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 19
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Monroe County savings-James E. Booth, president ; David Hoyt, secretary ; surplus $1,413,601.15.
Mechanics' savings-Samuel Sloan, president ; John H. Rochester, secretary ; surplus $204,384.32.
East Side savings-J. B. Moseley, president ; P. B. Viele, secretary ; surplus $201,534.02.
The private bank of Amsden Bros. seems to have made no report.
Before the incorporation of this city there were several parks-or "squares," as they were all called, even those that were round, like that on the present Plymouth avenue-but as they were presented to the municipality, they shared the fate of most gifts and were not thought to be worth the expenditure of much money or care, whereby they were never anything of a credit to Rochester. It was only a few years ago that the citizens became conscious of the extreme need-
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almost the necessity, in a large sanitary view-of a park system, and even then it required all the persistence of Dr. E. M. Moore to rouse them to anything like a full sense of the situation. He was emphatic- ally the father of the present system, but his efforts would, in all likeli- hood, have been in vain, if the late George W. Elliott had not sup- plemented them by his unceasing arguments in the public press and in the common council, of which he was then a member and which was very solicitous for economy in that direction. In 1888 a law was passed creating a board of park commissioners, which was organised in May of that year, Dr. Moore being elected president and holding that office to the present time ; H. F. Huntington has always been the treasurer, John H. Rochester is now the vice president, C. C. Laney is the super- intendent and M. O. Stone is the secretary of the board. Omitting the fractions, Genesee Valley park, on the south of the city, contains three hundred and seventy-five acres; Highland park, a little northeast of that, has seventy six acres, and Seneca park, on the north of the city, has two hundred and twelve, making a total acreage of six hundred and sixty-three, not counting in the eighteen acres of small parks in the interior of the city. For all this the purchase price paid was $256,884.91, besides an amount expended for maintenance and other purposes sufficient to make the total cost of the park system $456,- 161.21 up to March I of this year. Half a million dollars is a good deal of money, but it is a small price to pay for this inestimable benefit to the lungs, the hearts and the minds of a great city.
Of the bridges now traversing the river within the city limits, the finest is that near the northern extremity, built of iron, on the site of the old Carthage bridge; its arch, spanning at a single leap the stream two hundred and twelve feet below, has a chord of four hundred and twenty-eight feet, the third largest in the world, and its three approach spans, two on the west and one on the east, make the total length of the bridge seven hundred and seventeen feet ; it cost $125,000 and was opened to the public on December 1, 1890. The other viaducts are those at Vincent place, built in 1872-73, of iron, costing $150,000, the longest in the city, being nine hundred and twenty-five feet; at Platt street, steel truss, on stone piers, cost $156,000, built in 1892; at Central avenue, of wrought iron, built in 1883, cost $48,000; at Main
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street, of cut stone, finished in 1857, cost $60,000 ; at Court street, stone arch, finished in 1893, cost $150,000 ; at Clarissa street, of riveted deck iron, built on stone piers, in 1892, cost $50,000, and at Elmwood avenue, the southern boundary line of the city, of iron, built in 1888, cost $37,000. Besides those there is the Erie canal aqueduct, built in 1839, at a cost of $600,000, on the north side of which there is a foot path, and there are also the railroad bridges of the New York Central, the Erie and the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, none of which has any path or roadway. Twenty-five bridges, eight of them of the lift variety, cross the canal.
No city of its size has better railroad facilities than Rochester. The principal road now running into the city is the New York Central, with its five lines-to Syracuse direct, the old road by way of Geneva, the Buffalo road, the Falls road and the Charlotte road-besides which the West Shore railroad is operated from the same station and the Northern Central sends trains into the city over the line from Canandaigua. Other railroads are the Erie, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg, the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg-this branch of which, built as the Rochester & Lake Ontario Belt railway, was opened in 1883-the Western New York & Pennsylvania, over which the Delaware, Lackawana & Western also runs its trains in, and the Lehigh Valley, which got into the city three years ago by means of a branch built under the name of the Rochester & Honeoye Valley railroad. Besides these there are several lines that are run only in the summer, for pleasure travel-the Bay railroad, which terminates at the Sea Breeze; the Glen Haven road, which ends at the upper part of the bay, and the Rochester & Irondequoit railway, the last named being electric and operated by the street car company, which sends its coaches down to the ferryboat at Summerville, which crosses the river to Charlotte, connecting at Ontario beach with the lines, both electric, that run from there to the city or to Manitou beach, further west on the lake shore.
As to the principal officers of the city government at this time (June, 1895), the chief executive is Merton E. Lewis, who, as president of the common council, became acting mayor when George W. Aldridge was appointed state superintendent of public works. The city treasurer is Samuel B. Williams. The executive board-which consists of Richard
Engraved byd KCampbell ATY.
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Curran, president, William W. Barnard and John U. Schroth, with Thomas J. Neville as clerk-has charge of the street department, John J. Heveron superintendent; the water works, Emil Kuichling, chief en- gineer, and the fire department, together with control over contracts for public improvements. The chief engineer of the fire department is James Malcolm, with William Boon, John A. Topham, Frank A. Jayne and Charles Little as assistants ; the present equipment consists of fourteen fire houses, eight steamers, two chemical engines, eleven two- horse hose wagons, with two extra hose carts, four hook and ladder trucks (two of which are the Hayes aerial), one protective fire patrol wagon, two supply wagons, twenty thousand feet of hose lines, with fifteen thousand feet held in reserve ; eighty horses, with ten more for special service, and one hundred and seventy-five men.
The police department consists of the police justice, Charles B. Ernst, with B. Frank Enos as police clerk ; three commissioners-Jacob A. Hoekstra, James D. Casey and the mayor ex officio-the chief of police, Joseph P. Cleary, and assistant chief, John C. Hayden, with two captains, six lieutenants, eight detectives, four sergeants, six patrol- wagon drivers and one hundred and twenty-eight patrolmen. J. Y. McClintock is the city surveyor, Adolph J. Rodenbeck the city attorney, Abram S. Mann the city auditor, Richard Gardner the overseer of the poor, George Bohrer the city sealer ; George E. Warner and John M. Murphy are the judges of the Municipal court ; Pomeroy P. Dickinson, Edward McSweeney and Adolph Spiehler are the excise commission- ers; Henry C. Munn, E. B. Burgess and E. A. Kalbfleisch are the assessors. The board of health consists of Max Brickner, Dr. Charles R. Sumner, Frank Fritzsche, Dr. Richard M. Moore, Thomas W. Fin- ucane and Dr. John W. Whitbeck, with the mayor ex officio; the clerk of the board is George Belknap, the health officer is Dr. Wallace Sibley, the registrar of vital statistics is George Messmer. The members of the two boards of civil service examiners are S. P. Moulthrop, Winslow M. Meade, Elbridge L. Adams, E. J. Burke, George B. Draper and F. S. Macomber, with William T. Plumb as secretary.
What does it cost to run a city like this ? About two million dollars a year. From the Ist of April, 1894, to the corresponding day of 1895, expenditures were as follows: For interest $105,706.83, erroneous as-
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sessments $9,241.01, police fund $161,800, contingent fund $219,- 547.90, poor fund $17,000, lamp fund $165,850, health fund $60,000, city property fund $12,200, fire department fund $250,000, highway fund $325,000, board of education fund $446,849.40, G. A. R. relief fund $9,000, for all park purposes $37.300, local assessments on city property $19,200.26, police pension fund $1,000, water used for city purposes and additional water pipe $105,070; total $1.944,769 40. The tax levý for the rest of 1895 is $1,690,000, and, as the present fiscal year is shorter than its predecessor by three months, it will be seen that there is, proportionately, an increase of taxation. The assessed valua- tion of property in the city is $105,470,250.
When the city was incorporated the length of sewerage therein was about a mile and a quarter ; four years later it had nearly trebled ; at this time it is two hundred and forty-two miles, and the total cost of all the sewers is estimated at four million dollars. Of these the longest is the east side trunk sewer, begun May 1, 1892, and completed June II, 1894; it extends for eight and a half miles and drains into the river near the foot of Norton street; there is trouble in store for the future over the question of its contamination of the river below, and the same is true, though in a less degree, with regard to the west side sewer, a much needed work which is now constructing under a commission comprised of Horace G. Pierce, George B. Swikehard and Frank S. Upton. As to our water facilities, in addition to those described in a previous chapter, a second conduit from Hemlock lake was completed last October, at a cost of $1,750,000; it can pour into the city fifteen million gallons daily, making a total capacity by that system of thirty- seven million gallons for the consumption of the inhabitants in different ways; independent of the two conduits there are about two hundred and fifty miles of water pipes in the city. A bulletin recently issued by the census bureau, based on the statistics obtained in 1890, shows that at that time Rochester was held twenty-first among the cities in point of population, twelfth in the number of its manufacturing estab- lishments, fifteenth in the amount of capital invested directly in manu- facturing, and fourteenth in the amount of wages paid in that pursuit ; its relative rank in those details is certainly no lower now than it was then. Local statistics prepared by the executive board show that there
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were on the Ist of April of this year 33,250 buildings in the city, of which 24,812 were dwelling-houses, with 1979 blocks, most of them for both commercial and habitation purposes, three hundred and forty- nine of them for manufacturing exclusively, one hundred and eleven churches and sixty-four school-houses, public, private and parochial. The report of the board of health for the past year shows that there were 1224 marriages, 2794 births and 2315 deaths. This last item is most important, as showing a death rate of less than fifteen in the thousand, which is probably lower than that of any other city in the state.
What Rochester has done for the nation has been outlined briefly in the foregoing pages ; the record of its past is not discreditable, the prospect of its future is full of bright anticipation. If there are some cities on the continent that can surpass it in the grandeur of public buildings there are none that can excel it in the sylvan beauty of its residential streets, none that can rival it in the advantages of its location and the charm of the scenery on the banks of the river which winds through its midst. Travelers who are attracted to it linger beyond their purpose, and we whose home has been always here know that there is no better place in all the world in which we live.
THE GEOLOGY OF MONROE COUNTY.
BY HERMAN LE ROY FAIRCHILD, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER.
The hard-rock geology or stratigraphy was thoroughly described by Dr. James Hall over half a century ago in "The Natural History of New York, Part IV., Geology of the Fourth District." The section of the strata beneath the city of Rochester is published in the proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science, volumes I and II.1
Except in the southern part of the county the rocks belong to the Niagara period of the Upper Silurian age, The lowest rock is the Medina sandstone, which in the northwestern part of the county is at or near the surface, and is extensively quarried at Brockport. This red Medina forms the rock bottom of the southern part, at least, of Lake Ontario and the rock bluffs at all points along the south shore. Be- neath Rochester the red Medina is over one thousand feet thick, but here and all over the county, except the northwestern portion and the lake border, it is buried under the shales and limestone of the Clinton group. The perfect section of the Clinton is finely shown in the walls of the Genesee canyon at the lower falls in Rochester. Here it rests
on the gray top of the Medina, and in ascending order consists of about twenty-four feet of the Lower Green shale, fourteen feet of Lower lime- stone, containing a bed of hematite iron ore one foot thick, twenty-four feet of Upper Green and Purple shales, and eighteen feet of Upper limestone.
The Niagara group rests upon the Clinton and consists of eighty feet
J "A Section of the Strata at Rochester, N. Y., as shown by a deep boring." By H. L. Fair- child, Proc. Roch. Acad. Science, Vol. I, pp. 182-186.
." The Geological History of Rochester, N. Y." By H. L. Fairchild, Proc. Roch, Acad. Science, Vol. II, pp. 215-223,
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of dark, gritty shales, exposed at the upper falls in Rochester, and the limestone upon which the city of Rochester is built, more than sixty feet in thickness.
The strata all have a slight inclination southward, which causes the Niagara rocks to disappear a few miles south of Rochester beneath the shales of the Salina formation, which in turn are buried, further south, under the Corniferous limestones of the Devonian age. The latter is found in Monroe county only in the south border of Rush and Mendon, producing the falls of the Honeoye.
The surface geology of the county has not been described in detail, and will only be touched upon here. During the millions of years fol- lowing the deposition of the Devonian rocks the region was probably exposed to destructive atmospheric agencies, and a great thickness of rocks has doubtless been removed from this area.1
The long era of subaerial denudation was finally changed to sub- glacial during the Glacial period. The superficial decomposed rocks were crushed and removed by the ice sheet, the old drainage channels were largely filled with debris, and the final removal of the ice left a sheet of glacial drift over the whole territory. During at least the closing part of the Glacial period Western New York was depressed far below its present level, and following and laving the retreating ice front was a huge glacial lake which buried the most of Monroe county to a depth of 300 to 400 feet.2 As the ice retreated northward so as to uncover the Mohawk valley this became a new outlet of the glacial waters and the water surface fell to the level of the Ridge road, which is simply the beach of the glacial Lake Iroquois.3 The superficial geology of the county is thus a complex result of the action of glacial ice, stream drainage of the glacier and lake action at the ice front and subsequently.
The north part of the county is a comparatively smooth plain drained directly into Lake Ontario by many small streams which have cut deep into the Iroquois lake deposits and the subjacent ice drift. The southern
1 Proc. Roch. Acad. Science, Vol. II, page 221.
2 "Glacial Lakes in Western New York," by H. L. Fairchild, Bull. Geol. Sec. America. Vol VI, 1894.
3 See numerous articles in geological journals by C. K. Gilbert, J. W. Spencer and Warren Upham.
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half of the county has a hilly topography produced by the glacier rubbing the deep subglacial drift into elongated hills, parallel with the ice movement, and known as "drumlins" or " drumlinoids." In the east side of the county, in Perinton and Penfield, these drumlinoid ridges are very pronounced. They have a north and south trend and culminate south in the Turk's Hill drumlinoid mass, the highest land in the county. Through Henrietta and Rush, in the southern part of the county, the drumlinoids have a direction some ten to fifteen degrees west of south, while along the Genesee river and in the southwest part of the county these ridges have a trend more nearly southwest." In the northwest part of the county the drumlinoid character is discernible in the broad, smooth swells with a northeast by southwest trend.
A frontal moraine, marking a pause in the recession of the ice sheet, traverses the county from Brockport to Brighton. This is not strong, but is well-defined near Rochester as an irregular ridge cut by the main line of the New York Central railroad one mile northeast of Coldwater station. Along the Rapids road, in the southwest part of the city, the moraine becomes more broken, but between the river and Brighton it forms the most conspicuous hills of the region, the famous Pinnacle hills. These are mainly sand and gravel, with some masses of till, or unassorted glacial drift, and many large boulders, and with remarkable flow structure. To glacialists they have been well known and very puzzling. They have been described as an "esker" or a deposit made by an overburdened glacial river.1 But they are undoubtedly a part of the frontal moraine, of the nature known as "kame." They consist chiefly of the materials washed out of the glacier by the drainage, and accumulated at the front of the ice wall in the deep water of the glacial Lake Warren. Two other similar kame deposits are found in the county, but not directly connected with any morainic ridge. One is the group of remarkable sand and gravel hills inclosing the Mendon ponds, the other the sand hills and plains extending from the head of Irondequoit bay past Pittsford into the northwest corner of Ontario county.
Glacial gravels are found in hundreds of localities over the county, and the lake silts are abundant, chiefly in depressions.
1 "Eskers near Rochester, N.Y." By Warren Upham. Proc, Roch. Acad. Science, Vol. II, pp. 181-200.
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Irondequoit bay represents probably a preglacial river valley modi- fied by ice erosion and then filled more or less by serving as a catch- basin during the Lake Iroquois episode. The sand hills at the head of the bay are remnants of the lake deposits, and the present conspicuous terraces, at an elevation of about 400 feet, on each side of the bay, represent a flood plain.
The lower part of the Genesee river channel, from the rapids above Rochester to the lake, is certainly post-glacial. It has here no valley proper, and near its mouth streams flow by its side directly into the lake. Above the city, or in the south part of the county, and as far as Mt. Morris, the river occupies more of a depression, of possibly pre- glacial origin.
The length of time since the ice retreat has been estimated by several writers at about ten thousand years. The Ridge road represents a pause in the lowering glacial waters some centuries subsequent to the melting away of the ice.
THE BENCH AND BAR.
BY L. C. ALDRICH.
EDITED AND REVISED BY HON. THOMAS RAINES.
In the early history of the colony the governor was in effect the maker, interpreter and enforcer of the laws. He was the chief judge of the court of final resort, while his councillors were generally his obedient followers. The execution of the English and colonial statutes rested with him, as did also the exercise of royal authority in the province ; and it was not until the adoption of the first constitution, in 1777, that he ceased to contend for these prerogatives and to act as though the only functions of the court were to do his bidding as servants and helpers, while the legislature should adopt only such laws as the executive should suggest and approve. By the first constitution the governor was entirely stripped of the judicial power which he possessed under the colonial rule, and that power was vested in the lieutenant- governor and senate, also in the chancellor and justices of the Supreme court; the former to be elected by the people, and the latter to be ap- pointed by the council. This was the first radical separation of the judicial and legislative powers, and the advancement of the judiciary to the position of a co-ordinate department of government, subject only to the limitations consequent upon the appointment of its members by the council. The restriction, however, was soon felt to be improper, though it was not until the adoption of the constitution of 1846 that the last connection between the purely political and judicial parts of the state government was abolished, and with it disappeared the last re- maining relic of the colonial period. From this time the judiciary be- came more directly representative of the people. The development of
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the idea of responsibility of the courts to the people, from the time when all its members were at the beck and nod of an irresponsible master, to the time when all judges (even of the court of last resort) are voted for directly by the people, has been indeed remarkable.
Let us look briefly at the present arrangement and powers of the courts of the state, and then at the elements from which they have grown. The whole scheme embraces the idea of first a determination of the facts and the law by a trial court, then a review by a higher tribunal of the facts and law, and ultimately of the law by a court of last resort. To accomplish the purposes of this scheme there has been devised and established, first, the present court of Appeals, the ultimate tribunal of the state, perfected in its present form by the convention of 1867 and 1868, and taking the place of the old court for the trial of impeachments and correction of errors. The court of Appeals as first organised under the constitution of 1846 was composed of eight judges, four of whom were elected by the people, and the remainder chosen from the justices of the Supreme court having the shortest time to serve. As reorganised in 1869, and now existing, the court consists of a chief judge and six associate judges, who hold office for the term of fourteen years.
This court is continually in session at the capitol in Albany, except as it takes a recess on its own motion. It has full power to review the decisions of inferior courts when properly before it. Five judges constitute a quorum, and four must concur to render judgment. If four do not agree, the case must be reargued; but not more than two rehearings can be had, and if then four judges do not agree the judgment of the court below stands affirmed. The legislature has provided how and when decisions of inferior tribunals may be reviewed, and may in its discretion alter or amend the same. Under the revised constitution of 1894, the legislature is authorised to further restrict the jurisdiction of this court, and the right of appeal thereto. By the same revision it has been specially provided that from and after the 3 Ist day of December, 1895, the jurisdiction of the court of Appeals, except when the judgment is of death, shall be limited to questions of law, and no unanimous decision of the appellate division of the Supreme court, unless in certain specified cases, shall be reviewable in the court of Appeals.
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Upon the reorganisation of this court in 1869, its work was far in arrears, and the law commonly known as the "judiciary act" provided for a commission of Appeals to aid the court of Appeals; and still later there was organised a second division of the court of Appeals to assist in the disposition of business of the general court. The limita- tions and restrictions placed upon appeals to this court by the con- stitution of 1894 are in part designed to relieve it from future similar embarrassments.
Second in rank and jurisdiction to the court of Appeals stands the Supreme court, which is made up of many and widely different ele- ments. It was created by act of representative assembly in 1691, was to be established in the city of New York, and was composed of a chief justice and four assistant justices to be appointed by the gov- ernor, and was empowered to try all issues, civil and criminal, or mixed, to the same extent as the English courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer (except in the exercise of equity powers), and should have power to establish rules and ordinances and to regulate practice of the court. It had jurisdiction in actions involving one hundred dollars and over, and to revise and correct the decisions of inferior courts. An appeal lay from it to the governor and council. The judges made an annual circuit of the state, under a commission issued by the governor, and giving them nisi prius, oyer and terminer and jail delivery powers. By act of 1691 the court of Oyer and Ter- miner was abolished, but in conformity to the courts of Westminster its name was retained to designate the criminal term of the Supreme court. At first the judges of the Supreme court were appointed by the governor and held office during his pleasure. Under the first constitution the court was reorganised, the judges being then named by the council of appointment, and all proceedings were directed to be entitled in the the name of the people.
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