USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Settlement in the West : sketches of Rochester with incidental notices of western New-York > Part 48
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The first is from Jefferson, written on his retirement from office in 1809, and addressed to "Col. Nathaniel Rochester" as Chairman of the Republican Citizens of Washington county, Maryland, asseinbled at Hagerstown, March 3, 1809 :-
" The affectionate sentiments you express on my retirement from the high office conferred on me by my country are gratefully received and acknowledged with thankfulness. Your approbation of the various measures which have been pursued cannot but be highly consolatory to myself and encouraging to future functionaries, who will see that their honest endeavours for the public good will receive due credit with their constituents. That the great and leading measure respecting our foreign intercourse [the embargo] was the most salutary alternative, and preferable to the submission of our rights as a free and independent republic, or to a war at that period, cannot be doubted by candid minds. Great and good effects have certainly flowed from it, and greater would have been produced had they not been in some degree frustrated by unfaithful citizens.
" If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow-citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel or the tattered flags of the tented field will never be envied. The care of human life and happi- ness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
" I salute you, fellow-citizens, with every wish for your welfare and the perpetual duration of our government in all the purity of its repub- lican principles. THOMAS JEFFERSON.
" Monticello, March 31, 1809."
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To the same year belongs a letter from another distinguished man, the successor of Jefferson in the presidential chair. It was written shortly after Mr. Madison's inauguration.
" Washington, March 17, 1809.
"N. Rochester, Esq. : Sir-I have received your letter of the 6th instant, conveying the resolutiona of a portion of my fellow-citizens of Washington county, in the State of Maryland.
" While I return my thanks for their kind expressions of confidence and regard, I feel much satisfaction in observing the patriotic spirit breathed by their resolutions unanimously adopted.
"The situation of our country justly awakens the anxious attention of all good citizens. Whether an adherence to the just principles which have distinguished the conduct of the United States towards the belligerent powers will preserve peace without relinquishing independence, must depend on the conduct of those powers ; and it will be a source of deep regret if a perseverance in their aggressions should be encouraged by manifestations among ourselves of a spirit of disaffection towards the public authority or disobedience to the public measures. To any who may yield to such a spirit, there cannot be a more instructive example than is found in the anima- ting pledges of support flowing from the sensibility of the citizens of Washington county for the rights of the nation and the efficacy of the laws.
"Accept my respects and friendly wishes. JAMES MADISON."
The introduction of one other letter here will probably be excused, not only as an evidence of the consistent conduct of Colonel Rochester in support of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison during a most interesting period of American history, but from its particular reference to the feelings then inspired by the promptness with which President Madison resented the insult offered to our government by the British am- bassador. In explanation of the letter, it may be stated that, " in April, 1809, a treaty was concluded with Mr. Erskine, the British minister at Washington, which engaged, on the part of Great Britain, that the orders in council, so far as they affected the United States, should be withdrawn. The British ministry, however, refused to ratify this treaty : they denied the authority of that minister to make such a treaty, and immediately recalled him. His successor, Mr. Jackson, insinuated, in a correspond- ence with the secretary of state, that the American government knew that Mr. Erskine was not authorized to make the arrangement. This was distinctly denied by the secretary ; but, being repeated by Mr. Jack- son, the president declined all further intercourse with him." President Madison writes :---
" Washington, January 31, 1810.
" Sir-I have received your letter of the 25th, enclosing the unanimous resolutions of a meeting of citizens of Washington county, at Hagerstown, on the 20th instant, approving the course lately taken by the executive of the United States with respect to the British minister plenipotentiary, and pledging their support of the constituted authorities in such measures as may be required by the unjust conduct of the bellig- erent powers. It must be agreeable at all times to responsible and faithful function- aries to find their proceedings attended with the confidence and support of their fel- low-citizens ; and the satisfaction cannot but be increased by unanimity in declara- tions to that effect. Among the means of commanding respect for our national char- acter and rights, none can be more apposite than proofs that we are united in main- taining both ; and that all hopes will be vain which contemplate those internal dis- cords and distrusts from which encouragement might be derived to foreign designs against our safety, our honour, or our just interesta. Accept my friendly respects.
" JAMES MADISON.
"To N. ROCHESTER, Esq., Chairman."
To return to the history. In May, 1810, Colonel Rochester first be- came a resident in Western New-York, establishing himself in Dans- ville, Steuben county. Here he spent five years, and erected a large paper-mill, with other extensive improvements, and increased his landed estate to seven hundred acres. In the winter of 1814-15 this was dis-
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posed of for the sum of twenty-four thousand dollars ; and the colonel removed to a large and highly-improved farm in Bloomfield, Ontario county. After continuing upon this three years, at the expiration of the time, in April, 1818, Colonel Rochester took up his residence in this city, which, in the interim, had received his name, and which will be to late posterities a proud mausoleum for his honoured memory.
In 1816 Colonel Rochester was again an clector of president and vice-president. In January, 1817, he officiated as secretary of the im- portant convention at Canandaigua which urged the construction of the Erie Canal. Soon after, he went to Albany as agent for the petitioners for a new county, but the application failed. In 1821 he was engaged in the same business, and succeeded in obtaining a law for the County of Monroe, to the clerkship of which, in the following spring, he was appointed. He was also elected member of Assembly ; and, in conse- quence, sat in Albany in the winter of 1822.
In the spring of 1824 a law passed, granting a charter for the " Bank of Rochester," when Colonel Rochester was appointed one of the com- missioners for taking subscriptions and apportioning the capital stock. In June of the same year he was unanimously elected president of that correct and vigorous institution. The office (with that also of director) was resigned in December following, it having been originally taken only at the urgent solicitation of a number of his fellow-citizens, and with the avowal that, as soon as the bank was successfully in operation, he must be permitted to resign. When this resolution was carried into effect, the colonel was only two months from completing his 74th year.
The relations of Colonel Rochester to this city, after the period of his retirement from the bank, were those rather of personal influence than personal activity. The age and bodily infirmity, however, which restrained the latter, gave weight to the former. His opinions came with the experience of threescore and ten. His example was en- forced by the tried morality of a long life, and the higher sanction of religious conduct and hope. His disinterested use of the property he had, afforded every facility for a thrifty and prosperous population. From the commencement he sold the lots on terms the most liberal, and encouraged by his personal benefactions every plan of general utility. Some are now living in comparative affluence who not only owe their wealth to the increased value of the real estate which Colonel Ro- chester parted with so liberally, but also to his interposition with pecu- niary relief in their earlier struggles.
From taste as well as conscientious feeling, his household was or- dered with marked simplicity. His dwelling was in harmony with his own grave and simple manners. Everything of show and luxury was studiously excluded. The writer has seen within a year or two, lying in a carpenter's shop, a strip designed as a surbase for Colonel Ro- chester's parlour. It is panelled in a chaste and unassuming manner, and was finished in that style by the builder in order to testify his respect for the colonel, although in the contract it was to be perfectly plain. When the venerable man saw it, he thanked with great amenity the worthy architect, but decidedly resisted its being used. "It will look," said he, " like an assumption of a better style in my house than my neighbours, and lead to show and extravagance in our village !"
From blood, education, property, and early associations, he might have been pardoned had he mistaken a little, with the majority, the constituents of true dignity-had he departed a little from the severo
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manliness of the republicanism of his boyhood. But he did not; and men, as they went in with hearty welcome, and sat down by the plain fireside of the patriarch ; as they saw everything around frugal and un- ostentatious to a striking degree ; and as they marked the consistency of the man abroad and at home-caught the tone of elevated simplicity, and gradually circulated the frank hospitality, unaffected intercourse, and frugal living for which we have been distinguished. Esto perpetua !
From the hallowed retreat into which the colonel now withdrew, his eye began to look more steadily from the things of time to the solemn future. He had been always attached to the Episcopal Church, and at an early period was clerk of the vestry at Hillsborough. Through his long life he retained these attachments ; and on his removal to Ro- chester lent his aid at once to the establishment of the congregation known by the name of " St. Luke's Church."
While Colonel Rochester was a young man, the sentiments of the French Encyclopædists found their way to this country ; and from the false but prevalent opinion that the emancipation from civil bondage involved of necessity the renouncing the restraints of religion, many · eagerly embraced the dangerous principles. Republicanism was the cry and avowed object of France ; and as might have been expect- ed in the condition of her church, as she shook off the fetters of po- litical despotism, she cast from her also with scorn the degradation of the spiritual. Her reform in both was a maddened excess. The association was fatal to many a noble-minded man who was rearing the Temple of American Liberty. The strength of our moral constitution resisted the action, and remained unimpaired in its essential strength ; but it left its baneful effects in many who, untainted by the venom, would have been among the best of earth, as they were among earth's most gigantic in intellect and daring in action.
For two years this venerable man (then a young major in his coun- try's service) yielded to the seduction, and cherished the arguments and lessons of that wretched school. It is a record which we make gladly to his honour, not the least among the independent actions of his inde- pendent life, that the sophistry could not blind him, the license could not tempt him, the fashion could not intimidate him. His first leisure was embraced to examine the evidences for the Book of God ; and the re- sult was a firm and rational conviction that it was genuine and au- thentic-a revelation from God to man. He ever after held to its doctrines and sanctions with unfaltering trust ; stood forth in its defence against the argument or the sneers of his associates ; and, though not experimentally aware of the deep power of its transforming faith, re- spected and admired it in others, under whatever form of government or discipline it might be presented to his view.
But, for some time before his decease, the convictions of the intel- lect became united to the deep affections of the heart. The religion of his respect became his daily engagement ; and year by year, as he ap- proached the confines of the present destinies, his soul was enlarged to know, cherish, and love the revealings of the future. The house of God received him, while strength remained, a constant worshipper. At the altar he knelt an humble recipient of its holy symbols. In the closet he bent the knee in frequent communion with the Father of Spirits. The practice imbodied what he had before only respected and admired.
The sufferings of Col. R. during the last months of his life were fearfully great. A chronic disorder of the most painful character kept
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SKETCH OF NATHANIEL ROCHESTER.
him in incessant distress, forbidding him at any time more than an hour's troubled repose ; to this was finally added one anomalous in its type, resembling, more nearly than anything else, the virulent cases of Eastern leprosy. Not a spot of his emaciated frame was exempt from this terrible cutaneous affection ; covered with its ulcers, blinded, un- able to move or bend a joint without cracking the diseased skin, the venerable man lay for weeks, anxiously expecting death, but bearing his distress without a murmur. For some hours before his departure, pain and consciousness were both suspended by a lethargic sleep, du- ring which he ceased to breathe-so gradually, that the moment of de- cease was scarcely known to the large family assembled around his couch. The struggle closed on the morning of the 17th May, 1831, which served to bring out, before the eye of child and friend, through suffering far beyond the ordinary lot of care-worn fourscore, a humility of repentance, a submissiveness of faith, a firm endurance of trial, and a triumph over the fear of death, before which they bent in reverent admiration, and which form a worthy close to a life so useful and hon- ourable as his had been.
The good old man has gone from among us ! Long will the sur- viving cherish the remembrance of the venerable form, and silvered locks, and easy dignity of the patriarch. Long may we cherish the example of his simplicty, integrity, disinterestedness, and faith. Filial affection may build for him the marble tomb, public gratitude may grave the recorded eulogy, but they are not needed. He has erected his own monument, splendid and enduring : it is sculptured by his own hand ; and we have only to reply to him who asks us in what shrine it is set up, in the simple and majestic epitaph of England's proudest temple-
" SI QUERIS MONUMENTUM-CIRCUMSPICE."
The feelings created among the citizens by the death of Col. Rochester may be inferred from an abstract of the expressions of various public bodies :-
An extra meeting of the Corporation of Rochester was held to express the regret felt at the loss ofthe " venerable Col. Nathaniel Rochester, the founder of the village." The Corporation recommended the citizens to suspend their ordinary business during the funeral services, in respect, and resolved to attend the funeral in a body. The proceedings of the Corporation, published under the signature of N. Rossiter as President, and Isaac R. Elwood as Clerk, expressed "sympathy with the family and the public in the loss which both have sustained by the death of so useful, so distin- guished, and so estimable a man."
The Vestry of St. Luke's (F. Whittlesey, Sec.) resolved that the church should be arranged with funereal emblems, in testimony of respect for the "founder of the vil- lage, and one of the earliest officers of the church," &c.
The Rochester Athenæum, through their Secretary, L. A. Ward, expressed their "high esteem for his many public and private virtues. The remembrance of his value to our village as a public-spirited citizen, to our social institutions as a decided and active patron, and his integrity and uprightness as a man, will long be among our cherished recollections." Col. R. was an " early and efficient friend, and former president of the institution."
The Rochester Bank adopted resolutions reported by L. Ward, Jr., the President, and J. Seymour, Cashier, sympathizing with the public in expressions of regret for the loss of Col. Rochester, who was the first president of the institution.
The Court of Chancery being then in session, Addison Gardiner presiding as Vice Chancellor of the Eighth Circuit, resolutions were adopted that the court and bar should adjourn to attend the funeral of the deceased, upon whose character some re- marks were made by John C. Spencer and Simeon Ford.
The field, staff, and line officers of the several corps in and around Rochester- Gen. Oliver Strong, Chairman, and Major Amos Sawyer, Secretary-resolved, on mo- tion of Major Andrews, that they would parade with their respective corps at the funeral of Col. Rochester-Gen. Jacob Gould, Col. Newton, and Col. Riley being appointed a committee of arrangements.
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APPENDIX.
Rochester at the close of 1826.
The astonishing progress of improvement in the ten years from the period whence the commencement of the place may be fairly dated, caused such inquiry at home and abroad, that EVERARD PECK was induced to publish a DIRECTORY, with some interesting preliminary sketches of the origin and progress of Rochester, and other information valuable to the citizen and stranger. In the preparation of the work Mr. Peck was as- sisted by Elisha Ely and Jesse Hawley.
At our request, Mr. Peck has politely furnished some letters received from two of the most distinguished citizens of this state-men whose names, identified with the history and literature of our country, are suf- ficient inducements to the perusal of any documents to which they are attached. These letters are copied here with the confidence that their contents, as well as the character of their authors, will fully justify their publication.
From Doctor Mitchill to E. Peck, Esq.
" New York, 29th March, 1827.
"Sir-I offer you my thankful acknowledgment for the copy you sent me (with a polite letter) of the Directory lately published from your press for Rochester vil- lage. The perusal of your work brings to my recollection the wonderful alteration that has taken place, during my own short time, in the country situate south of Lake Ontario. In 1788 I went, with the commissioners appointed by the State of New- York, to a treaty held with the Six Tribes at Fort Schuyler (or Fort Stanwix). At that solemn conference, the Indian right, with the exception of certain reservations, to the lands situate west and southwest of what was then called the Line of Property between the white and red men, was purchased for the commonwealth. There were on it a few Indian settlements and military posts ; but all the rest of the region now constituting the great Western District, quite to Niagara River and Lake Erie, was in the state of nature. I well remember what a serious undertaking it was for a small party of us to penetrate through the wilderness by the route of Wood Creek, Lake Oneida, and Oswego River to Fort Oswego, then held by a British garrison, before the surrender of the forts within our territory, after the peace of 1783, under the sub- sequent treaty. [Oswego and some other forts were held by the British till after Jay's treaty in 1795.] It was my lot, after returning to the place of negotiation, to subscribe as a witness the important deeds confirmatory of the bargain with the In- dians. During the summer of 1809 I went the entire tour by the customary track, as it then was, from Albany to Upper Canada. I did not visit the region again until the autumn of 1824, when I travelled along the canal at Rochester, and went by the Ridge- Road to Lewiston ; and viewed, on my return from Presquile and its vicinity, the vast works at Lockport then approaching their completion.
"You may form some idea of my emotion when I made my last trip, and contrasted the actual appearance of things with their condition within the reach of my remem- brance. The series and aggregate of solid improvement has probably no parallel in ·the history of human emigration and settlement.
" As to the village of Rochester, I became convinced, after a rapid survey, that it was destined to be the seat of much population and business. Its easy connexion with the inland seas and with the ocean, added to the fertility of the surrounding country and the water-power for manufacturing operations, render its position pecu- liarly favourable for the transaction of business, the disposal of produce, and the em- ployment of capital.
" The handsome typography of the work is, I presume, a companion of its general accuracy. Mr. Elisha Johnson's map renders it additionally important. Your his- torical and statistical sketches are valuable for the distant reader as well as the local resident. Will you offer my respectful salutations to Mr. Ely, and receive a full measure of the same for yourself ? SAMUEL L. MITCHILL."
From Governor Clinton to E. Peck, Esq.
" Albany, 7th June, 1827.
"Sir-I beg you to accept my thanks for the Directory and Annals of Rochester. When I saw your place in 1810, without a house, who would have thought that in 1826 it would be the source of such a work ? This is the most striking illustration that can be furnished of the extraordinary progress of your region in the career of prosperity. Surrounded by the blessings of nature and the improvements of art, may you continue to deserve them, and to flourish with the progress of time and in the ful- ness of virtue. I am, with great estecm, your most obedient servant,
" DE WITT CLINTON.
9552
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