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 II > Part 11
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Until 1880 gas provided the accepted form of illumination. Two years previously, Hiram Maxim exhibited the first elec- tric arc light in Rochester; it was operated from a steam driven generator in the Hess tobacco factory on Exchange Street. The new light proved to be satisfactory and interest was aroused to such an extent that a group of citizens, on February 25, 1880, incorporated the Rochester Electric Light Company, with a hydraulicly operated plant in the Aqueduct building. This com- pany was a success and,on July 25, 1881, the Brush Electric Light Company was incorporated. In the year 1883 the first incandescent lamps were used in Rochester; these were installed in the Powers Hotel. On April 23, 1886, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company was organized, principally for power business. In this year, also, the first underground distribution system was begun and within a comparatively short time all the wires were beneath the surface.
The Rochester Railway and Light Company was incorporated May 26, 1904, and consolidated all the gas and electric interests of the city already mentioned and including the Central Light and Power Company (incorporated July 24, 1893), and the Rochester Light and Power Company (incorporated January 5, 1903), which had been merged January 21, 1903, under the
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last-named title. On July 8, 1904 the Despatch Heat, Light and Power Company was formed, followed January 20, 1905, by the Eastern Monroe Electric Light and Gas Company. These, with the Canandaigua Gas Light Company (incorporated August 3, 1853) and the lighting interests of the Ontario Light and Trac- tion Company of Canandaigua (incorporated June 7, 1900), were merged with the Rochester Railway and Light Company September 29, 1917. On November 10, 1919, the Rochester Rail- way and Light Company changed its official title to the Roches- ter Gas and Electric Corporation and now controls the entire field of operations in those utilities in Rochester. The company has four major water power privileges: The south, with a fall of about seventeen feet; the upper falls, ninety feet; the middle falls, twenty-seven feet; and the lower falls, ninety feet. Of very great importance in the acquisition of added water power for Rochester is the proposed dam to be constructed across the Gene- see River about a mile south of Mount Morris, Livingston County, New York. The dam itself will, upon completion, be of the arched type, curving upstream, nearly 200 feet high, 1,050 feet wide at top and 550 feet at bottom, weighing approximately 1,000,000 tons, and resting upon a forty-foot foundation. The dam will impound water to form a lake sixteen miles long and from 1,000 to 5,000 feet in width, which will retain 13,000,- 000,000 cubic feet of water. Fully 60,000 horsepower will be available at the Mount Morris plant when used for peak load entirely, or 17,000 should it be necessary to operate the plant the entire twenty-fours hours of the day. Under ordinary cir- cumstances 12,000 is to be generated. From 11,500 to 13,200 volts will be developed which can be "stepped up" to 60,000. It is an interesting fact that when the drilling upon the dam-site was done, during the investigation as to the stability of the earth at this point, it was learned that the falls of the Genesee at Port- age were at one time located at this point, fully sixteen miles from their present location at Letchworth Park. The dam will rest upon a solid strata of limestone superimposed in turn upon a one hundred eighty-foot thickness of shale, compressed with the ages. The site to be used for the lake will undergo deforestation and it is estimated that the work of 800 to 1,200 men for three years will be required to construct the dam. Once completed
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however, the problem of water power for Rochester's electricity will be solved for generations.
That Rochester should possess so many beautiful public parks is all the more remarkable when one considers the difficulties encountered during the early park history of the municipality and the fact that for over fifty years after the incorporation of the city little or nothing was done to develop this feature of the community equipment. It is only since the early '80s that real things have been accomplished in this direction. There were some men, notably Dr. E. M. Moore and George W. Elliott, who persistently urged the establishment of parks, but their appeals for years were unheeded. From 1883 until 1888 resolutions were presented in the city council at various times providing for the acceptance of an offer of land from the nursery firm of Ellwan- ger & Barry, to be used for park purposes. On May 29th of the latter year the council accepted from them 19.63 acres north of Reservoir Avenue and east of South Avenue and turned it over to the park board for improvement. This was the nucleus of Highland Park.
The law organizing the park commission and naming the members was passed by the legislature April 27, 1888. The first meeting was held May 7, 1888, and on June 25th following the board journeyed to Buffalo to inspect the park system of that city. Officers were then appointed, landscape and park experts from other cities were consulted, a fund was provided by the council, and activities for the building up of the park system of the city were vigorously put in motion. The survey of Highland Park was begun early in the spring of 1889, and in April of the same year the improvement of Genesee Valley Park and Seneca Park east started. By 1891 almost 441 acres had been pur- chased by the city. The business of completing the parks and the purchase of additional land from time to time was taken up by the council at regular intervals. Popular interest was aroused and it is interesting to note that the first band concerts were given at the Genesee Valley Park in the summer of 1894, under the auspices of the Rochester Herald. The entire park space of the city was undergoing constant improvement, more land was purchased, and in every respect Rochester's parks began to take rank with those of other large cities. Upon the
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acquisition of Maple Grove and the river banks on the west in 1903 the name of Seneca Park West was changed to Maplewood; Seneca Park East became Seneca Park in the same year. Dur- and-Eastman Park, now consisting of 488 acres and extending along the shores of Lake Ontario, was a gift to the city made in 1907 by Doctor Henry S. Durand and George Eastman. Gene- see Valley Park is the largest of the whole group, containing 637 acres of land. In total area, Rochester now has 1,777 acres devoted to parks, and in point of attractiveness, in modern equip- ment, and the development of such things as public playgrounds, the city parks have reached a point in harmony with the civic growth in other directions. In 1915, the department of parks under the mayor of the city displaced the commission.
The first telegraph office was opened in the winter of 1844-45 by the New York, Albany & Buffalo Telegraph Company. The first press dispatch-an account of the proceedings of the consti- tutional convention at Albany-was received by the "Democrat" on June 1, 1846. During the years 1846 and 1847 the "O'Reilly Lines" were constructed from the Atlantic coast to southern and western points. The company was organized by Henry O'Reilly, of Rochester, and its corporate title was the Atlantic, Lake & Mis- sissippi Telegraph Company. In 1860 these companies were con- solidated with the Western Union.
In January, 1879, the Bell Telephone of Buffalo opened an office and exchange in Rochester. The service was inferior, and, when the rates were increased in the fall of 1886, a large majority of the subscribers refused to renew their contracts. At the same time the City Council revoked the privilege of using the streets for wires. A settlement was effected in May, 1888, but many re- mained dissatisfied. This culminated in the organization of the Rochester Telephone Company in the summer of 1899, with a capital of $400,000. During the next six years the Rochester company acquired a controlling interest in several independent (anti-Bell) companies in the state. In 1905 these were all con- solidated as the United States Independent Telephone Company, with a capital of $50,000,000. This company was superseded by the Rochester Telephone Corporation, which was organized August 1, 1921, by the absorption of the Rochester Telephone Company and the properties of the New York Telephone Com- pany adjacent to the city of Rochester. Between thirty-five and
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forty villages contiguous to Rochester in addition to the city are now supplied with telephone service by the new corporation.
Although it is self-sustaining in character, Mount Hope Ceme- tery is classified as a municipally owned institution, and thus may be regarded as a public utility in one sense of the term. It is the only cemetery of this nature in Rochester. A half-acre lot on the corner of Plymouth Avenue and Spring Street owned by Roch- ester, Fitzhugh and Carroll was first used as a burial ground and was presented by them to the village in 1821. Three months later it was exchanged for three and a half acres on West Main Street, the site later of the City Hospital, and the bodies removed. This was known generally as the Buffalo Street Cemetery, while an- other plot on the east side of the river was called the Monroe Street Cemetery. Both quickly served their purpose, however, and, in 1836, the Council purchased a plot of fifty-three acres from Silas Andrus, which was the nucleus of the present beautiful Mount Hope Cemetery, a city of approximately 90,000 dead at this writing and covering an area of 250 acres. The first burial in this ground was that of William Carter, August 18, 1838.
Although a few Catholics were buried in Mount Hope during the early days, the church has since then provided its own ground for the interment of its dead. St. Patrick's maintained a tract on Pinnacle Hills for years and other smaller cemeteries have from time to time been used. In 1871 there was opened the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, to which all the bodies were gradually re- moved.
On the site of the Reynolds Arcade, in a frame house erected by Abelard Reynolds, was the first Rochester postoffice. One room only was needed originally. Reynolds came to the village from Massachusetts in April, 1812, and in February of the next year brought there his wife and son and sister-in-law, Huldah M. Strong. Reynolds was a saddler by trade, and here he operated a tavern as well. His position of postmaster, secured for him through the influence of Colonel Rochester, was not arduous, as the mail came through from Canandaigua by horseback but once a week. When the Arcade was erected in 1833, the postoffice was in the front of the building; later it had additional quarters in the Arcade, until the construction of the United States Government offices in 1886. Succeeding Abelard Reynolds as postmaster of
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Rochester have been the following: John B. Elwood, 1829; Henry O'Reilly, 1838; Samuel G. Andrews, 1842; Henry Campbell, 1845; Darius Perrin, 1849; Hubbard S. Allis, 1853; Nicholas E. Paine, 1858; Scott W. Updike, 1861; John W. Stebbins, 1867; Edward M. Smith, 1871; Daniel T. Hunt, 1875; Valentine Fleckenstein, 1887; Henry S. Hebard, 1890; John A. Reynolds, 1890; George H. Perkins, 1894; James S. Graham, 1898; W. Seward Whittle- sey, 1907; Joseph A. Crane, 1911; William Buckley, 1914 ; George C. Staud, 1917; John B. Mullan, acting in 1921 and regularly appointed in 1922.
The valley of the Genesee River is periodically subjected to floods, but only once in the history of Rochester has the city been seriously menaced by the rising waters. This occurred in March, 1865. The month was ushered in with an unusually heavy fall of "snow, followed by a sudden thaw. By the 15th the water in the Genesee Valley Canal and the Erie Canal was over the banks. The river topped the arches of the aqueduct and spread quickly over the business district of the city, inundating the lower floors of business houses, the streets, and completely drowning the gas works, which added darkness to the discomfort of the situation. Nightfall of the 17th found the flood at its height, and this con- tinued until late the next day, when it began to recede. The citi- zens waded ankle deep in mud on the downtown streets; the New York Central and Erie railroad bridges had gone, tracks were torn up, travel paralyzed, but, happily, no casualties were re- ported. A commission of inquiry appointed by the city govern- ment ascertained that the openings in the Erie Railroad embank- ment near Avon were too small to carry off the rising water, and a lake had formed extending from there almost to Geneseo; 1,200 feet of the embankment was washed away, thus causing the water to submerge the city below. Serious flood conditions have existed a number of times since, through the accumulation of ice in the gorges, but a repetition of the 1865 event has never been ex- perienced.
Perhaps the greatest fire that the city of Rochester ever suf- fered occurred before daylight on February 26, 1904. An electric fuse connected with the elevator of the Rochester Dry Goods Store on East Main Street blew out and threw sparks into loose draperies nearby. The fire immediately gained headway and
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assistance was summoned from Syracuse and Buffalo. The fire destroyed two small buildings to the east, then turned westward and engulfed the Cornwall Building, then the Ellwanger & Barry Building, then finally the Granite Building. The fireproof con- struction of this building effectually stopped the spread of the flames, although the interior was burned.
Rochester has been honored on scores of occasions by the visits of distinguished men, national and foreign, including presidents of the United States, nobility from overseas, military leaders, and men and women of distinction in many fields of activity. Before there was a village, voyagers and travelers of note passed here on their journey through the Seneca domain. La Salle, Louis Philippe of France, Chateaubriand, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld- Liancourt, the Duke of Montpensier, Count Beaujolais and others were here prior to 1800. In June, 1825, Lafayette visited Roch- ester. He came here from Lockport, after a visit to the Niagara region, and arrived on a canal boat. He was entertained at the Mansion House during his brief sojourn, and from here went to Canandaigua. A tablet in honor of this event was recently un- veiled upon an Exchange Street building.
On May 23, 1851, Daniel Webster made a speech from the south balcony of the Reynolds Arcade. The long hallway of the building and the encircling balcony were jammed with people. Mr. Webster arrived from Batavia and spoke at about 10 o'clock in the morning; he was entertained at dinner in Congress Hall, spoke again briefly, and departed at 2 o'clock. He had been in Rochester twice before-in 1823 and in 1843. The visit of 1851 is somewhat memorable, however, from the tradition that on this occasion he made a ridiculous speech about the Genesee Falls when somewhat muddled by liquor. In an interesting article con- tributed by Mr. Edward R. Foreman, Rochester city historian, to Volume III of the Rochester Historical Society publications, he "explodes this ancient myth."
On February 18, 1861, Abraham Lincoln passed through Rochester, and at the old New York Central station his train tarried while Lincoln addressed the crowd with a few character- istically well-chosen sentences. Although the hour was early, be- tween 7 and 8 a. m., immense crowds had assembled and many were unable to hear the speaker's voice, and hundreds failed to
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see him. A bronze tablet, on the wall of the elevated tracks at the corner of Central Avenue and Mill Street, the site of the old depot, commemorates the event. Little more than four years later, April. 27, 1865, the body of the great Emancipator was carried through Rochester on its way to Springfield.
The first movement looking to the formation of a local his- torical society occurred in 1861, when Lewis Henry Morgan, noted. author upon scientific subjects, then a member of the State As- sembly, caused to be passed by that body a bill incorporating the Rochester Historical Society. The war, however, delayed the ful- fillment of Morgan's ambition and the society was not actually organized at the time. In 1887, under the leadership of Mrs. Gilman H. Perkins, the movement was renewed. At her call, a. meeting of prominent citizens occurred December 17, 1887, when resolutions in favor of a historical society were adopted. On March 3, 1888, at a meeting in the home of Mrs. Perkins, the. society was organized and a constitution adopted. The Rochester- Historical Society was incorporated June 1, 1888. Meetings were regularly held for four years at Mrs. Perkins' residence, but there- after the increased membership required the use of public halls. The object of the society is to perpetuate the history of Rochester,. not only by gathering and preserving records, books, pictures, relics and manuscripts relating to the past, but by developing an appreciation of matters historical and encouraging a lively in- terest in the subject. From small beginnings, the society has: grown to very substantial proportions and its history has been one of remarkable accomplishment. It is now housed in the Museum Building at Edgerton Park, where it has been since 1912.
The Lewis H. Morgan Chapter of the New York State Arche- ological Association was founded in Rochester by Alvin H. Dewey, in the year 1916. It is dedicated to the interests of the subject. indicated by its title and has to its credit a long list of published articles of vast importance. The chapter has also done much to create interest in the works and researches of Lewis Henry Mor- gan, scientist, philosopher and humanist.
Masonry was the first fraternal order to establish itself in the- village of Rochester. Wells Lodge was started here in 1817, and was followed two years later by Hamilton Royal Arch Chapter. The Knight Templars came in eight years later, 1827, when Mon --
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roe Commandery was formed. In 1829 occurred the anti-Masonic period, and as a consequence each of the three Masonic bodies in the village surrendered their charters. They were renewed, how- ever, in 1846, after the unfriendly feelings had subsided. Yon- nondio Lodge No. 163, in 1850, and Genesee Falls Lodge No. 507, in 1861, came next. The year 1867 was a big year in Rochester Masonry, for during this twelve months period the following bodies were instituted: Rochester Lodge No. 660, Ionic Chapter No. 210, Cyrene Commandery No. 39, Rochester Council of Prin- cess of Jerusalem, Rochester Chapter of Rose Croix, Rochester Lodge of Perfection and Rochester Consistory. Damascus Tem- ple, A. A. O. N. M. S., was established in 1875. The first lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows established in Rochester was Genesee Lodge No. 3, in 1841, followed by (the) Toronto No. 8, in the same year. Lodges of this fraternal order are among the most numerous of any in the city at the present time. Aurora Grata Lodge No. 39 of the Knights of Pythias was organized in Rochester in 1870, and three years later Bluecher Lodge No. 93 came into existence. Rochester Lodge No. 24, B. P. O. E., was organized in 1884. Irondequoit Chapter, Daughters of the Amer- ican Revolution, was established in 1894; Sons of the American Revolution was started here the same year. There are eight posts of the Grand Army of the Republic in Rochester, the first of which, O'Rorke Post No. 1, was established in 1866. The Amer- ican Legion has thirty posts in the city, all of recent origin. The first society of the Maccabees was that of Flower City Tent No. 30, organized in 1886. Zerubbabel Lodge No. 53, Independent Order B'nai B'rith, was established in the year 1864. Of the various social clubs in the city, the oldest is the Rochester Club, which was organized in 1860. The Genesee Valley Club was formed January 2, 1885. The first country club was started in 1895, as a part of the Genesee Valley Club. One of the most popular of the earlier literary clubs was the Pundit, organized in 1854. The Fortnightly Club was a similar enterprise started the same year.
Rochester has been the home of many noted people, among whom may be mentioned Lewis Henry Morgan, Susan B. An- thony, and Frederick Douglass. Lewis Henry Morgan was the greatest writer upon ethnological subjects of his day. He was born at Aurora, New York, November 21, 1818, and died at.
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Rochester December 17, 1881. He graduated at Union College in 1840 and came to Rochester with the intention of following the law, but his intense interest in scientific subjects led him away from his original goal. In 1851 he published "The League of the Iroquois," a profound analytical study of the subject. This was followed later, after years of thought and research, by his "An- cient Society," his most notable effort along sociological lines. This work, of grave import and complexity of thought, ranks with the works of Darwin in advancing theories of social life. Mor- gan's interesting work on the beaver, which one critic described as being possible from the pen only of a beaver himself, won world-wide reputation for the author. His manuscripts are almost without number, being now in the possession of the Uni- versity of Rochester. Perhaps the greater portion of these treats of the American aborigines, in which subject he took the greatest interest. Mr. Morgan was a member of the Assembly in 1861, of the State Senate in 1875, and in 1879 was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Susan B. Anthony, noted suffragist, was born at Adams, Massachusetts, February 15, 1820, and died at Rochester March 13, 1906. She began life as a school teacher, but events occurred which caused her to take up the fight for women's rights, which she carried on, sometimes sensationally, throughout her life. The events of her career are recorded in detail in American history, but it may be included here that she probably first gained wide notoriety during the presidential election of 1872. She and a number of women registered at this time and on the 5th of Novem- ber, election day, marched to the polls and cast their votes in the Eighth Ward of Rochester. The inspectors first refused to take the ballots, but finally did, for which they later suffered a fine and a short imprisonment until pardoned by President Garfield. Miss Anthony was tried before the Supreme Court, sitting at Canan- daigua, and after the jury returned a verdict of guilty, she was fined $100, but, in accord with her defiant declaration, never paid the fine. She afterwards carried her crusade into other states and foreign countries, with varying success; but her individual service in the cause was not wasted, for it formed a considerable part of the great movement which resulted in the Nineteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
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Frederick Douglass came to Rochester to live in 1847, for here, as he said, he could find less resistance to his beliefs and more sympathy with the cause of freedom for the Negro, which he espoused. Douglass was one of the most outstanding men of the colored race in history. He was born in slavery, in Maryland, in February, 1815. He escaped when twenty-one years old and for a number of years lived in Massachusetts prior to coming to Rochester. Here he established his paper, The North Star. John Brown visited Douglass in Rochester before his raid and it is said that here he composed the constitution which he intended to use in forming the community which was his ambition. Brown en- deavored to persuade Douglass to join him in his projected scheme, but Douglass emphatically refused, and tried to convince Brown of the folly and futility of his scheme. The governor of Virginia demanded the surrender of Douglass for alleged complicity in Brown's plot, but, although innocent of actual connivance, Doug- lass believed the fair thing to do was to relieve the city of any responsibility, so he left Rochester and crossed the border into Canada, thence sailing to England. His freedom was then pur- chased by the Duchess of Sutherland and other women, after which he returned to America and worked unceasingly to promote enlistments in the Union army and in other ways aided the cause of the North. Douglass removed to Washington, D. C., in 1870, and again assumed editorial work. He held a number of im- portant government positions, including that of minister to Haiti. He died in Washington February 20, 1895, and was buried in Rochester, after lying in state in the City Hall. A monument to his memory faces the New York Central Railroad station, on St. Paul Street.
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