USA > New York > Monroe County > Landmarks of Monroe County, New York : containing followed by brief historical sketches of the towns of the county with biography and family history > Part 14
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Not as a rival of the St. Paul street theater was Corinthian hall built
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and opened on June 28, 1849, for it was intended from the beginning as a concert and lecture hall, and its walls re echoed with the divine notes of Jenny Lind, the sweet strains of Ole Bull's violin, the voices of Patti and Parepa, the eloquence of Phillips, Seward and Everett and the music of a line of artists too long to name even the most dis- tinguished. The marvelous acoustic properties of its auditorium gave it a pre-eminence that feared no rivalry, so that it suffered nothing from the competition of Washington hall, which was erected about thirty years ago for a similar purpose. But the popular taste underwent a total change and the former blind hostility to dramatic representa tions on the part of one generation gave place to an equally indis- criminate demand for them by another, so Corinthian hall was remod- eled in 1879, being turned into a theater, with galleries added to it, and its name was altered to the Academy of Music.
The school of Miss Strong, in 1813, antedating the village itself, was so satisfactory to the settlers here that it was soon determined to have a more formal academy than the little room over Jehiel Barnard's tailor shop on the corner of State and Main streets, and during the autumn of that very year a school district was established and a school-house begun, on South Fitzhugh street, where the Free Academy now stands. The site was given by Rochester, Fitzhugh and Carroll, and the cost of the original building, which was one story in height, about eighteen feet wide by twenty- four long, was borne, probably, by the people here, as the school fund of the state then yielded about $25,000 a year, and our small proportion of that would not have paid for the house and for the instruction given, even in those days of small salaries. Aaron Skinner was the first teacher, and he may have been the first male in- structor in Rochester, though that honor was claimed, in late years, by Moses King, who died in 1881. It is exceedingly difficult to determine whether that " district school number one " should be classed as a pub- lic or a private school, for it partook of both characteristics and the common school system of the state was not established till long after- ward. In 1816 another school of the same nature was opened on the corner of Mill and Platt streets, and a few years later the old stone school house on Brown square was built, both institutions being sup- ported largely by local appropriations. Probably the same was true of
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a school on the corner of Clinton and Mortimer streets, which for many years, beginning with 1818, was taught by Lyman Cobb, the author of the spelling book and the dictionary that were the standard works in those departments of knowledge till they were superseded by the productions of Noah Webster.
About 1820 two schools were started that were wholly private enter- prises-a young ladies' academy on Mill street, where the Brackett House now stands, which was taught very successfully by Miss Maria Allyn, and an English and Latin school conducted by Fairchild and Filer near St. Luke's church. From that time the seats of juvenile learning multiplied so rapidly as to preclude the individual mention here of any except the very prominent ones. On the east side of the river a boys' school was opened by Mr. Shafer and another by Richard Dunning ; they were well attended, but both soon yielded to the pre- eminence of the Rochester High school. This was incorporated in 1827, and the building, between Lancaster and Chestnut streets, where the Unitarian church now stands, was erected in part from the proceeds of a tax of $4,000 that was authorised to be levied. In spite of this aid the school grew more in debt every year till 1835, when, by a desperate effort of the citizens, it was put on its feet again, and from that time till its destruction by fire in 1852 it occupied the most prom - inent place among the scholastic institutions of Rochester. Thousands of pupils received their education there, the number in a single year being sometimes about six hundred, and its influence was felt for a generation after it had passed away. During its lifetime it had many teachers of learning and ability, but foremost among them was Dr. Chester Dewey, a man of great erudition and kindness of heart, the typical educator of this city, who had been a professor in Williams college for some years before he came here and who was the principal of the school for fourteen years prior to 1850, when he became pro- fessor of natural sciences in the University of Rochester, retiring there- from in 1861 and dying six years later, at the age of eighty three. Associated with him for a long time, as principal of the girls' depart- ment, was Miss Mary B. Allen, who afterward taught a private school of her own till 1869; at a late period of her life she became Mrs. Moses King and died two years ago at an advanced age.
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Miss Sarah T. Seward, who afterward became the wife of General Gould, came here from Lebanon Springs in 1833 and immediately opened a school for young ladies, first on the corner of Main and Eliza- beth streets, then on the present site of the First Presbyterian church; her patronage increased so rapidly that in 1835 she erected on Alexan- der street a house large for those days, sixty-four feet front and situated in the midst of fine grounds four or five acres in extent ; the education there given was of a high character and very complete, the class- room equipments costing more than $12,000; on the marriage of Miss Sew- ard it passed into the hands of her brother, Jason W. Seward, who con- ducted it till 1848 ; the site is now occupied by the capacious struct- ures of the Homoeopathic hospital. Quite an educational revival took place in 1835, for, besides the steps forward that have just been men . tioned, the Rochester female academy, on South Fitzhugh street, was begun, stock to the amount of $4,000 being taken by sixty-seven per- sons; the first board of trustees was made up of Jonathan Child, Moses Chapin, E. F. Smith, J. K. Livingston and William P. Stanton; Miss Julia H. Jones was by them appointed the principal, with Miss Ara- minta Doolittle (who afterward succeeded her in charge of the school) as her first assistant, and under their auspices the seminary was opened in May, 1836 ; Mrs. Curtis followed Miss Doolittle in 1855 and three years later the seminary passed under the management of the Rev. James Nichols, after whose death, in 1864, his widow, Mrs. Sarah J. Nichols, became the sole possessor of the property and the manager of the school ; it is still conducted by members of that family, having out- lived all its early compeers and retaining the reputation it has possessed for more than half a century.
In that same year of 1835 a Catholic school for the instruction of little children was started in the basement of St. Patrick's church, the first teacher being Michael Hughes, and it continued till it was succeeded by the parochial school established in 1858 on the corner of Frank and Brown streets and now conducted by the order of Christian Brothers. Other Catholic schools were those of the Academy of the Sacred Heart, founded by the ladies of that order in 1855, which was at first located on South St. Paul street and eight years later removed to its present commodious quarters on Prince street ; the academy of the Sisters of
Maurice Lyderz
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Mercy, on South street, near St. Mary's church, opened in 1857, and the large academy of Nazareth convent on the corner of Jay and Frank streets, established in 1871 ; all of these institutions are still in success- ful operation. Of the many private schools that were started after 1840 and that endured for several years there may be mentioned the Tracy female seminary, on Alexander street ; Satterlee's collegiate in- stitute, on Oregon street; the schools of Mrs. Isabella J. Porter, Miss Mary Jane and Miss Almira Porter, first in the basement of the Unita- rian church and afterward on South Washington street ; Mrs. Green- ough's seminary, first on North street and then on Plymouth avenue ; De Graff's institute for boys, Eastman's commercial college, Mrs. Cur- tis's Livingston park seminary, Miss Bliss's on Spring street and Miss Cruttenden's on Gibbs street, some of which are still in existence, though most of them have passed away, to give place to their prosper- ous successors of the present time.
Since 1841 the common school system of the state has had full sway in this city, though even before that there were public schools here, in attendance upon which there were 1,050 pupils out of a total of 4,343, when the school census was taken in January of that year. In June the first board of education was organised, with Levi A. Ward as presi- dent, and under the new regime the number of public scholars in- creased so rapidly that the annual report in June, 1843, shows that there were then fifteen districts, with eight commodious brick school- houses, an average attendance of 2,500 and an annual expenditure of $19,000. Although these schools were public they were not free till the passage of the act of March 26, 1849, and even after that there was a frantic endeavor to take away that character from them, which was defeated only by the efforts of the free school convention held at Syra- cuse. After the burning of the old High school on Lancaster street there was nothing to take its place; arguments were continually ad- vanced to crown the work of the public school system in this city by the inauguration of such an institution in direct connection therewith ; these appeals were at last successful and school-house number one, on South Fitzhugh street, was opened in that capacity on November I, 18571 (the school being incorporated as the Rochester Free Academy
' For twenty years after that there was no school number one, until in 1877, the Industrial school, a strictly charitable affair, on Exchange street, was taken into the common school system 18
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in 1862), C. R. Pomeroy being the first principal, followed by Edward Webster in 1859, he by Nehemiah W. Benedict in 1865, he by Zachary P. Taylor in 1883 and he by John G. Allen, the present incumbent, in 1886. Of the crowd of applicants at the beginning, only one hundred and sixty-five were admitted, and from that time there were so many continually pressing for admission that a new building was erected on the old site and completed in March, 1873, at a cost, including the ad- ditional land purchased, of $150,000. The structure is ornate, rather than ornamental, but its serves its purpose, is well ventilated and ac- commodates, without crowding, the attendance of over four hundred pupils, besides furnishing room for the Central library and for various offices. The instruction is very thorough and of a high grade, the term being four years in the classical, English and scientific courses, one year in the business course.
For the burial of their dead the early settlers used a half acre on the corner of Plymouth avenue and Spring street, which was formally deeded to the village corporation by Rochester, Fitzhugh and Carroll, being a free gift, in June, 1821, but in September of that year the authorities exchanged it on even terms for three and a half acres on West Main street, where the City hospital now stands, and the bodies were removed thither. On the east side of the river the first land used was on East avenue, near Gibbs street, but that was soon abandoned for a position further south, the deed to which was given in 1827, though interments were made there before that. In these two resting-places- one called the Buffalo street burying-ground and the other the Monroe street burying-ground-all bodies were laid till after the village had be- come a city. Perhaps the cholera of 1832, with its widespread mortality, demonstrated the necessity of further expansion ; at any rate, soon after that the matter was agitated and public meetings were held, but no of- ficial action was taken till August, 1836, when the mayor, at the instance of the common council, appointed Aldermen Scoville, Woodbury and Whitney a committee to inquire into the expediency of buying land for a burying-ground, They followed the lead of a citizens' committee,
in order that the salaries of some of the teachers and a few other expenses might be paid by the board of education; it then became known officially as number one, though it still retains its origi- nal title,
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selected several months before, and recommended the purchase of Silas Andrus's lot, comprising the first fifty-three acres of what is now Mt. Hope cemetery. The recommendation was approved, the land was bought and paid for by the issue of city bonds to the amount of $8,000.
No other selection equally advantageous, in point of beauty of scen- ery and diversity of landscape, could possibly have been found in Monroe county, and it is doubtful if there is in the whole country another spot as well adapted by nature to this purpose. The grounds were laid out in accordance, mainly, with plans prepared by Silas Cornell, the city surveyor, who, fortunately for posterity, made little alteration in the various elevations but left the undulations as they were, cutting a few winding roads among the hills and felling the forest trees only as they interfered with the arrangement of lots. More land was purchased in subsequent years-the largest amount in 1865, when seventy-eight acres were added-so that the cemetery contains now about one hun- dred and eighty-eight acres. Much of its completeness, in which the natural beauties are preserved but the roughness of its early period has given place to tasteful care, was owing to the intelligent skill of George D. Stillson, who was its superintendent for sixteen years before 1881; he was succeeded by his son, George T. Stillson, and he by David Z. Morris, who now holds the place. The first interment was on the 18th of August, 1838, and on the Ist of June, 1894, the fifty thousandth burial was made there.
The Catholics preferring to bury their dead in ground consecrated by their own church, land on the Pinnacle hills, southeast of the city line, was bought in 1838 by the trustees of St. Patrick's church, and the cemetery was established there that was always known as the Pinnacle burying-ground, in which the English-speaking Catholics of the city were buried till 1871, since when there have been very few interments there and most of the hill has been razed, its light, sandy soil making it desirable for building purposes. About 1840 the German Catholics here opened St. Joseph's cemetery, on Lyell avenue, where at first all the dead of that nationality were buried, but seven years later Sts. Peter and Paul's congregation established one for themselves on Maple street (which was closed by the municipal authorities in 1877), and St. Joseph's was moved to the east side of the river. The cemetery of St. Boniface,
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on South Clinton street, opened in 1866 for the use of that congregation, is still used, but to a very limited extent, and most of the bodies formerly resting in all these Catholic cemeteries have been removed to that of the Holy Sepulcher, on Lake avenue, north of the city line and in the town of Greece. This comprises about one hundred and forty acres, most of it purchased in 1871, the last thirty acres six years later. The location is a beautiful one, the greater part of the grounds lying between the road and the river bank, though a small portion is on the west side of the avenue; its distance from the city relieves it from the criticism to which Mt. Hope is sometimes subjected, of encroaching too much upon the environment of the living. In its brief existence, thus far, the Holy Sepulcher has been decorated by many fine monuments, and it will doubtless remain for many generations the principal Catholic burying- ground of Rochester.
Just north of it is the Riverside cemetery, begun only three years ago by a company incorporated at that time, which purchased one hundred acres of land and laid them out with great expense and care, erecting a peculiarly tasteful office building at the entrance ; many of the lots have been sold and there have been a few interments there. At the opposite extremity of the city, far out on Genesee street, is the little Rapids cemetery, of two and a half acres, which is said to have been started in 1812, though, if so, it must have been for the accommodation of the scattered residents of Chili or Scottsville; it is still in use, and occasionally an old citizen is laid to rest within its narrow bounds.
Steam as a motive power on land was first employed in this country on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad in the beginning of 1831, and its first application on any road proceeding from Rochester was on the 4th of April, 1837, when a mixed train of freight and passenger cars, in charge of L. B. Van Dyke as conductor, was run out on the Tonawanda rail- road. This road was chartered in 1832 for fifty years, with a capital of $500,000; Daniel Evans being the president, Jonathan Child vice-presi- dent, A. M. Schermerhorn secretary, Frederick Whittlesey treasurer. Elisha Johnson surveyed the route and built the road, completing it to South Byron in 1834, to Batavia in 1836 and to Attica, forty-three miles in all, in 1842. Its terminus in this city was on the western cor- ner of Main and Elizabeth streets. The first regular passenger train
Surge g. Oake
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left for Batavia on May 3, and on the IIth of that month there was a great celebration here over the event. In 1838 ground was broken for the Auburn & Rochester railroad, but the line was not finished till three years later, the cost of construction being $1,012,783, of which more than half was met by capital stock taken by subscription in several places, Rochester being down for $58,000, Canandaigua for $141,700, Geneva for $168,500, and so on ; at a meeting of stockholders, held at Geneva, Henry D. Gibson of Canandaigua was elected president, with James Seymour of this city as vice-president ; the first train from Ro- chester eastward ran to Canandaigua on September 10, 1840, the con- ductor being William Failing ; the road was finished to Auburn in September, 1841, and a train ran through to Albany in October of that year, the eastern connections having been laid before that.
In 1850 the Rochester and Tonawanda railroad was consolidated with the Attica & Buffalo, which had been in operation for some years, Joseph Field of this city becoming president of the new corporation, but for some reason no through train ran from here to Buffalo till 1852, when the straight line from Batavia to that place was laid. In 1850, also, the little road from Lockport to Niagara Falls was purchased by a syndicate of capitalists and extended to this city, and in the same year work was begun on the direct road from here to Syracuse ; the Ro- chester & Charlotte was built in the latter part of 1852. By the con- solidation of all the roads named, together with others, in the eastern part of the state, the New York Central railroad company came into existence on May 17, 1853, with a capital stock of $23,085,600 and as- sumed debts to the amount of $1,947,815.72. As the tracks of this railroad crossed many of the streets of the city, numerous accidents, some of them fatal, were caused. besides an incalculable amount of in- convenience ; at last the company yielded to the just demands of the citizens, and the tracks were raised, ground being broken therefor in March, 1882, and the work finished in the summer of 1883, at a cost of $925,301.95, including $150,000 for the construction of the present train house extending from St. Paul to Clinton street, built by George H. Thompson ; it took the place of the old one, built by C. A. Jones in 1851, on land now devoted to Central avenue, between Mill street and the river.
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On observing the operation of these various roads, a desire, not felt before, was stimulated for more rapid communication with the southern part of the state, and after many attempts a company was formed with $800,000 capital and directors chosen equally from up the valley and from this city, with James Wadsworth as president and Freeman Clarke secretary and treasurer, which began the construction of a road from here in September, 1852, and opened it to Avon in 1854 ; it was intended at first that it should go further south, but it never did, and a little later it was leased for ninety-nine years by the New York, Lake Erie & Western. For some years after the change it continued to be called by its original name of the Genesee Valley railroad, but it is now uni- versally known as the Rochester division of the Erie road. In 1869 the Rochester & State Line railroad company was formed, work was begun two years later, and in 1878 the road was completed to Sala- manca, its original terminus; a year later a majority of the stock was owned by William H. Vanderbilt and it was expected that the road would become a branch of the New York Central, but it was not profitable enough for that and although it was successful in a suit brought by the city of Rochester to recover $600,000 which had been advanced toward its construction, it was unable to pay the interest on its first mortgage bonds and was sold out in January, 1880, to New York parties, by whom its name was changed to the Rochester & Pitts- burg (the word Buffalo being prefixed afterward) and the line extended to Punxsutawney, in Pennsylvania. The Genesee Valley Canal rail- road, laid through the bed of the abandoned canal from here to Olean, was begun in 1881 and opened for traffic in 1883, doing for the towns on the west side of the river what our division of the Erie does for those on the east; it has had a fair measure of prosperity and makes good connection with the Delaware & Lackawanna, thus affording an easy means of reaching the eastern part of Pennsylvania ; soon after its opening it passed under the control of the Buffalo, New York & Phila- delphia company, the name of which was afterward changed to the Western New York & Pennsylvania, and this branch is now known as the Rochester division of that road. Other railways now running into the city will be mentioned elsewhere.
Antecedent by four years to the steam railroads was another concern,
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of a similar nature, which was really the predecessor of our present- day street-car system, though there was a long interval between the first essay and the second. In 1825 a small company with a capital of $30,000 was organised by Elisha Johnson, Josiah Bissell, Everard Peck and others, but it was six years before they could get the necessary act from the legislature empowering them to construct a railroad with a single or double line of track, connecting the head of ship navigation on the Genesee with the Erie canal in this city ; Elisha Johnson began building the road in 1831 and finished it in a little over a year, so that it was ready for use in January, 1833; the line began at the south end of Water street, touching the aqueduct, then, crossing Main street, it continued north along the bank of the river, with a total descent of two hundred and fifty four feet, till it reached Carthage, connecting directly with the gravity railroad mentioned in a preceding chapter ; the coaches in use were open at the sides and were operated by two horses driven tandem, the driver being seated on the top of the car ; the road was operated till 1843, when it was abandoned. There were no more horse railroads here for just twenty years, the first new line of that character being opened in July, 1863, on the Mt. Hope avenue route, and it is a little singular that that should have been the line to be taken up a few years later, from the end of South St. Paul to Clarissa street, and discontinued to the present time ; tracks were laid gradually in the other principal streets till the old company sold out to the present corporation, which changed the motive power from equine to electrical.
Rapidity in travel called for still greater celerity in verbal transfer- ence, and in this field Rochester is entitled to lasting remembrance. Soon after the evolution of the Morse system of telegraphy in 1844 Henry O'Reilly, of this city, projected, organised and constructed the longest range of connected lines in the world, extending from the eastern seaboard to the far South, and called the "Atlantic, Lake and Mississippi range," though commonly known as the " O'Reilly lines." These were at first individual but were afterward consolidated and be- came the nucleus of the Western Union telegraph company, whose arms embrace the continent. None of those lines, however, ran through this city, for the first office here was that of the New York, Albany &
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