RUSHFORD
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@CANE ADEA 1238
Creek
BELFAST 1313
HORNELL 115 5
ALMOND
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ALFRED
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River
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OBELMONT 1384
FRIENDSHIP 1532
SCIO
OHINSDALE 145
Les Creek
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SOLEAN
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BOLIVAR
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GENESEE
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1693
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for elevation above ocean, mark the outflow channels or passes of escape of the glacial-lake waters that were held up by the Quebec ice-sheet.
The drainage area, or "basin," is bounded by the heavy, broken line. The parallel lines which lie across the boundary line, with figures
Those on the west side, at and south of Cuba, led to
Those at Bethany and Batavia led through Chicago to the Mississippi. The long-time escape of the Genesee waters east-
The passes on the east side of the valley carried the overflow to the Susquehanna River.
ward to the Mohawk-Hudson was by channels between Rochester and Rome. The later escape through Lake Iloquois was into the Champlain-
the Ohio-Mississippi.
The ice-front melted back from south to north, opening successively lower passes.
GENESEE VALLEY (Plate 23)
& SCOTTSBURG
Canaseraga Creek
XNUNDA
.942
Creek
Caraserafa
1307 PSWAINS
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Creek
Angeli
Black Creek
Canesteo
Bennett Creek
WHITESVILLE
1725
600
Cryder
Cree
IMEst Branch
Middle
BINGHAM
OSWAYOD
Osways Creek
Cowanesque
reek
/REXVILLE
Hudson. Yet later the Genesee poured into sea level waters (Gilbert Gulf) : and now through Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Valley. Boun-
74
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
It must be kept in mind that this early drainage was high above the present valleys, up possibly a thousand feet. And it is likely that greater elevation of the continent, along with pos- sible tilting, influenced the changes in drainage.
Before the Glacial Period the headward cutting by the Gene- see had established its course clear across the state in Pennsyl- vania. The effects of the ice-sheet did not seriously change the river valley above Portageville, although it caused serious di- version at and below Portageville.
EFFECTS OF GLACIATION.
A full description of the glacial episode in the history of our region would require a large book, and the story here must be very brief.
It is certain that climates have varied since the earliest re- corded geologic time, and effects of glaciation are found in very ancient rocks. The causes of changes of temperature are not fully known, but they are involved in geologic processes, such as the evolution of the earth's envelopes, the ocean and atmosphere.
Before the Glacial Period, during Tertiary time, the conti- nent of North America appears to have had a climate much warmer and more uniform than today. Beds of coal are found in Greenland that were produced by the growth of plants requir- ing the warmth of our southern states. Some changes in the throbbing globe and in the character of its atmosphere produced a slightly lower world temperature, sufficient to change some rainfall into snow; and fields of snow-ice were produced in areas of heavy precipitation.
One of the areas of snow accumulation, and the latest in America, was in southern Quebec. There the ice-field grew until it overspread all of New England, all of New York and part of northern Pennsylvania (plate 24). In its slow advance the Quebec Glacier filled the Ontario basin, and advancing it blocked the Genesee and all other north-flowing rivers in the state. The waters of central and western New York were forced to escape either eastward to the Mohawk-Hudson or westward to the Mis- sissippi, and finally southward into the Susquehanna in Pennsyl- vania. A great series of lakes, with their outlet rivers, were pro- duced, and as the ice advanced were forced from lower to higher
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TERMINAL
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GLACIAL DRIFT (Plates 24)
Upper figure: Map of the heavier moraines in central and western New York. The termin I meraino me ks the extreme reach of the Quebec ice-sheet.
Lower view: Glacial drift mantle, resting on Lockport limestone. Rochester, 1899.
Susqueha
Alleghen
oHorseheads Owego
MORAINE TOPOGRAPHY (Plates 25)
Upper view: Three miles south of Dansville, looking west from Stony Brook school house. Lower view: In Highland Park, Rochester, looking southeast.
79
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
levels. For tens of thousands of years there was no Genesee River, nor any streams in the state, because some thousands of feet of ice covered all of the state.
With a slight change of climatic conditions the Quebec Glacier diminished, and the south front of the ice-sheet backed away or receded northward. The receding dam held up a remarkable series of glacial lakes in the valleys that sloped northward, to- ward the ice barrier; while rivers, flowing past the ice front, drained these lakes. These waters of ice-recession fell from higher to lower levels, the reverse of the lakes of ice-advance. The story of these glacial Genesee waters has been told in several writings (32, 45, 46, 52). The glacial-lake phenomena are very prominent in central-western New York, and some of those in the Genesee region are described in papers 28, 32, 33, 36, 41, 45, 46, 52. The map of the Genesee Valley, plate 23, shows the out- flow channels of glacier-impounded waters where these crossed the boundaries of the basin.
The rubbing, transporting and filling work of the spreading ice-sheet did not greatly change the topography of the region. The gross topography or the larger relief features were not al- tered. The old notion that the continental glacier had great eroding power, planing off the hills and excavating deep valleys, is a mistake. The effects were different from those of alpine or valley glaciers. The erosive work here was a sort of sandpaper- ing of the land surface. The greater work was transportational, the gathering up of the loosened rock materials from millions of years of weathering, and drifting it southward. The chief modi- fication of the land surface by the ice-sheet was constructional, the deposition of the rock-rubbish ("glacial drift") in ridges or masses as moraines and drumlins (plates 24-27, and papers 42, 44, 55), and its most important effect was the diversion of drain- age by drift-filling in the valleys. The divides at the south heads of the Finger-Lakes valleys are all made by heavy moraine fill- ing (plate 34). In the Genesee Valley the drift blockade at cer- tain points has caused the diversion of the river from its Pre- glacial course into new paths, with the production of canyons and cataracts. Very old valleys become wide and flaring. The narrow, steep-walled channels, with or without falls, are rela- tively young. By this test alone we would know that the ravines
80
HISTORY OF THE GENESEE COUNTRY
at Portage, Mt. Morris and Rochester are very recent, speaking geologically.
The old valley of the Genesee led northeast through Nunda (paper 45). It was blocked northeast of Portageville by a mas- sive moraine filling, and the morainal lake thus formed, covering the village site, found its outlet near the west wall of the old valley, but soon encountered the sandstones. Being unable to change its path, the outlet stream, the continuation of the Gene- see River, was compelled to saw down on the rocks. The result is the very handsome Portage canyon and cataracts. At the Mt. Morris "High Banks" the river found another rock barrier and the St. Helena Lake was drained by cutting the ravine in Genesee and Hamilton shales.
North of Avon the eastward course of the ancient river, in the Salina depression, was so filled with drift that the old valley is obscured. The Postglacial river could not reach the Ironde- quoit Valley, and hence took its present course, excavating the splendid Rochester canyon.
In similar manner the diversion of stream courses has forced new channels and produced the numerous ravines which beautify western New York, such as Stony Brook, south of Dansville; Watkins, Montour and Hector in the Seneca Valley; and Fall Brook, Cascadilla, Enfield and Taghanic in the Ithaca district.
The history of the Genesee Country closes with the happen- ings since the ice-sheet disappeared. Of course the canyons, cataracts and lakes belong to this Postglacial episode, of only some tens of thousands of years. But there are some other interesting elements in this recent time. While the waning ice- sheet yet lay over the St. Lawrence Valley a succession of glacial lakes were held in our region (papers 43, 52). The latest and largest of these ice-dammed waters was Lake Iroquois (plate 33), which had its main outlet at Rome to the Mohawk-Hudson. The gravel beaches of the lake carry the "Ridge Roads"; and the extensive sandplains north of Rochester, between the Genesee River and Irondequoit Bay are remnants of the vast delta built in the lake by the Genesee River (paper 52, plate 2).
And between the lifetime of Lake Iroquois and that of Lake Ontario another interesting water-body existed. The great weight of the many thousands of feet of the ice-cap, lasting for scores of thousands of years, had depressed the land, so that when the
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KAME-MORAINE TOPOGRAPHY (Plates 26) Views in the Mendon Ponds kame-area, Monroe County. The knolls are all gravel,; surrounding deep kettles.
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