USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Rochester and Monroe County: A history and guide > Part 15
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The effects of standing glacial waters are still visible in the famous Ridge Road, which runs through the northern part of the county. This road follows the shore line of the last of a series of temporary glacial lakes known as Lake Iroquois.
The Genesee River, cutting through the center of the city of Rochester, is the outstanding physical and scenic feature of the county. It has excavated in Silurian strata a trench which rivals the gorge below Niagara Falls.
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The Gorge of the Genesee above the Highbanks
The Pinnacle Range is a glacial frontal moraine of sand and gravel in the southeastern corner of Rochester. Its western extremity overlooks the clay-covered bottom of the former glacial Lake Dana. So unconsolidated are these 258
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glacial deposits that many of the buildings constructed over them rest on pile foundations.
GEOLOGY
The rocks beneath the county are a series of Silurian lime- stone, shale, and sandstone, which were laid as sediments on ocean bottoms many millions of years ago. Compacted under their own weight and the weight of now-gone over- lying and younger sediments, these deposits became solid rock. The strata, in orderly vertical succession, are inclined slightly to the south. Thus the younger and relatively later beds are found away from the lake.
After the formation of these rocks and a great thickness of younger ones deposited above them, an uplift occurred. Exposed to the weathering and erosion of the atmosphere and running water, the younger strata were washed away. After long-continued erosion, the major and basic features of the country's topography were evolved.
The ice age or Pleistocene Period, a comparatively recent geological epoch, covered this section with a great thick- ness of ice. Frozen into the ice, pushed ahead of the ice, and carried by waters running out of the ice where it had melted, were large amounts of rocky debris-sand, gravel, clay, cobblestones. This debris was dumped when the ice sheet finally melted away and became superimposed on the bed- rock topography as low hills and ridges. The cobblestones were used by the pioneers to build their homes.
The present course of the Genesee River, Irondequoit Bay, which occupies the pre-glacial river valley, and Lake Ontario have all evolved since the northward recession of the ice sheet.
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PALEONTOLOGY
Not only do the position and mineral composition of a rock stratum tell stories of geologic evolution and history, but its layers also contain clues in the form of petrified re- mains of ancient life. More than 200 species of fossilized marine animals have been found in the Rochester shale alone. The Guelph dolomite (magnesium calcium carbon- ate rock named for Guelph, Canada) has a large fossil fauna, the outstanding element of which is a primitive sea urchin. The Medina sandstone is known for the worm burrows which it exhibits. The Bertie waterlime (natural cement rock) is noted for its exceptionally well-preserved speci- mens of graptolites and eurypterids (extinct cousin of the modern lobster and scorpion).
Strata which bear fossils and are older than the Silurian Period lie deeply buried in Monroe County; younger rocks, which once covered this section, have been removed by later erosion; hence only fossils of Silurian age are found in great numbers. On the southern fringe of the county, where the Finger Lakes hills begin, the strata of the next younger geologic period, the Devonian, crop out and con- tinue as the surface formations into Pennsylvania.
After the ice age, land animals rather than marine species died and left their remains for man to find. Chief among these are the mammoths and mastodons, extinct relatives of the modern African and Asiatic elephants. The bones of a peccary, which looked much like the modern razorback hog, were discovered at Pittsford. Mammoth and mastodon remains, found at Pittsford, in Rochester, and along the banks of Irondequoit Creek, were preserved in swamp de- posits of the ice age, indicating that the huge, lumbering beasts had been unable to extricate themselves.
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FLORA
The once extensive forests of Monroe have dwindled to farm wood lots scattered throughout the country. Carefully conserved by the farmers and harvested for fuel and timber, they form an impressive resource.
The soil of the county will produce all flowers adaptable to the climate. Most of the native wild flowers can be found in Mendon Ponds County Park, where an ancient peat bed has been converted into a botanical garden. In the marsh- lands bordering Deep Pond, wild iris wave their blue flags. Here also lurk the ferocious insect eaters, the pitcher plant, the Venus' flytrap, the sundew, and the bladderwort. The nun-like blind gentian grows in seclusion, its perpetually closed buds refusing to look upon the world. In May dog- wood stars the woods with white blossoms and in winter spreads a banquet table for the birds who relish its white berries.
Many kinds of orchids grow wild, particularly in Bergen Swamp; 23 varieties are extremely rare. The woods are haunted by the Indian pipe, a ghostly plant hidden away under dead leaves. A few of the native wild flowers bear sinister names, such as snake-root and blood-root. The devil's paint brush, cursed by farmers because it renders acres of their farm lands useless, daubs the hillsides with its orange-colored bloom to please the eyes of those who do not realize its economic menace. Another weed thrives in spite of being afflicted with the horrendous name of helle- bore. Other plants, more happily named, are the lady slippers, maidenhair fern, Dutchmen's breeches, and Jack- in-the-pulpit.
The pioneer women, wise in herb lore, searched the woods and clearings for the medicinal plants which still grow in the Genesee country. In preparation for the long winter
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siege, they suspended from the cabin rafters bunches of boneset, elecampagne, gold seal, burdock, bladderwort, wintergreen, elder flowers, thoroughwort, blackberry roots, sheep sorrel, bark of moosewood, slippery elm, and many others then regarded as cure-alls. They supplemented their food supply with many edible plants-"green sass"-which still flourish but in this prosperous age are little used: dan- delions, cowslips, milkweed sprouts, sheep sorrel, plantain. Butternuts, hickory nuts, and sweet acorns were hoarded to serve as delicacies on winter evenings. Caraway seeds were prized for seasoning; oak galls, hickory bark, and green butternut hulls were saved to make dye. Mushrooms, strawberries, raspberries, huckleberries, and blueberries added variety to the summer diet then as they do now.
FAUNA
In the days of the first settlers in Monroe County, bears, wolves, wildcats, deer, and poisonous snakes were common native animals. Certain game birds, notably the wild turkey, were hunted for food. The predatory animals were slaughtered and most of the venomous snakes were exter- minated under the stimulus of bounties. The small harmless animals which have continued to inhabit the county were forced to move from forests to wood lots; but those which preferred the swamps are still found there. The mink, musk- rat, weasel, fox, raccoon, and skunk are still valued for their furs. The bigger animals are all gone, but, partly to take their places, alien game birds have been introduced, have taken hold, and are hunted annually during the legal season. The place of the wild turkey has been taken by the introduced pheasant, a native of the Orient. Probably sev- eral other bird species, once prevalent in the county, have become locally extinct. Most of the songbirds have adapted themselves to the growth of Rochester and the dwindling of the woods and must now rejoice that sanctuaries are be-
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ing created for them. The Audubon Nature Club has record- ed more than 250 different species of birds seen in Monroe County by its members.
Although the county is not famed for its fishing, some of its streams abound with trout put out by local hatcheries. There is hardly a little pond without its sunfish; hardly a stretch of slow water without its sucker. Out in Lake Ontario big fish abound, but the sturgeon of the last century are about gone.
MINERALS
Monroe County has few commercially profitable miner- als. Among these are dolomite, gypsum, sand, gravel, and crushed stone. Of these, dolomite is the most important. A stratum of this road-surfacing rock, approximately 3,000 feet wide, runs through the townships of Gates, Penfield, and Wheatland. Gypsum (calcium sulphate) lies in pocket deposits throughout the dolomite strata. Before commer- cial fertilizers were obtainable, ground gypsum was used to sweeten the virgin soil, making possible the bumper crops of Genesee wheat which for many years made Roch- ester a milling center.
Other latent mineral resources of the county not now found practicable for extensive commercial development include hundreds of peat beds, most of which are too small to warrant operation; small veins of iron ore, one of the largest being a vein a foot thick in the bank of the Genesee in Maplewood Park; salt springs in Irondequoit, Greece, and Hamlin, from some of which the pioneers obtained salt; pockets of natural gas which, when drilled, revealed small amounts; Medina sandstone along Irondequoit Creek and in the Genesee River gorge, quarrying of which is now aban- doned because of the inferior quality of the product; Niagara limestone in the northeastern and western parts of
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Rochester; and numerous beds of clay from which bricks of superior quality were burned in local kilns and used in the construction of many of the city's older residences. These mineral resources played an important part in the early development of local industry.
AGRICULTURE
The 5,084 farms of the county, 80 percent of which are owner-operated, total 337,092 acres, with a value of $37,- 616,194. The Federal farm census of 1934 reported total crop failures on only 7,450 acres.
The lake-tempered climate, the good seasonal distribu- tion of rainfall, the relative fertility of soil, and the prepon- derance of tillable lands favor a diversity of crops, of which fruits are the most important. In 1929 the county produced 1,245,009 bushels of apples and 116,291 bushels of peaches, an output which cannot be duplicated until new orchards have replaced those destroyed during the severe winter of 1933. Crops of cherries, pears, and plums, though smaller in volume, are also of economic importance.
Increased wheat raising, necessitated by devastation of the fruit orchards, now places Monroe first among the counties of the state in the production of wheat. Potatoes, Monroe's second most valuable tillage crop, yield, in an average season, more than 112 million bushels. In 1929 cabbages valued at $448,079 and tomatoes valued at $352,029 were produced in the county.
Because of their proximity to Rochester markets and railroad transportation, the rich muck lands of the county are devoted to truck gardening, which forms a profitable industry in the towns of Greece and Gates and in the area immediately north of Rochester. There are 75 acres of green- houses throughout the county, most of them in the close
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vicinity of Rochester. The nurseries, another valuable branch of Monroe's agriculture, ship stock and seeds to all parts of the world.
CONSERVATION
The Monroe County Regional Planning Board does much to foster the conservation of natural resources. The major objective has been the reduction of soil erosion, and, al- though the board lacks powers of enforcement, the farmers and "landed gentry" have been quick to carry out its recommendations.
The board has made a survey of the watershed of Ironde- quoit Creek to ascertain the degree of erosion and to devise means for its prevention. The published report indicates where trees and other vegetation should be planted. Carry- ing out the recommendation of the board, the State Con- servation Commission will upon application, furnish to farmers trees to be planted by the farmers themselves. In the Irondequoit watershed, 340,000 trees had been planted by October 1, 1936, and 800,000 more ordered for planting. Nursery stock for this form of reforestation is also grown from seed in the county parks.
Since 1930 the Monroe County Farm Bureau has con- ducted woodlot demonstrations under an extension course of the Forestry Department of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. The bureau has made soil tests throughout the county to determine where alfalfa might profitably be planted and recommends the planting of clover where the soil is insufficiently rich in lime to grow alfalfa.
These efforts of the Regional Planning Board and the Farm Bureau, with the cooperation of farmers, have in the last 10 years lessened soil erosion.
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Wildlife conservation is effected to some extent by the state game laws.
Bird sancturaries have been established in the Monroe County parks, in which birds are protected and fed. Mi- gratory birds are given special attention, and year-around residents are guarded from winter starvation.
The most important work in the conservation of wildlife is carried on at Mendon Ponds County Park. The breeding of waterfowl, quail, and pheasant is the principal activity. Two 10-acre fields, enclosed by a 6-foot dog-proof and par- tially vermin-proof fence, are supplied with a modern in- cubator house, a feed storehouse, and seven brooder houses, all with electrical equipment. Sixty-five large moveable holding pens are provided for adult birds. A total of 184 quail were raised to maturity in 1935 and about 100 of them were liberated. A new woodland breeding area, enclosed by a 4-foot wire fence, was completed in 1935; aquatic food plants were introduced in the ponds; and the breeding of black and mallard ducks was begun.
The Planning Board is sponsoring (1937) a study of stream pollution and preventive methods to save fish. Meanwhile, the state annually stocks county streams with thousands of bass, bullheads, perch, pickerel, and trout. The state fish hatchery at Powder Mills Park supplies the fingerlings.
INDIANS AND ARCHEOLOGY
Before the advent of the white man, Monroe County was the stamping ground of the Seneca Indians. By far the most powerful tribe of the League of the Iroquois, the Senecas, from their stronghold in the Genesee Valley, controlled the important routes to the west and were known as "Keepers of the Western Door."
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Before the Senecas came to guard the fords of the Genesee, Algonkian Indians, as far back as archeologists can trace, pursued a peaceful community life in small villages with few fortifications or stockades. The remains of a few forts along the Ridge Road do more to establish the antiquity of their occupation than to give them a war record. One of . their most important village sites is today occupied by the River Campus of the University of Rochester. Another was in Maplewood Park, and still another near Augustine and Albemarle Streets. Artifacts from these sites are included among the exhibits at the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences: pottery, grooved axes, large spear heads, arrow- heads, implements of copper, and objects of polished slate- predominantly the tools of peace. The aggressive Iroquois, according to modern archeologists, nomaded their way east from Puget Sound, established themselves in the upper valley of the Ohio, and spread into New York State, exter- minating or absorbing the Algonkian peoples. Triangular arrowheads-weapons of warfare-take their place among the artifacts found in the hilltop strongholds that began to dot the hitherto unfortified vantage points of the Algon- kins. Better pottery and better pipes give indications of a more highly developed domestic life to be more aggressively defended.
The body of Indian lore and Indian history in Monroe County has to do, therefore, with the Iroquois. Religious liberty and freedom of worship were fundamentals in their thought; they never waged war over matters of religion nor sought to compel people to believe the things that they themselves believed. Their own animistic religion pervaded everything they did and almost completely regulated their habits. Like the Greeks, they had many gods; and, although it may be true that they did not have a principal god until the Jesuits taught them the idea of a supreme deity, yet their gods ranked variously in importance.
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The chief of all their gods was Tehachwenjaiwahkonk (Earth-Holder), who ruled the realm of the sky, living in a white lodge under the branches of a celestial tree. His wife was Iagenchi (Great Mother), whose curiosity as to what lay beneath the roots of the celestial tree induced her to cause it to be uprooted. This aroused the anger of her husband, who pushed her through the hole in the sky made by the uprooting of the tree. Plunging downward through space, Iagenchi was caught and held by the interlaced wings of the water birds. A great turtle arose from the sea, holding on his shell a bit of earth deposited there by a muskrat which had brought it from the bottom of the ocean; and here the Great Mother rested. The turtle grew rapidly and the earth grew with it, forming a large island. The woman from the skies brought life with her and gave birth to a daughter, who soon grew up and began to help her mother, but spent a part of each day exploring the island. One day she met a lover and was "married to him while swinging on a vine." She gave birth to two boys, one of whom caused her death. The elder boy became known as the Light One, or Good Mind, and the younger was called the Dark One, or Evil Mind.
Good Mind dutifully watched over his mother's grave, and kept it well watered. Eventually from the soil in which she was buried sprang the maize, or Indian corn, providing in its kernels milk for the nourishment of her children. From her body sprang the bean plant, and from her toes the edible tuber. After a time Good Mind set out to seek his father and finally found him on a mountain top. As a test of identification he was obliged to overcome flames, whirlwinds, and great falling rocks. At length the "shining being" in the mountain (the sun) was satisfied, answering, "I am your father."
When Good Mind returned from his quest he brought back with him all manner of plants, birds, fishes, and
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animals, which escaped from their confining pouches at an auspicious time, becoming the progenitors of all the living things on the earth. Later Good Mind and Evil Mind had a quarrel in which Evil Mind tried to slay his brother, but failed and was banished to the underworld, where all evil creatures associate with him. Good Mind created human beings from reflections of himself which he saw in a pool of water. Then he became invisible and returned to the sky- world, accompanied by his grandmother, the sky-woman, over a celestial path formed by a ray of light.
Whirlwind and Thunderer were other well-known gods, and there were the gods of death, the gods of dreams, and the gods of many of the other natural forces. These, how- ever, were spirits who were to be propitiated and honored but who had no creative power, except a kind of magical power to transform things. Chief among the nature spirits was the Sun; the Moon governed the night, the Spirits of Sustenance made the food plants grow, Zephyr brought health, and Morning Star heralded the day. In opposition to the beneficent beings who inhabited the forest, the hills, and the air, there was an equal number of malignant beings with terrible powers for evil. In the sky lived Cloud Land Eagle, with a dew pool resting between his shoulders, from which he gave drink to the thirsty plants when the rain did not fall; but under the water lived Horned Snake, whose evil seems to have taken the form of appearing as a human being and luring unsuspecting maidens to his submarine caverns. Horned Snake loved human wives, but Thunderer hated the whole tribe of Horned Snakes and fought with them on sight.
In the folklore of the Senecas, fairies, pygmies, and other creatures friendly to man abound. Some of these lived in the forest and rocky glens, while others dwelt under the water. In the mountains lived great giants, called Stone Coats be-
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cause they could never be slain by spear or arrow. Their favorite pastime was to hunt down men and women and little children in order to eat them raw. In the course of time all these fearful giants were chased into a cave near Onondaga, where Thunderer shook immense rocks down upon them, exterminating all except one lone survivor who imparted his wisdom to a scared boy seeking refuge in the cave. In accordance with instructions he organized the False Face Company. In one of its secret ceremonies this mysterious organization uses a great mask covered with pebbles, with a flint arrowpoint embedded in its forehead.
A belief in ghosts was universal among the Iroquois. These were assumed to be earth-bound spirits who lingered either to finish some earthly affair or to work harm because they came from malicious souls. Since names were thought to be bands of attachment, or cords binding the person in some mysterious manner, it was deemed improper to men- tion the name of one dead for fear of calling the soul back from its abode of pleasure to mundane scenes of fear and conflict. And so it came about that when a departed one was mentioned, a descriptive name was given, such as He- who-lived-on-the-mountain-and-sang-much-to-the-stars, or She- who-wore-the-red-feather-in-her-hair. Every individual tried to develop some personal trait in order that he might have an implied name as well as a real one. Because a stranger might conjure the name and work injury to its owner, the real name of a red man was never revealed.
The Iroquois believed that Good and Evil were in a state of constant warfare but eventually Good would triumph and Evil perish. Evil spirits were the reflection of evil and had much the same power as the beneficent ones, but their power was deemed to be ephemeral. All living things are reflections of the Creator, but since reflection is not material substance, all living matter can be transformed or trans-
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planted into other forms. Thus a man who had acquired magic could transform himself into a bear, a deer, or other lower animal form.
No one doubted that there was a land of happy souls and that the good would never perish. In the eternal land the Creator shuts the eyes of the newcomers and takes their soul-bodies to pieces, afterward putting them together again, piece by piece, casting out all evil and disease and leaving a regenerated and completely good soul.
Upon such beliefs the Seneca built "his faith in the brotherhood of all life, his hope for the future, and his eternal salvation." He was taught that if his practices were sometimes cruel and inhuman, it was because the Indian, like the white man, belonged to the "inhuman human race," and because he was obliged to propitiate the demons of war, who demand suffering and bloodshed.
MISSIONARIES AND SOLDIERS
Etienne Brulé, a French scout traveling in 1615, through the region that is now western New York, was the first European to see the Genesee River. In the years following, the Jesuits established four mission posts in the vicinity of what is now Rochester: La Conception at Totiakton, a Seneca village on the present site of Rochester Junction; St. Jean at Gandachisagon, south of Totiakton; St. Jacques on Boughton Hill near Victor; and St. Michael 212 miles south of Boughton Hill. The eight Jesuit missionaries who are known to have taught and preached in the vicinity dur- ing the second half of the 17th century, exerted an enduring influence upon the Indians, accustoming them in some mea- sure to the ways of the white man and paving the way for white settlement.
The other form of French penetration had as its aim the control of the Seneca lands as a doorway to the lucrative fur
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trade of the interior. Preeminent among the French soldiers and explorers who led expeditions through western New York was René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the "first promoter of the Great West." Born of a wealthy Rouen family in 1643, in his youth he became a Jesuit novice, but, unable to bear the restraints of a monastic life, he left the order at the age of 23. In later years he became a fiery op- ponent of the Jesuits in Canada, principally because they disapproved of his traffic in brandy with the Indians. His career as an explorer came to an end with his murder near the mouth of the Mississippi in 1687.
On August 10, 1669, La Salle entered Irondequoit Bay with nine canoes and 34 men, including two priests, De Gasson and Galinee; the latter's journal is the source of our knowledge of the expedition, the purpose of which was to secure information about the Ohio Trail to the beaver country. The Indians were excessively polite. La Salle and his companions were subjected to an eight-day round of entertainment: they were dined and feted; they were shown the tribal games and dances; they were even treated to the sight of the burning of a prisoner. But at the same time it was made plain that the Indians, well aware of their strategic position, would not permit the French to open up a thoroughfare through their territory. After the remains of the executed prisoner were consumed in a cannibal feast by brandy-crazed Indians, La Salle grew apprehensive and withdrew his men in small parties to take up residence in the lesser villages at some distance from Totiakton. His expedition failed of its purpose.
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