USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Rochester and Monroe County: A history and guide > Part 3
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Scrantom Cabin
Within the next decade a number of settlements were made in the vicinity: John Lusk at Indian Landing (1789); Enos Stone and others from Lenox, Massachusetts, in what is now Brighton (1789); William Hincher at the mouth of the Genesee, now Charlotte (1792); and a group of four New England families, supplemented later by the seven Hanford brothers, at Hanford's Landing (known until 1809 as King's Landing), the site of which is east of Lake Avenue and north of Ridge Road.
Allen's hundred acres were not a favorable location for settlement. According to early accounts, it was a dreary swamp infested with snakes and mosquitoes, and threatening settlers with a malarial type of fever called "Genesee fever." In 1792 Allen sold his property and moved to Mount Morris. After changing hands several times the 100-acre tract was purchased in 1803 by Col. Nathaniel Rochester,
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Col. William Fitzhugh, and Major Charles Carroll, three gentlemen from Maryland. Fitzhugh and Carroll settled in Livingston County; Colonel Rochester gave his name to the present city.
Settlement was slow. In 1809 when the State Legislature authorized the supervisors of Ontario and Genesee counties to build a bridge across the Genesee River at the site of the present Main Street bridge at a cost of $12,000, the opposi- tion protested that no one had any reason to cross the river at that point.
In 1811 Colonel Rochester and his partners surveyed their land and offered lots for sale. On July 4, 1812, Hamlet Scrantom moved with his family into a house built for him on the site of the Powers Building and became the first permanent settler on the 100-acre tract. In the same year the bridge across the Genesee was opened to traffic and drew more families westward.
The appearance of the settlement was not prepossessing. A straggle of muddy lanes, a cluster of cabins and shacks, it was derisively called Shantytown. The Indians lingered in three or four camps on the outskirts, and forests claimed the valley beyond. Rochesterville was, in fact, the smallest and least promising among its neighbors. Hanford's Land- ing was until 1816 the principal port on the Genesee. Castletown, now the southwestern part of Rochester, was established in 1804 by James Wadsworth, the founder of that family in the Genesee country. Frankfort, now Roch- ester's second ward, was laid out in 1812 and enjoyed the advantage of Francis Brown's mill race; his mill ground upward of 200 bushels of wheat every 24 hours. Rochester- ville's greatest rival was Carthage, located on the east bank of the river at the lower falls, now part of the seven- teenth ward. The settlement was started in 1809 by Caleb Lyons but owed its temporary prosperity to Elisha Strong, a Yale graduate. The village devoted itself to shipping and
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shipbuilding, and after 1816 Carthage Landing was the principal Genesee port. Taverns, stores, and a school were opened; a sawmill and a grist mill were constructed. And in 1818-19 the great Carthage bridge was built, 718 feet long and 30 feet wide, the summit of its arch 196 feet above the surface of the water. It was to attract trade and traffic to the village and make it the metropolis of the Genesee. The bridge stood for 15 months and then buckled and fell.
In spite of mud and fever, mosquitoes and rattlesnakes, the settlement on the 100-acre tract showed signs of growth. In 1813 Abelard Reynolds built, on the site of the present Reynolds Arcade, a two-story home, which housed the first post office. In 1815 Samuel Hildreth started a stage- line to Canandaigua, the village began to receive mail three times a week, Abelard Reynolds opened his tavern, the first religious society was organized, and the first census fixed the population at 331. In 1816 the first newspaper, a weekly, began publication, and the Buffalo Road was opened to Batavia. In 1817 the village was incorporated as Rochesterville.
It was neither the failure of the Carthage bridge nor the destructive fires and fevers in the other settlements that gave Rochester (the shorter name was legally adopted in 1822) the victory in the competition for supremacy on the Gen- esee. In September 1819 surveys were made for the Erie Canal, and the line ran through Rochester, along the present Broad Street. After the construction of the canal the development of Rochester was a matter of time, and eventually she absorbed all her former rivals.
THE FLOUR CITY
In 1823 Rochester held a celebration to mark the opening of its section of the Erie Canal and the completion of the aqueduct which carried the canal across the Genesee River.
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The new waterway opened a new era for the village. The lake commerce declined in importance and all activities tended to concentrate along the new east-west flow of traffic. Using the large local supply of white oak and pine timber, Rochester became a center of canal boat construc- tion. (The same industry is now carried on near Rochester, on an entirely new plane, by the Dolomite Marine Cor- poration.) The first village directory, compiled in 1827, listed 9 sawmills with 2 more at Carthage, 8 canal basins, 2 drydocks, and a set of machinery for raising canal boats out of the water for repairs. More than half the stock of the transportation companies operating on the canal was owned or controlled in Rochester.
One great contribution of the canal to western New York was a drastic reduction in freight rates. Before its day, the high cost of transportation had limited the market of the Genesee farmer, who let his excess grain rot or turned it into whiskey. The canal enabled him to undersell his eastern competitors along the Hudson and the Mohawk. Genesee land values rose; settlers flocked to settle in the valley; more mills sawed lumber and ground flour; addi- tional land was cleared and planted to wheat. The soil of the Genesee Valley bore rich harvests, and Rochester be- came the Flour City. Within the first ten days of its use, the canal carried 40,000 barrels of flour from Rochester to Albany and New York. In 1827 the village directory listed seven flour mills. By 1833 exports from the Genesee had in- creased to $807,510 a year.
In 1832 a railroad three miles long was built to Carthage to connect the canal with the head of navigation on the river. Though called a railroad, it was really a stage coach running on tracks and hauling open cars loaded with stones, lumber, potash, pearl ash, and bags of grain. This system of transportation of canal and lake boats linked by a "rail-
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road" served Rochester without competition until 1837. For the heavy stagecoach travel of the period Rochester was either a terminus or a stopover or transfer station for 16 stage lines, averaging daily as many as 800 travelers who patronized its hotels, restaurants, and stores.
In a sketch first published in 1835, Nathaniel Hawthorne described Rochester:
Its edifices are of dusky brick, and of stone that will not be grayer in a hundred years than now; its churches are Gothic; it is impossible to look at its worn pave- ments and conceive how lately the forest leaves have been swept away ... The whole street, sidewalks and centre, was crowded with pedestrians, horsemen, stage-coaches, gigs, light wagons, and heavy ox- teams, all hurrying, trotting, rattling, and rumbling, in a throng that passed continually, but never passed away. Here, a country wife was selecting a churn from several gaily painted ones on the sunny sidewalk; there, a farmer was bartering his produce; and, in two or three places, a crowd of people were showering bids on a vociferous auctioneer ... Numerous were the lottery offices ... At the ringing of a bell, judges, jurymen, lawyers, and clients elbowed each other to the court- house ... The number of public houses benefited from the flow of temporary population; some were farmers' taverns,-cheap, homely, and comfortable; others were magnificent hotels, with negro waiters, gentle- manly landlords in black broadcloth, and foppish bar- keepers in Broadway coats, with chased gold watches in their waistcoat pockets . . . The porters were lumber- ing up the steps with baggage from the packet boats, while waiters plied the brush on dusty travellers, who, meanwhile, glanced over the innumerable advertise- . ments in the daily papers . . . I noticed one other idle
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man. He carried a rifle on his shoulder and a powder horn across his breast, and appeared to stare about him with confused wonder, as if, while he was listening to the wind among the forest boughs, the hum and bustle of an instantaneous city had surrounded him.
With economic development came growth and im- portance in other fields. The first court of record was held in Rochesterville in 1820. In 1821 Monroe County was formed, and on September 4 the cornerstone of the first court house was laid on the present court house lot, deeded to the county by Rochester, Carroll, and Fitzhugh to be used for the county court house forever. In 1822 the first sidewalks were voted for; in 1824 the first Presbyterian Church was erected and the first bank opened its doors for business; in 1826 the population numbered 7,669; in 1828 was built the Reynolds Arcade, later associated with the beginnings of many great enterprises; new schools and churches and bridges were added. In 1831 Col. Nathaniel Rochester died. In 1833 Rochester applied for a city charter.
The social and cultural tone of early Rochester was set by the stern New England character. Though the early settlers were predominantly Congregationalists, their first church organization was Presbyterian, because they felt that the control of a governing presbytery would be more effective in promoting piety and morality under frontier conditions than the more democratic forms of Congrega- tionalism. From the churches grew the first schools, called "charity schools," which offered the only education avail- able to the great majority of children; what were then called "public schools" were public only in the sense that they were open to all who could afford to pay the tuition. In 1818 the first Sunday school was organized in Rochester- ville and was attended alike by Catholic and Protestant children. Mechanics Institute, Rochester's oldest educa-
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tional institution, began in 1829 under the name of the Rochester Athenaeum. Free public schools were established by a charter amendment in 1850.
Early enterprises in the field of public amusement with- ered under the denunciations of the keepers of the public morals. The "elegant museum consisting of 34 wax figures and two elegant organs, also elegant views," opened in the Eagle Tavern in 1821, soon closed under the attacks of clergymen and editors. In 1825 the Rochester Museum, otherwise known as Bishop's Wax Works, opened on Exchange Street, and presented plays until 1852. Within the same period another theatre on Buffalo (now West Main) Street had a short life. Its first play was The Forty Thieves, the handbills stating equivocally that "this piece will be more interesting because the audience is familiar with the subject." In this theatre was also produced Richard III, the first presentation of Shakespeare in Rochester. In 1838 a local historian, ignoring Bishop's Wax Works, wrote that "theatres and circuses cannot now be found in Rochester." Newpapers refused to accept theatrical advertisements. But the large German immigration of the 1840's brought a love of recreation and amusements that forced its mellowing influence upon the city. In 1849 Corinthian Hall, with a seating capacity of 1,600, was erected on Exchange Place north of the Reynolds Arcade.
THE FLOWER CITY
The first railroad out of Rochester, the Tonawanda Rail- road to Batavia, opened on April 4, 1837, developed a new route of travel untouched by the canal. The first locomotive had no cowcatcher, and the engineer signaled his warnings with a coach horn. The decorated woodburner, with bulg- ing stacks and bright brass trimmings, appeared later.
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Passenger coaches 15 feet long and accommodating 24 passengers were built in Rochester shops.
In the development of transportation in New York State, railroads came so close on the heels of the canals that, in order to protect its investment in waterways, the state im- posed restrictions on railroad competition. But as fast as the new means of travel proved its efficiency and economy, the restrictions were removed. Numerous small companies constructed short stretches of road between population centers; in 1850 the journey from Rochester to Albany in- volved six changes of cars. To meet traffic demands, these routes first pooled equipment to make through trains pos- sible, and then consolidated into large corporations oper- ating trans-state lines. In 1853 the New York Central Rail- road was organized and Rochester became an important station on this system.
The story of the settlement and growth of the Middle West is not part of the history of Rochester; but as the western wheat fields were developed the milling industry began to move west and in the end Rochester was unable to sustain the competition in that field. The decline of the flour industry on the Genesee was not sudden; in fact, pro- duction reached its peak in the 1870's, with 31 mills and an output of a million barrels of flour annually. But western cities gained the ascendancy, and Rochester's last flour mill, the Van Vechten Milling Company, closed its doors in 1937.
As flour-milling reached a plateau in its development and began to decline, other manufacturing processes made use of the city's water-power and transportation facilities: machine shops, cotton factories, breweries, boat-yards, coach and carriage, boot and shoe, and furniture factories. But the successor to milling in economic importance and repute was the nursery industry.
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1853 Main Street, Looking East From Canal
HISTORY
The first seed business was organized by William A. Reynolds, son of Abelard Reynolds, in partnership with a Mr. Bateman. About 1840 this company was taken over by George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry, two former em- ployes. Ellwanger & Barry became one of the largest nurseries in the world and continued in business until 1918. This firm supplied trees for the early orchards of California, for the Royal Gardens of Tokyo, for planting in India, Australia, and the Dutch East Indies. Highland Park, once part of the company's domain, was presented by Ellwanger & Barry to the city. The firm founded by James Vick, second in prominence, specialized in flowers and seeds; 90 per cent of the varieties of cultivated asters in the United States were developed by James Vick.
Other nurseries sprang up; Rochester became the Flower City, and assumed leadership in the growing and distribut- ing of nursery stock and garden and farm seeds. An import- ant contribution to the success of the industry was made by German gardeners, who came with the large German immigration after 1848, and transplanted their skill to the banks of the Genesee. In 1850 about 2,000 acres were de- voted to nurseries. The industry reached its height in the seventies and eighties; the city was almost completely sur- rounded by vegetable, flower, and tree nurseries.
Aside from its economic importance, the nursery industry exerted a definite influence upon the physical development of the city. It inspired and encouraged the growth of the system of parks, which is today one of the prides of Roch- ester. And it helped make Rochester a city of individually owned homes. From many of the large nurseries grew affi- liated real estate companies that developed suburban home- owning districts. The Highland Park section was developed by the Ellwanger & Barry Realty Company, the Pinnacle
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section by the Crosman Realty Company, and Browncroft by the Brown Brothers Nurseries.
In the middle decade of the 19th century Rochester was a bustling city of more than 40,000 inhabitants, with still flourishing flour mills, rapidly growing nurseries, and a variety of manufacturing industries. A contemporary his- torian wrote that "several of the mercantile blocks, the banks, and private residences, are beautiful structures and worthy of becoming architectural models." By the out- break of the Civil War the seeds for the growth and achieve- ment of the second half of the century had been sown. In 1848 Frederick Douglass began publishing his paper, The North Star, Rochester homes became stations on the Under- ground Railroad, and abolition became the first of the many reform movements that kept the city in a ferment for the rest of the century. Susan B. Anthony was already asserting the rights of women in industry. In 1850 the University of Rochester and the Theological Seminary were incorporated. By 1852 the German population was large enough to sup- port two German newspapers, the Anzeiger des Nordens and the Beobachter am Genesee. Corinthian Hall was a well- known music center. And John Jacob Bausch had begun grinding the first American-made lenses.
MODERN DEVELOPMENT
Setting aside its industrial growth, which is treated in another place, the story of the development of Rochester since the Civil War parallels in general that of most other fast-growing cities during the same period, a story which might be told in a kaleidoscopic moving picture of industry emerging from small-scale handicraft to large-scale mass production; street-cars discarding horses for electricity; horse and buggy traffic first frightened by hybrid horseless carriages and then replaced by the improved automobiles;
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cobblestone and brick giving way to cement and composi- tion stone as architecture turned from classical styles to utilitarianism; streets and sewers laid and extended to new boundaries; the functions of government enlarged and ex- panded. Charity and social service, once dependent prin- cipally upon the sympathy of the individual, was taken over by more efficient, if more impersonal, social service agencies. Society became less formal and more sophisticated. Individualism smoothed into uniformity.
As Rochester prospered in response to technological ad- vances and improved transportation, better means of travel were called for within the ever-spreading city limits. The first attempts by the Rochester City & Brighton Railroad Company to construct a street-car line were bitterly opposed by property owners, who, fearing that the line would lower land values, obtained injunctions to prevent the laying of tracks in front of their property. In building the road, the company left gaps in the disputed areas and then had them built in during a holiday when the courts were closed to petitions. On July 9, 1863, a street-car made the first com- plete trip to Mount Hope and return. Already sagging under the weight of popular disapproval, the company was nearly ruined by the disastrous flood of 1865, which washed away tracks, damaged cars, and carried horses over the falls. After reorganizing, the company struggled on through many vicissitudes with slowly increasing success.
The second horse-car line began running on South Avenue in 1874. In 1882 the Street Railway Company started a line of herdics from the Four Corners to the city limits via East . Avenue. The first electric street-car line, running from the city boundary to Charlotte, was opened in 1889. By 1892 the electrification of the old horse-car lines was completed. The law restricting street-cars to "no faster than a walk around corners" became a dead letter. In 1891, J. Harry
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Stedman, a Rochesterian, invented the street-car transfer, which swept into country-wide use.
In the 1870's the bicycle craze attacked Rochester in an acute form. In 1880 the Rochester Bicycle Club was organ- ized. The fad gave rise to the city's first traffic problem, since the cyclists suffered many a fall on the ill-paved streets. On one occasion 15,000 wheelmen held a mass meeting in Genesee Valley Park and demanded better streets. Their protest was heeded: a law was passed imposing a tax of 25 cents on bicyles, and a network of cinder paths was constructed throughout Monroe County for their use. After that time increasing attention was given to street paving.
George B. Selden, inventor of the automobile engine, was a patent attorney in Rochester, with an office in the old Reynolds Arcade. His first patent, filed in 1879 but not granted until 1895, covered a compression gas engine, a basic device which gave him a monopolistic control over the automobile industry until Henry Ford contested his claim in the courts and won the case.
By 1900 automobiles had begun to appear on the streets of the city. They were mongrel vehicles, inheriting from their carriage ancestry dashboards and high seats. The noise of one coming down the street at the terrific speed of eight miles an hour was heard for blocks; pedestrians scurried before it; horses reared and plunged, and teamsters swore. By 1905 intricate traffic tangles, particularly at the Four Corners, had become a daily irritation, and a police traffic squad was organized, which smoothed out these difficulties and brought a new orderliness to the city's streets. The ยท clatter of hoof-beats gradually died away and Rochester. moved on rubber tires. In 1914 the first motorized fire engine was put into use, and within 13 years every fire company in the city was motorized. The first jitney bus appeared on the streets in 1915. More autos, more street cars, more pedestrians made necessary the installation in 1926 of a
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traffic light system. In a short time the city accustomed itself to obeying the signals, and jaywalking went out of style.
The latest chapter in transportation was written by the airplane. Rochester's first attempts to fly were made in 1910; John J. Frisby made the first successful overnight flight the next year. In 1926 the first experimental mail flight was made from Rochester to Cleveland. Two years later the municipal airport was opened; to-day it maintains the most active student flying field in the state. Air traffic through Rochester for 1936 is indexed by a registration of 6,800 airplanes. However, while its use grew more rapidly than that of the automobile, the airplane has not exerted so marked an effect upon the city.
Before 1887 Rochester had no real parks. Small open spaces, city-owned, and known as squares, were scattered through the city. Many citizens, realizing the need for recreation parks, had urged appropriations for this purpose, but the proposal had been rejected by the City Council as "a sinful waste of tax money." But when in 1887 Ellwanger & Barry, the pioneer nursery firm, presented 20 acres of land to the city as the nucleus of Highland Park, the gift was accepted and became the first unit in the magnificent park system established the following year under the supervision of Dr. Edward Mott Moore, Rochester surgeon and "father of the park system." One improvement called for another. Additional parks suggested better streets lead- ing to the parks, and better houses along the streets. Prop- erty owners, inspired by visits to the parks, went home and improved their own lawns and gardens.
The Children's Pavilion in Highland Park, another gift of Ellwanger & Barry, was dedicated in 1890. Five years later the lilac collection of Highland Park was started, and
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has grown to rival the collection at Kew Gardens, London. The Lilac Festival is an annual event enjoyed by 40,000 visitors.
Near the Elmwood Avenue entrance to Genesee Valley Park stands the statue of Dr. Edward Mott Moore, a large bronze figure gazing off across the rolling park lands and up the Genesee, symbolizing Dr. Moore's interest in the current of future years as in vision he built the parks of Rochester.
Much of the beauty of Rochester's parks is due to the Genesee River, which has always been a capricious friend of the city. To it Rochester originally owed her very ex- istence, but lived in dread of its treachery. Spring floods often carried the Genesee over its banks, causing tremendous damage. Such a flood threatened the downtown section in 1904 when an ice jam at the Clarissa Street bridge blocked the river. In 1913 the river rose to the highest level it had reached since the destructive flood of 1865, with a depth of 8 feet of water pouring over the Court Street dam. Since the last deepening of the river bed and the building of the new Court Street dam, a repetition of the dreadful flood of 1865 is impossible. No longer does Rochester hold her breath when "the ice goes out" in the spring; the occasion is rather a magnificent spectacle to be ranked among the city's annual events. The value of the river-deepening pro- ject was proved in 1933, when, on July 7, a storm lasting half an hour broke over the city, setting an all-time record for the vicinity with a rainfall of 1.98 inches. Although damage to the extent of $500,000 was caused, none of this loss was occasioned by flooding of the river.
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