STORY HIST^ Jenny Mar sh Parker LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. u i:5 «J CO c "o < -2- 5 g UI 'J — Q. wo ^5 W % \ ROCHESTER A Story Historical JENNY MARSH PARKER Behold ! a change which proves e'en fiction true, — More springing wonders than Aladdin knew. . . . These cross-crowned spires and teeming streets confess That man at last hath quelled the wilderness. Frederic Whittlesey. 1S26 All honor to the toil-worn pioneers, A brave, a sturdy band, although to fame Unknown, who, like the orb of day, untired And still, have changed by labors ever new The dark primeval wilderness to fields Of smiling beauty. . . . The noblest benefactors of their race. Harvey Humphrey ROCHESTER, N. Y. SCRANTOM, WETMORE AND COMPANY Publishers and Booksellers 18S4 ^1 Copyright, 1884, ByJEXNY MARSH PARKER. All rii^hts reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. DEDICATED TO SARAH R. A. DOLLEY, M. D. CONTENTS. I. The Old Long House and the TexXant Unknown . ^""^ II. The Tenant Dispossessed III. Trouble in the Camp ^ ID IV. Irondequoit Bay .... V. The City of Tryon, on Irondequoit Bay . . 32 VI. The Genesee of the Senegas .... 36 VII. The Title Deed of the New Tenant ... 41 VIII. Arrival Number One IX. Some of our First Families X. A Dismal Swamp ••••.. 70 XI. ROGHESTEKVILLE p XII. Our Brave Thirty-three XIII. "Clinton's Big Ditch" j^g XIV. A Decade Memorable jj XV. The Old Files * * ^ ? XVI. Mount Hope . • • - j XVII. The Isms Charge XVIII. Men and Things Notable . . . . \ 27-' XIX. What shall be Hereafter ^in XX. A FEW First Things : Scrap-Basket Historical 337 Appendix A 353 Appendix B . 357 Index 407 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Genesee Falls Glen House, Lower Falls (faces) ..... Rattlesnake ......... The Tenant Unknown ....... The Tenant Dispossessed ...... Emblems whose Glory is Departed .... Irondequoit Bay Hennepin's Picture of Niagara Embryo Isaak Walton ...... Stump Mortar ........ Indian Treaty ........ Map of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase (faces) N. Rochester (faces) Selye Fire Engine Manufactory (faces) .... Mills of Thomas Kempshall (faces) .... A Cavalcade Map of the Original One Hundred Acre Tract (faces) The Carthage Wooden Bridge, iSiS Eagle Tavern (faces) Rochester City Bank Canal Boat Plan of the New Aqueduct (faces) Keg from which Clinton poured the Water of Lake Erie Adantic Map of the Village of Rochester in 1820 (faces) Rochester House (faces) Christ Church (faces) Second Baptist Church (faces) . First Presbyterian Church (faces) St. Luke's Church, P. E. (faces) . St. Patrick's Church, R. C. (faces; Tonnewanta Railroad Bridge Carthage Railroad . Henry O'Reilly (faces) The Old Arcade Old Residences on Fitzhugh Street (faces) Mills of Charles J. Hill (faces) Frontispiece. 4 6 7 15 20 2.1 31 35 40 43 44 58 60 60 64 64 69 74 94 106 1 12 into the 118 118 1 20 t3o 132 132 132 132 134 135 146 155 162 164 vm LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Mills of E. W. Scrantom (faces) The New Market (1 83S) Rochester High School Mills of Warham Whitney (faces) Eajjle Mills (faces) Brick Church, I'resbyterian (faces) St. Paul's (Grace) Church, P. E. (faces) Dr. Dewey (faces) The Old Allen Seminary, now the Site of tlie Warner Buildings Third Presbyterian Church (faces) First Methodist Chapel (faces) ...... A North Road Stage Coach " Plain Bonnets for Friends and Methodists "... J. Robinson, the Hair Cutter The Summer Garden in Carroll Street Entrance to Mount Hope Myron Holley (faces) Erickson Monument (faces) View of Hill of Revolutionary Patriots at Mount Hope (faces) Su^an B. Anthony (faces) ....... Kate Fox (faces) Powers Commercial Buildings and tlie Powers Hotel (faces) .Monroe House (faces) D. W. Powers (faces) Warner Buildings (faces) The Warner Observatory, Interior (faces) .... Warner Observatory (faces) Warner Residence (faces) Elephas Primagenus James Vick (faces) University of Rochester (faces) M. B. Anderson (faces) ....... Rochester Savings Bank (faces) St. Paul's Church in Ruins (faces) ..... First Baptist Church (faces) Bird's-Eye \'iew of Rochester Brick Church, Presbyterian (faces) 164 165 166 166 166 168 168 170 183 194 194 210 21 1 212 216 223 230 232 236 260 268 272 274 2S0 28 2 284 286 288 291 294 296 29S 302 312 318 319 322 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL THE OLD LONG HOUSE AND THE TENANT UNKNOWN. When Diedrich Knickerbocker began his unique History of New York with the creation, and accepted the theories of "one Charlevoix, a man averse to the marvelous," whereby a hypothetical fourth son of Noah was given the honor of discovering the New World, he had at least the satisfaction of going back as far as his most exacting reader could demand. The story of Rochester begins with that of the Genesee Valley. The story of the Genesee Valley has its beginning in the unwritten history of the early human race on this continent, the first possessors of this soil we call our own. The evidences of that unrecorded occupancy are fast dis- appearing. The traces of the mound-builders in Western New York are nearly obliterated. Who can find at Han- ford's Landing to-day the outline, even, of the semicircular embankment the early settlers discovered, but had little tmie or mclination to study or preserve .? Of what value to them were the bones, coins, and pottery found around Iron- dequoit Bay, having decided that they were the remains of modern Indians killed in tribal war, or those of some of the Frenchmen that once tried to possess the land ? Skulls that our prehistoric students of to-day would give much to examine were tossed aside as worthless by the "money-dig- gers," who delved in vain for French treasure chests Tn Webster and Penfield. The ends of that semicircular embankment, we are told extended to the very edge of the ravine. It had three nar- 2 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. row gateways, placed at regular intervals. The traditions of the Indians reveal nothing concerning it, but Mary Jem- ison tells us that just before she came to this country (1759) there was a great land slide on the Upper Genesee, and human bones were unearthed, which the Indians declared were those of the people who held their hunting-grounds Ion- before them, and who were not of their kindred. Wh^ence they came and whither they went the wisest sa- chems did not pretend to guess. To the Indian, the Tenant Unknown, the ancient possessor of this country, was as o-reat a mystery as he is to us. The few remaining evi- dences of his occupancy do not lose their interest because our wise men cannot tell us for a certainty the color of his skin, his status of culture, or his lineage; whether he per- ished without descendants in the course of nature like many species of plants and animals of former years, or whether he was exterminated by a stronger and wiser people. Of the race succeeding him we know almost as little. Nor can we say with certainty that the traces of ancient works in this locality can lay claim to the highest antiquity. Their last faint traces are rapidly disappearing. We may look in vain at the " Sea Breeze " for an outline of the two mounds where fragments of bone, pottery, and other rude relics were found. It stands recorded that these historical mounds occupied the high, sandy ground to the westward of Iron- dequoit Bay, where it connects with Lake Ontario, and that on the eastern shore, in a corresponding position, was an- other mound of considerable size which, it is said, contained human bones. Unfortunately our famous townsmen, Lewis H. Morgan and Prof. Henry A. Ward, were not on the ground when those mounds were opened, nor when the treasures of another on Irondcquoit Creek, in Penfield, were brought to the surface. The platform of the Bay Railroad Depot at the Sea Breeze is said to be built upon soil that has yielded a rich harvest of coins, skulls, and im- plements of ancient warfare, if the stories of the old set- tlers may be credited, but nothing has been preserved. The flat, sandy meadow to the southwest of the station has THE OLD LONG HOUSE AND THE TENANT UNKNOWN. 3 been called " The Old French Burying-Ground," and there is a legend that it was there that De Nonville buried his dead. The Genesee Valley was rich in ancient remains. Traces of the cemeteries and forts of the early Senecas were nu- merous along its banks, and if the testimony of the Indians may be received, a people have lived upon its shores and passed away of whom they have not the faintest tradition. The spade of the pioneer of the Genesee Country has unearthed other prehistoric remains than those of the mound-builders. We know that the mastodon once went tramping over this region, browsing on forest trees, and that he existed on the soil of North America for thousands of years. Whether he was the contemporary of the mound- builders or not we may never know for a certainty, or if his day was waning when the lord of the bow and arrow dis- puted his supremacy. He claims the dim border land of our historic soil, and none of us are inclined to dispute the assertion that " he must have lived at a time when the surface of the country was better calculated to sustain mastodons than now." The tusk of one of these gigantic quadrupeds, discovered here in 1838, was nine feet long. It was found by the workingmen digging the Genesee Val- ley Canal, near where the Plymouth Avenue Bridge now stands. Bones of the head, several ribs, parts of the ver- tebrae, etc., were also found, intermingled with gravel and covered with clay and loam. Unfortunately, the workmen had made sorry havoc before the nature of the bones was discovered, and measures taken to preserve them. This valuable relic of some prehistoric quadruped may be seen in the State Museum at Albany. Molar teeth of the mas- todon have been found in various places near Rochester, and as early as 1817 a discriminating eye discovered what proved to be similar remains in the bed of Deep Hollow Creek. Mound-builder and mastodon, — and yet we have hardly reached the beginning of our story. Perhaps Diedrich Knickerbocker was correct after all, and we had been wise 4 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. in following his example. Rochester is an evolution of the Genesee Falls. " Ga-sko-sa'-go " was the Indian name, meaning " at the Falls," and for years after Allan's Mill was built at the ford the place was called Falls Town. The story of the F"alls is best told sitting on the piazza of the Glen House, for one of the first chapters thereof is written in the succession of strata so plainly seen on the high east- ern bank. If, when you have called each stratum by name, you tell us how the gorge has been excavated, how the Gen- esee has made its channel and its cascades, taking us back to the time when there was but one cataract, — where does our story begin, pray tell t And if, when you are done with making plain how with the wearing away of shale and the opposition of Niagara limestone, etc., a cascade, yes, two or more, went traveling southward years ago, and that this recession is still going on,^ and that a time will come when the Falls, in the phrase of our southern folk, "will be done gone entirely," the river rushing over a gradually sloping bed to its outlet, Irondequoit Bay a marsh or meadow, a tranquil stream winding through the valley, — when is this story to end } Can you tell } And so perhaps the most exacting reader, who has little approval for a story of Rochester that does not tell of the first things that may be told, will forgive our only casting a glance at the Old Ridge Road. That ancient landmark, more surely than the river, perhaps, will lead us back to an age when this New World w^as the Old World in the phys- ical history of the earth's surface, to the time before the upheaval of the hills standing round about our city, and when the conditions of the surface and the proportions of land and water were very different from the present, when there was possibly a communication between the waters of this great valley and the Mississippi, "and masses of ice with boulders were drifting over the surrounding inland sea." That the Ridge Road, a much traveled trail of the Sen- ' It is said that the Falls of Niagara are receding at the rate of forty feet in fiftv years. vh'^S'';., ?^m&i GLEN HOUSE, LOWER FALLS. THE OLD LONG HOUSE AND THE TENANT UNKNOWN. 5 ecas, and an almost finished road for the early settlers, was the ancient beach or boundary of a large body of water has been settled conclusively. A discussion of the many the- ories as to the cause or causes that drained Lake Ontario from its old limits may be most profitably discussed in driv- ing over the smooth, hard roadway, through the charming farm lands of Greece, where there are many who, in digging their cellars and wells, have found shells, pebbles, and other evidences that the land was once submerged. Dr. Dewey used to exhibit to the pupils of the old High School a frag- ment of a tree, — a white cedar, which in 1834 or there- abouts was found sixteen feet below the surface in a well in Greece, about five miles west of the Genesee. The veg- etable mould in which it was discovered lay upon a bed of fine white sand, like that of the present lake shore. The Doctor's lectures upon the subject, well illustrated with drawings of modern lake beaches and ridges, with perhaps a geological and botanical excursion of the class to the Lower Falls and the Ridge Road, are vv^ell remembered by many of his old pupils still in our midst, and how he used to discourse in his ever serene, happy way, — with many a story and an occasional pinch of snuff, — of the different theories concerning the formation of the Ridge; of the proofs that the water covered a large tract of country, but only to a moderate depth ; that there was a gradual sub- sidence by the bursting of successive barriers ; and how at last, by the removal of the one on the St. Lawrence, the waters subsided to a still lower level, and Lake Ontario sank to its present dimensions. If his pupils sometimes failed in following him when he pursued his subject through the denuding agencies which excavated the valleys of West- ern New York, and the formation of river channels and lake basins in general, he was sure to gain their attention when he told the stories of the modern Ridge Road, the reminis- cences of early settlers and later pioneers who had been quick to discover what that natural highway would prove to the Genesee Country. One Joe Perry, a favorite rhym- ster of our early pioneers, had sat in a Ridge Road bar-room 6 ROCJIESTEK: A STOKY IIISrORICAL. as early as 1812, and sun-- what he called "The Song of the Genesee Bushman " : — " I sing of the great Ridge Road, Of tlie highway our children shall see, That lies like a belt on Ontario's shore. Carved out in the wisdom of ages before, For the races that yet are to be," etc., etc. It was in the locality of the Falls that the workmen, in blasting for the foundations of Whitney's Mill at the foot of Brown's Race, discovered the ancient remains of what sug- gested that snakes akin to the boa-constrictors of Ceylon had once been a feature of the landscape. Mr. Nehemiah Osburn is, I believe, the authority for the size and com- parative number of the skeletons, and will testify, no doubt, that they may be properly mentioned with our prehistoric mastodons. The Ridge Road and the Genesee Falls were to the Sen- ecas' section of the old Iroquois Long House what the spacious entrance and hearthstone are to one of our Roch- ester homes of to-day. The dominion of the Iroquois, the League of the Five Nations, conquerors and masters of all the Indian nations east of the Mississippi, comprised the greater part of the Empire State, their name meaning by Indian interpretation, " People of the Long House," a fact with which we have all been made familiar by the title alone of Lewis H. Morgan's " League of the Iroquois " (People of the Long House). This confederacy of five distinct na- tions ranged in a line alonsr Central New York was likened THE OLD LONG HOUSE AND THE TENANT UNKNOWN. / to one of the long bark houses with which Mr. Morgan's readers are familiar. Five fires and five families. Some of these long houses deserved the name, as they were found by actual measurement to be five hundred and forty feet long, although only about thirty in breadth. As undisputed tenants to-day of the old Seneca Long House, it seems fitting that we should give a remembrance at least to the Tenant Unknown, him of whose occupancy so few vestiges remain, — faint outlines of old walls and em- bankments (who can say if they be tombs or altars T), and a few tusks and molars of animals that may have been trouble- some invaders of his peace. He has a place in our story as rightfully as the marked physical features of our domain, and no less for the reason that his claim upon us seems that of a fossilized race of independent fragments, so used are we to seeing him thus represented in museums of pre- historic remains. ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. II. THE TENANT DISPOSSESSED. The Genesee Country, when the white man first heard the roar of its Falls, was in the possession of the most numer- ous nation of the League of the Iroquois, — the Senecas, — justly proud of their distinctive title, " Ho-nan-ne-ho-ont," or " The Door-keeper," of the Long House. To them be- longed the hereditary guardianship of the Western Door. The grand council fire, it is true, was in the Onondaga Valley, but the Senecas commanded the Western Door, an honor still maintained by their pale faced successors, some may say, when our city's supremacy in Western New York is fairly estimated. "The Iroquois," says Parkman, "was the Indian of In- dians, a thorough savage, a finished and developed savage ... as savage in his religion as in his life." He has been called " the Roman of the Western World," and the specu- lations of historians as to what he might have attained had he possessed the advantages of the ancient Greek and Ro- man are interesting to say the least. The ferocious vitality of this powerful confederacy — a federal Republic, originally of five nations (the Tuscaroras were admitted in 1715) — would in time have subjected and absorbed every other tribe west of the Mississippi. There is a certain satisfac- tion, it must be admitted, in knowing that Indian strength and prowess had made this region historical long before the bitter strife began between French and English for commercial monopoly. If the tusks of our mastodons lack by a foot or two in the length of those found elsewhere, and our Irondequoit and Hanford's Landing mounds may THE TENANT DISPOSSESSED. 9 not compare with some in Ohio, our Seneca Indians are not to be ranked as second-class in any classification, even ad- mitting that Red Jacket did in his declining years go upon the lecture platform. The history of the Senecas is the thread for our follow- ing. The story of their origin, as told by Mary Jemison, confers an honor upon Canandaigua Lake which we may be pardoned for wishing had been secured for our Lower Falls, or even Irondequoit Bay. Mary Jemison, many of my readers are well aware, was the famous "White Wo- man of the Genesee" whose touching story was given to us a few years ago, as told by her to James E. Seaver and pub- lished by D. M. Dewey. It has recently been republished by the Hon. W. P. Letchworth, of Portage, with an account of the removal, under his superintendence, of the good wo- man's remains from the old mission burying-ground at Red Jacket, near Buffalo, to the spot where she rested when she first came to the Genesee Valley in 1759, — the high eminence on the bank of the Genesee, near the Portage Falls. No one can tell the story of the Genesee Country without frequent reference to Mary Jemison, a woman whose long and eventful life was, perhaps more than that of any wo- man who has ever lived in " the Pleasant Valley," a sub- lime illustration of heroic, self-sacrificing, yet cheerful sub- mission to seeming adverse destiny. Born on the ocean, between Ireland and Philadelphia, in 1742 or 1743, of parents whose nationality she never knew, but who settled in a wilderness home on the frontier of Pennsylvania, she lived until about thirteen years of age in a Christian family, with her brothers and sisters and loving parents, all of whom were tomahawked in a fearful massacre in 1755, when she was carried captive, and by cruel marches, to the Ohio Country, where she was adopted by an Indian family, and became in time the wife of an In- dian, naming her children after her parents and brothers and sisters, but never permitted to speak the English lan- guage. " Remembering the charge that my dear mother lO ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. o-avc mc at the time I left her, whenever I chanced to be o alone I made a business of repeating my prayer, catechism, or something I had learned, in order that I might not for- get my own language. By practicing in that way I retained it till I came to Genesee Flats (1759) where I soon became acquainted with English people." Mary Jemison's home for nearly seventy-two years was in the locality where she settled in 1759, before the white man had attempted a settlement, on the banks of the Gene- see River, near Moscow and Cuylerville. She moved to the Buffalo Reservation in 1831, and died there in 1833. The good missionary who visited her in her last moments tells us that when the Lord's Prayer was repeated to her in English, Mary Jemison, wept and said : " That is the prayer my mother taught me and which I have forgotten so many years." Lost to her own people, refusing to leave the Senecas when it was possible for her to do so, bearing an Indian woman's hard burdens with a white woman's nature, true to her adopted people yet faithful to her own race, what a tie she proved between the two races, a very bond of peace, the assurance of what might have been in the past had all of her race possessed her gentle heart and her discernment of the humanity of the savage. From her we have received much of our most valuable information regarding the tradi- tions and customs of the Senecas. " The tradition of the Senecas," says Mary Jemison, " is that they broke out of the earth from a large mountain at the head of Canandaigua Lake ; and that mountain they still venerate as the place of their birth." Admitting the long and rather insipid legend, we natu- rally turn to a brief study of the Iroquois, beginning with their first acquaintance with the white man, who ulti- mately became the legal tenant of the Long House. In 1638 all New York west of Albany was called "The Unknown Land " by the Dutch, who had a trading-house at Albanv, and were fast getting rich in exchanging fire-arms and blankets and gaudy baubles for the valuable furs and THE TENANT DISPOSSESSED. 1 1 skins the Iroquois brought them. These shrewd Dutchmen were very unlike their French contemporaries upon the St. Lawrence, in the fact that they were not troubled with a burning desire to convert the Indians, and so add a conti- nent to Church and King. What they had heard of the Iroquois made them content to leave all west of their block- houses in Indian possession. But Western New York had already found a certain place in European history, and perhaps it is more indebted to the Norman and Breton fishermen of 1503 and there- abouts, who dragged their nets off the coasts of New- foundland, than to any other source. They awakened the commercial spirit of France, and the enterprise of French merchants, who sent out in time (1608) the heroic Cham- plain, the Jesuit missionary close to his side. In 1578 there were more French fishing vessels than English, Spanish, or Portugese off Newfoundland. Lent and fast day in France demanded codfish. The fishermen were not long in finding out that barter with the Indians paid better than fishing. Hence the settlements, the explorations, the mis- sions of France on the St. Lawrence, and the St. Lawrence was the path of the earliest white visitors to Western New York. I think we may write the name of Champlain at the head of the list of first white visitors at the Long House, although his was a brief sojourn. When it is known that his object was not only " to unveil the mysteries of the boundless wil- derness and plant the Catholic faith amid its ancient bar- barism," but also to aid the Huron-Algonquins in subduing their old foe the Iroquois, we hardly wonder at his thanks- giving at escape from the country, badly wounded at that, and the subsequent feeling of the Iroquois towards the set- tlers of New France. Champlain had two memorable meetings with the Iro- quois. Having given his promise to lend his aid to the Huron-Algonquins, he made his first inroad into the coun- try of the Iroquois, July, 1609, ^"<^ had his first glimpse of them on the morning of the battle on the western shore of 12 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. the lake now bearing his name, near Crown Point, as they were " fihng out of their barricade, tall, strong men, some two hundred in number, of the boldest, fiercest warriors of North America. They advanced through the forest with a steadiness which excited his admiration. Among them could be seen several chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes. Some bore shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind of armor made of tough twigs, interlaced with a vegetable fibre supposed by Champlain to be cotton." ^ When they saw the white men in the ranks of their enemy they were astonished, as they well might be, as possibly they had never seen a pale face be- fore. In that pause of amazement Champlain decided what the relation between Iroquois and Frenchmen was to be. He leveled his arquebuse, and two of the chiefs fell dead. In an instant the forest was full of whizzing arrows, and the Iroquois were flying in uncontrollable terror. The al- lies made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph, but the Iroquois were aroused, — the tiger was foaming in his jungle. There is a significance in the coincidence that at the very time that Champlain was invading the country of the Iro- quois as a foe, Hendrick Hudson, within one hundred miles of the French commander, was making Indian sachems drunk for the first time, and that, when they had boarded his vessel " deporting themselves with great circumspec- tion." Champlain's second meeting with our Iroquois brought him nearer to the Senecas' section of the Long House. It was in 1615, five years before the Pilgrims landed at Plym- outh Rock, that, the Fries having promised to join the Hurons with five hundred men in a raid upon the Iroquois, Champlain, for the glory of France and the Church, cast in his fortunes with the allied savages. After feasting and war dances in plenty they crossed the broad bosom of On- tario, and passing through what is now Jefferson and Os- wego counties, met the Iroquois on the shore of Lake 1 Parkman's Pioneers of France. THE TENANT DISPOSSESSED. 1 3 Onondaga, the site of an Indian fort in the town of Fen- ner, Madison County, and there a terrible battle was fought, when Champlain received an arrow in his knee, another in his leg, and was carried away by the retreating Hurons on the back of a strong warrior. Etienne Brule, Champlain's interpreter, " pioneer of the pioneers," who was sent on the eve of this battle, with twelve Hurons, to hasten forward the five hundred Eries who failed to put in an appearance, made a perilous journey through the borders of the Iroquois, and to him belongs the honor of being the first known European traveler in Western New York. Champlain tells his story, how he threaded the thickest forests and darkest swamps of the fierce and watchful Senecas, avoiding the trails, and reach- ing Carantouans, somewhere in the Eries' country, near the western border of the Long House, in safety. He finally succeeded in getting the five hundred to the hostile town, but they were too late, the besiegers were gone. In attempting to return to his countrymen, after a winter spent in exploring the Susquehanna, he was captured by the Iroquois, escaped, was lost in the forest, and driven by starvation to throw himself upon their mercy. "■ Are you not one of the Frenchmen, the men of iron, who make war upon us } " they asked ; and when he told them he was something better than a Frenchman, and the fast friend of the Iroquois, they tied him to a tree, and tor- mented him with torture, until one of them seizing the Ag- nus Dei he wore, for he was a good Catholic, was warned by him that if he touched it, he and all his race would die, and Brule pointed to the black clouds rising against the sky. The Indian persisted, the storm broke in fury, and the miracle ends in Brule's release, dances, and feasts in his honor, and when he again starts to return to his country- men, four of the Iroquois guide him on his way. It was three years since he parted with his heroic leader, Cham- plain, when they met again each scarred with the hardships through which they had passed since they parted at Lake Simcoe. 14 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. As early as 1615, in the May of the year that Champlain joined the allied tribes against the Iroquois, we find that four friars reached Quebec in his company, and that after celebrating mass they took counsel together and assigned to each his province in the vast mission field. Le Caron was sent to the Hurons, Dolbeau to the Montagnais, and the two other priests were to remain near Quebec. Cham- plain, however, as we see, did not permit the Iroquois to re- main forgotten. His mission to them was of fire and flame ; and we are not surprised that it was many years after their first acquaintance before the close black cassock, the rosary hanging from the w^aist, and the wide black hat looped up at the side was a familiar garb in the villages of the savage Iroquois, — and that not until after the unambitious Fran- ciscan had given place to the ardent Jesuit, who in his rest- less quest for subjects for baptism, above all dying children, endured the martyrdom of his life in the filthy wigwams, where, amid smoke and vermin, screeching children and wrangling squaws, he displayed the same heroic composure which did not fail him when under torture, and that some- times led the infuriated savages to tear out his very heart and devour it, that they might imbibe his contempt of suf- fering. The good friars who went, portable chapel on back, to the loneliest villages of the Huron-Algonquins, or to any other Indian tribe than those of the Iroquois, had an easy life compared to what the pioneer missionaries to Western New York necessarily endured, and yet those brave Jesuits were the true pioneers of our civilization. Their admis- sion to the Long House was, alas, too frequently as cap- tives, taken in war with the Hurons, when they were often put to a cruel death, because they were Frenchmen and in league with the deadly foe. The story of " the glorious army of martyrs," whose blood hallowed the soil of the Iroquois, begins within a few years at the most of the time of the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. A study of the two hostile religious movements, in whose antagonism lay the development of a gospel for a later THE TENANT DISPOSSESSED. 1 5 day, as interwoven with civil and military annals, and their final effect upon the savage whose eternal salvation each professed to seek, must be dismissed from our considera- tion here. The Long House had been discovered by the white man. Explorer, trader, and missionary were crossing its threshold. The Dutch, jealous of the French traders, were quick to see the necessity of aiding the Iroquois in their strife with French and Huron. The French, by no means forgetting the peltries in their love for souls, would make all things subserve the interests of commerce. The advantage to be gained by France by a more direct route to their western trading-posts than the long circuit by Lake Huron and the Ottowa, for Lake Ontario was under the sharp eye of the Irocjuois, made the subjugation of the Iroquois of paramount importance. But contrary to the scheming of Richelieu the Iroquois long held their own against the French. The glory of New France had de- parted, the heroic Jesuits had been withdrawn, and the Hurons effectually humbled, before the Englishman suc- ceeded in making an alliance with the haughty Iroquois, a success growing out of the Indians' deep-seated hatred of the French, — an alliance culminating in the dispossession of the old Tenant of the Long House, and his farewell to the Genesee Valley in 1828. //, l6 ROCHESTER: A STORY INSTORJCAL. III. TROUBLE IN THE CAMP. The Englishman crowded out the Frenchman at last, and the Iroquois too, for that matter. The spirit of trade in the two nations had fought for supremacy, and the English- man had Avon. Between the years 1611 and 1763 twelve hundred Jesuit missionaries had arrived in New France. In 1763, they were forbidden to enter the country under English control, and as early as 1700 the Legislature of New York made a law for hanging every popish priest that came voluntarily into the province. No better testi- mony could be given of the power that the Jesuit had been to France. The Englishman had given the Indians a bet- ter bargain, and a plenty of rum besides, in the trade for furs and skins. He had slowly but surely built and main- tained his trading-posts on Lake Ontario, and had proved to the Indian that it was for his commercial advantage to trade with him. There was no end of fighting, as you all know, the French asserting their right to dominion, and the EngHsh their right to possession ; while the Iroquois declared a lawless independence of either party, until hope- lessly weakened by alliance with the English in the Revo- lutionary War, and severely punished and broken by Sul- livan in 1779. "The French fight for glory, " says a late writer, "the Germans for a living, the Russians to divert the attention of the people from home affairs ; but John Bull is a reason- able, moral, and reflecting character ; he fights to promote trade, to maintain peace and order on the face of the earth, and for the good of mankind in general. If he conquers a TROUBLE IN THE CAMP. 1 7 nation it is to improve its condition in this world and se- cure its welfare in the next, — a highly moral aim as you perceive. ' Give me your territory and I will give you the Bible.' Exchange is no robbery." It was no easy matter to bring the Five Nations of New York into peaceable alliance with the New England colo- nies. Their hatred of their old foes, the Huron-Algonquins, helped most to bring it about after all, and Sir William Johnson attended to the keeping of that treaty on the part of the Indians with surprising success. Nor is it in the least to be wondered at that they took up the hatchet for the British in 1775. Of the 12,690 Indians employed by the British 1,580 were Iroquois and of these 400 were Senecas. Joseph Brandt, their great captain, whose character is one of the most interesting studies relating to our local history, had little reason for loving the colonists. He saw his peo- ple between two conflicting armies. For their sake he ad- vocated the alliance with the power he believed would aid in their elevation. He fought for the Iroquois, although it must be admitted that the promise of a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quan- tity of powder and lead, and a piece of gold, with the addi- tion of what was the inspiration of the massacre of Cherry Valley and Wyoming, " as much rum as water in Lake Ontario," was sufficient inducement for the most of his braves. That they performed their part of the contract none can deny ; nor should it surprise us that in the treaty made by Great Britain with the United States, when France had the satisfaction of seeing her rival dismembered of much that she had taken from her twenty years before, the Indian was not even named, while " the ancient coun- try of the Six Nations, the residence of their ancestors from the time far beyond their earliest traditions, was included in the boundary granted to the Americans." Their lands had been ravaged with fire and sword ; their ranks thinned in a conflict between brothers of a race seeking the mastery of their own. The one to whom they had given aid had left them impoverished, unthanked, — at the mercy of the 1 8 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Other to whom the Indian had shown no mercy. What wonder that the Legislature of New York manifested a dis- position to expel the Iroquois from within its boundary, and that the settlers on the border demanded the measure, — men and women who had seen their kindred tomahawked by this defeated savage? General Washington and General Schuyler had courage to oppose the popular outcry, and to plead the cause of the Indian. It is not easy for us to-day to appreciate what that opposition cost them. General Washington, admit- ting that by the laws of conquest the Indian might be driven north beyond the lakes, wisely foretold that such action would only involve the country in Indian warfare. They had been deluded into the service of the crown. A veil must be drawn over the past, and future relations with the Indians established more in accordance with the funda- mental principles of a humane and just government. The Indians with shrewd foresight refused to make treaty with States. The thirteen fires must give them one big fire. Governors must not stand between them and the Big Chief. There were knotty questions to be settled, and in the many meetings between the Iroquois and the Government for the signing of treaties, we have interesting studies of Brandt, Red Jacket, and Corn Planter. Had the counsels of Brandt been followed, the Mohawks at least would have scorned to dwell within United States boundaries, for they, to use the language of the proud chieftain, " were determined to sink or swim with the English." Corn Planter, however, saw the wisdom of Washington's plan, and the folly of re- jecting it ; but Red Jacket, the great Seneca orator, "the young prince of the wolf tribe," was opposed to the burial of the hatchet, 'and made himself famous by his fiery out- bursts, carrying away his hearers by his eloquence rather than his good sense and logic.^ Unhappily, the treaty of peace with the Indians, like that 1 Red Jacket was then a young man. In his later years he was well known by many of our pioneers, and his portrait by Mathies, a Rochester artist, used to grace the parlor of the old Clinton Hotel. It afterwards became the prop- erty of the late H. G. Warner, and is still in the possession of the family. jU. TROUBLE IN- THE CAMP. ig between England and the United States, did not bring about perfect peace after all. The Indians were brooding and suspicious, and Brandt did not help matters, nor the English either. There were terrible Indian outbreaks in the Ohio Country and along the Kentucky border. The In- dian was a disagreeable neighbor at the best. He had be- come poor, intemperate, and idle. There was a lack of food, bordering on famine at times, among the dissatisfied Iro- quois. Having decided that the old tenants of the Long House should not be dispossessed, the pale face is wist- fully watching the five cantons, following its net-work of trails, sending missionaries to its heathen, traders along its rivers, explorers and surveyors into its interior, consider- ing meanwhile the question, how the extended and uncer- tain hospitality of the Long House can be made more se- cure and comfortable. The ultimation of the partial pos- session of the pale face as a beginning is clear enough to Saxon foresight. If there should be dissension among the crowded tenantry, the strongest arm of course must arrange for a future peace. French civilization had embraced and cherished the Indian, and was out of pocket in the end. Spanish civilization had crushed him, and was scarcely bet- ter off. English civilization had scorned and neglected him. The " Yankee " would simply outwit him in a game of fair play. The Indian was losing prestige. The Iroquois, in whom we are particularly interested, was not that which he had been. His diminished nation was a medley of adopted prisoners, neutrals, Eries, and various Algonquins. The white man's religion had planted the Cross and the Lily, emblems of Christianity and France, conspicuous in the Long House. As early as 1656 the services of the Ro- man Catholic Church had been securely chanted at what is now Bishop Huntington's Mission, Onondaga Castle, near Syracuse, and in a general convocation of the tribe the question of adopting the Christian religion had even been debated. The Iroquois was a savage still, with all his changes ; and when we consider his relations with his in- vaders from the beginning, other ending of the story of his 20 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. occupancy of the Long House than that of Sullivan's Raid, 1779, could not have been. Into the heart of the Senecas' country marched the avenging army, blood and devasta- tion in its track, surprising and effectually humiliating the Indian, who from that time knew his position in the Long House, and not many years after relinquished his occupancy entirely. The Iroquois' tomahawk, like the Iroquois himself, had had its day. It had made lasting record in American his- tory. It had defeated the Jesuit. "With the fall of the Hurons," says Parkman, " the occupation of the Jesuit in a great measure was gone." It had ruined the trade with New France, and had been the defense of the Dutch set- tlAnents. It was instrumental in giving the Americans the French alliance in their war for independence. It had done terrible work for the English, and each blow had been a recoil on the confederacy. It was a gory, but a defeated weapon, after Sullivan taught our Senecas and their confed- erates at Newtown, Waterloo, and in the Genesee Valley that their proprietorship of the Long House, or stay in it at all, would last no longer than their complete submission to the white man's authority. IV. IRONDEQUOIT BAY. Irondequoit Bay is preeminently the historical ground of our section of the Long House. The name, as now written, — the most successful of the many efforts to give, with the aid of the English alphabet, a correct pronunciation of the guttural Indian sounds, — is the name the Senecas gave it before the Frenchman's canoe sought the sheltering harbor afforded by the sand-bar and the close encircling hills. The literal meaning, say the best authorities, is "the lake turns aside." " Teoronto " was another name the Indians gave it, meaning " the place where the waves breathe and die, or gasp and expire." " Gerundegut " was its appellation in the days of Roches- terville, or, what was a trifle more musical, " Rundicut." The names we find for it in the venerable French Relations must have made the canoe correspondent of those days averse to mentioning it at all, and we only wonder that the name the French bestowed upon it at an early day, " Fort des Sables," was not longer retained. Here are some of the names we find in old French records, and comparatively modern ones, for Irondequoit Bay : O-nyui-da-on-da-gwat, Kaniatarontagouat, Ganniagatarontagouat (that was Father Lamberville's way of spelling it when he did not get his al- phabet mixed a little in trying to be exact, and write of Paniaforontogouat). The old sand-bar, fickle and shifting as it has ever been, has a permanent place in our history, whether we accept among the many interpretations of the present name for the picturesque inlet the one our poets like best, " where 22 ROCHESTER: A STORY IHSTORICAL. the tired waters sink to sleep," or what the matter-of-fact student of the Seneca language declares it to be, "a jam of flood wood." It is lovely under any name and interpreta- tion, and it may be doubted if there is a spot in The Pleas- ant Valley more tenderly associated with the sweetest mem- ories of us all. Long after the mound-builders left their memorial upon the sandy headlands, and contemporaneous with the advent of the European among the tribes west of the Iroquois, the Seneca squaws hoeing their corn, beans, and pumpkins, or boiling their succotash in the neighborhood of their pali- saded village or landing-place on the east side of the bay, at the picturesque spot we call " the Dugway," may have seen the first white man's canoe gliding cautiously up from the lake, and in the absence of their braves on the war-path, those Seneca squaws may have broiled a venison steak for the pale faces, and so opened the uncertain trade subsequently carried on between Iroquois and Frenchman in Irondequoit Bay. The Frenchman discovered at an early day the importance of the post. Many trails into the interior converged there. It was a favorite hunting-ground. In the long, perilous voyage by canoe from the St. Law- rence to the Huron Country which not a few traders would venture in spite of the terrible Iroquois, the harbor of Iron- dequoit Bay was a desired haven. The Iroquois hated the Frenchman as he did the Hurons and the Algonquins, but he loved the Frenchman's " brandie " and the " blew cloths and red," and the shining trinkets to be got with " pel- letrie." In 1625 we find the Franciscan missionaries on the west bank of the Niagara River. Religious zeal and commercial ambition had already surmounted, in the country of the Hurons, what made the dangerous canoe passage along the south shore of Ontario a tempting crusade. That the dar- ing to follow that route cost the Hfe of many a bold trader and devout priest no one can doubt, nor that it was a much traveled route notwithstanding. In 1640 we find the Iro- quois in constant warfare with the French. In 1645 their IRONDEQUOIT BAY. 23 Strife is fiercest with the Hurons, and in 1650 it is all over with the Hurons, and the Iroquois is their merciless victor. About 1633 they had, by their tomahawks, effectually ended the neutrality of the Neutrals, the Indian tribe whose do- main lay between them and their foe, and in whose wig- wams the fierce Hurons and relentless Iroquois had met on neutral ground. That decisive battle had been fought near the present city of Buffalo, and the remaining Neutrals, as captives, were in time absorbed in the confederacy, — a fact explaining how the Jesuit missionary, with whom they were well acquainted, found admission to the Long House.^ In 1669 La Salle, on his first visit to Irondequoit Bay, found Father Fremin at the Seneca village, now Bough ton Hill, in the town of Victor. In 1678, when the famous explorer went sailing from La Chine to Niagara, he again stopped at Irondequoit Bay, and once more visited the principal village of the Senecas, where Father Gamier was laboring. Park- man gives graphic descriptions of these events. Father Lamberville was at Onondaga Castle in 1684, where he was a zealous missionary for sixteen years. Father Hennepin was associated with La Salle in his expedition to Niagara Falls, and it was Father Hennepin who made the first sketch of the cataract, and wrote the first description on record. A study of the unique drawing naturally leads us to regret that he did not leave us a sketch of Irondequoit Bay, or of the mouth of the river, where his party ex- changed brandie for beaver skins with the natives. " Be- twixt the lakes Ontario and Erie," I give only the most notable clause of his description, " there is a vast and pro- digious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising ■ and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Switzerland boast of some such things, but we may well say they are sorry patterns when compared with this of which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible precipice we meet with 1 The Dutch at Albany had already interfered in vain for the release of Jesuit missionaries taken prisoners by the Iroquois in the defeat of the Hu- rons. 24 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. the river Niagara, which is not above a quarter of a league broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this descent that it violently hurries down the wild beasts while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, and not being able to withstand the force of its current, which inevitably casts them headlong above six hundred feet high." Slowly but surely as the years went by, Frenchman and EngHshman encroached more and more upon the Long House and upon each other. Trading-posts in the Senecas' country must be maintained at any cost. The English- man undersold the Frenchman, and the Frenchman in re- taliation made Irondequoit Bay one of the places where he landed arms and provisions to be carried into the interior, — to the foes of the Iroquois. This naturally enraged the Senecas. The French canoes were seized on one occasion and their cargo appropriated. The owners were released however, for a wonder, with terrible threats of what would happen if they repeated the experiment. That was consid- ered sufificient provocation for war by Louis XIV., and war upon the Iroquois was declared at once; more than that, his Majesty ordered that some of the Iroquois chiefs should be captured and sent to France to work in the galleys, for it was high time, thought he, that France should make an im- pression upon the haughty Iroquois unless she was disposed to let the English crowd her out of New France entirely. The time had come when the Iroquois must be subdued, and their trade with the Englishman ended, and the Iro- quois was in no gentle mood pondering the subject of the Frenchman's crossing his territory, helping his bitterest enemies to arms and ammunition. Why should he not trade with the Englishman if he chose .'' English rum was as good as French brandie, and had he no right to make the best bargain } " Neither of the Pale Faces is the Red Man's Master," said the Indian, hardly comprehending the true state of things. So when the Marquis De Nonville, the Governor of New France, moved up the St. Lawrence, June, 1687, at the IRONDEQUOIT BAY. 25 head of an army of some fifteen hundred Frenchmen and five hundred Indians, " to humble the Senecas/' he was striking a blow at the commercial interest of England, and at her claim to the territory of the Iroquois. At Fort Cataracouy (Kingston) he sent for the saintly Father Lam- berville, the devoted missionary to the Oneidas, to bring a delegation of Indian chiefs to his headquarters. Father Lamberville, relying upon De Nonville's word that it was to be a council of peace, easily persuaded the chiefs to ac- company him. Fifty of them were at once secured, put in irons, and sent to France for galley-slaves, the heart-broken Father Lamberville narrowly escaping with his life from his betrayed Indians. At the same time, the western Indians, ancient enemies of the Iroquois, were at De Nonville's command hastening to meet the French army at Irondequoit Bay. They had Tonti at their head, — Tonti the companion of La Salle. De Nonville had described him to the King as "a lad of great enterprise and boldness who undertakes considerable." The main army came down from the St. Lawrence by slow stages, encamping on the shore at night, making a halt where Pultneyville now is. We cannot learn that it was by shrewd management on the part of De Nonville that his eastern and western army met in the Bay upon the same day and hour, July 10, 1687. How vividly we can see them approaching each other, — the long lines of bateaux and canoes coming round Nine Mile Point, the naked and tattooed savages shouting shrilly to each other, the stately retinue of the Marquis, the vo- ciferous greeting of the two armies, when the western di- vision, following the Indian trail along shore, came within sight of the fleet. Up the bay, between the lovely head- lands, sailed the proud De Nonville, two hundred bateaux and as many canoes in his train. The canoes of that day carried oftentimes as many as twenty-eight men, " sol- diers, valets, and cooks besides." A palisade fort was at once thrown up where they landed, the precise location of which is a disputed point. As it was for the protection 26 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. of the water craft and military stores, we may reasonably believe that the old Indian landing on the east side of the head of Irondequoit Bay above the Newport House and the Float Bridge, at the "Dug Way," where the Indian trail from Victor came down to the water, was the Frenchman's landing-place. " Never had Canada seen, and perhaps never will see, a similar spectacle," wrote the French war correspondent, " A camp composed of one fourth regular troops, with the General's suite ; one fourth French militia, in four battal- ions, with the gentry of the country ; one fourth Christian Indians ; and finally a crowd of all the barbarous nations, naked, tattooed, and painted over the body with all sorts of figures, wearing horns on their heads, queues down their backs, and armed with arrows. We could hear during the night a multitude of languages, and songs and dances in every tongue." That was a gay night on Irondequoit Bay, gayest of any on its record. The Senecas were not so ignorant of the movements of the French army as was supposed. They had seen the fleet on the lake. Hidden in the woods they had tracked the western army. Swift runners had warned every village of the danger. They had even made over- tures for peace. "The devil take you," had been the Frenchman's response, and he took up his march into the interior, leaving four hundred men in the fort on Ironde- quoit Bay. We can imagine, if the mosquitoes of those nights were anything like those of these, that the curses of those Frenchmen were not all spent upon the " Sennekees." Those who care to read a minute detail of what followed De Nonville's appearance in Irondequoit Bay, — how the Senecas burnt their own villages and sent their helpless to places of safety, luring their invaders into an ambuscade ; the bravery of the desperate Frenchmen, the panic among the allied Indians, the defeat of the invaders, in short, al- though De Nonville before leaving took possession in the name of his king of the Senecas' country, — can find the story most graphically told, entertaining us by its contra- IRONDEQUOIT BA V. 2/ dictions, in De Nonville's official report, La Hontan's ac- count, and that of the English in several histories as de- rived from the Indians. L'Abbe de Belmont's History of Paris, a rare old book, gives a sprightly account of the event. A condensation of these various descriptions may be found in the Appendix of Turner's "Phelps and Gor- ham's Purchase," p. 465. The amount of the long and interesting story is briefly this. The Senecas had fled to the Cayugas, whither their foe thought best not to pursue them, to the great chagrin of the western Indians, who were disgusted with having turned out for the burning of a few bark cabins, "that could be rebuilt in four days," and to destroy corn that the confederates would make good. " Six days we were occu- pied in cutting down Indian corn with our swords," wrote a Frenchman. " We found in all the villages horses, cattle, and a multitude of swine." They naturally consoled them- selves by telling very big stories of the standing grain they destroyed, the beans, and the swine. Between the boasting accounts given by the French and the disparaging reports of the English, it is perhaps as well to accept Hosmer's " Yonnondio" as the truth of the mat- ter. " Two prisoners only were made by the invaders, old men who were discovered in the castle, and who were cut to pieces and boiled into soup for De Nonville's allies." ..." The loss of the French was one hundred men and ten Indians. The Senecas had about eighty warriors slain." "Thirteen captives were sent to France as gaUey-slaves," say English reports. This disagrees with De Nonville's re- port to the French Minister. " You ordered me to send you the prisoners we took. You have perceived, my Lord, it was impossible for us to make any among the Senecas." The white man who, years after, ploughed the land where this battle was fought, reaped a practical benefit ; for no less than three hundred hatchets and upwards of three thousand pounds of old iron were found, more than suffi- cient to defray the expense of the clearing. The early settler in the locality found many relics, — bill axes, gun- 28 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. barrels and trimmings, silver crosses and coins. Turner tells us that as late as 1848 two five franc pieces were ploughed up on the hill north of Boughton Hill. " A little east of the Pittsford road, near the old Indian trail, on the farm of Asahel Boughton, there was unearthed, a few years ago, a half bushel of iron balls, about the size of musket balls. In the early years of the settlement of Victor, the most of the iron the settlers used was the old French axes the plough would expose." . When that fleet of bateaux and canoes withdrew from Irondequoit Bay the French must have looked back at the sand-bar and the hills with a humiliating sense of the defeat they were slow to acknowledge. The Senecas had gone to the Fnglish, the spies reported, and the English had been ready to help them. They had hardly seen the warriors who surprised them. They had been met by a few old men and squaws, and a few hogs and cattle. From the headlands of Irondequoit Bay we see them hastening westward to Niagara, where they built a fort, and blustered mightily about exterminating the Iroquois. The Senecas returned at once to their trampled cornfields and ruined villages, the confederacy making good their loss. The following summer, after a by no means peaceful in- terim, we see Irondequoit Bay again covered with canoes, for the Iroquois are still on the war-path against the hated Frenchman. Twelve hundred braves are hurrying to at- tack the island of Montreal, destroying everything belong- ing to the enemy that lies in their path. Even as the French cut down the Senecas' corn with their swords, the Senecas are cutting down hundreds of helpless and sur- prised pale faces, burning houses, sacking plantations, and torturing prisoners. The remembrance of that invasion of Irondequoit Bay and of their chieftains in the galleys of the French king was the inspiration of the massacre. " Only three," it is on record, " of the confederates were lost in all this scene of misery and desolation. Noth- ing but the ignorance of the Indians in the art of at- tacking fortified places saved Canada from being utterly IRONDEQUOIT BA Y. 29 cut off." To make a long story short, lest we wander too far from Irondequoit Bay, the captive chiefs were sent home from France, handsomely laden with presents, and " the fierce and insolent Senecas " were no nearer utter extermination than before. The court of France had its eye upon Irondequoit Bay without doubt, when in 1718 it sent forth an order to estab- lish " the trade for the King in the circuit of Lake Ontario, and to build magazines on the south side thereof," and in 1719 Sieur Joncaire was sent to "try the minds of the Sen- nekees " upon the subject of building a house on their lands, and the defense of it in case the English should have a different plan. Fine presents were sent to the Senecas, belts of wampum, powder, lead, and above all " brandie." A favorable answer was sent back by the crafty Senecas, which was followed by several visits from Joncaire, *' in a canoe laden with merchandise." We read that, because of the ice, he was detained one winter at the river Gascon- chiagon (Genesee), his detention doing " an abundance of damage to the trading because that the magazine at Ni- agara was without merchandise until the spring ; " and we incline to believe he put into port at Irondequoit Bay, and followed the old Indian trail from its head to the Genesee River, the spot where the Canadian Indians always landed when, from friendly motives or otherwise, they would push into the interior. Irondequoit Bay did not escape the eye of the English- man. The first settlement of an English colony in West- ern New York was made on its shore. October 16, 1721, Governor Burnet writes to the Board of Trade, that in order to improve " the present good humor " of the Indians he had spent five hundred pounds upon a settlement at Iron- dequoit Bay, " whither there are now actually gone a com- pany of ten persons," a son of Peter Schuyler heading the expedition. "This company," he wrote, "have undertaken to remain in this settlement, and that never above two shall be ab- sent at once, and that these have the sole encouragement 30 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. at present out of the public money ; yet there is nothing that hinders as many more to go and settle there or any- where else on their own account as please. . . . This place is indisputably in the Indians' possession, and lies very con- venient for all the far Indians to come on account of trade, from which the French at Niagara will not easily hinder them ; . . . they may easily slip by them in canoes. . . . This, my Lords, is the beginning of a great trade with all the Indians upon the lakes ; and the cheapness of all our goods, except powder, above the French will by degrees draw all that trade to us, which cannot better appear than by the French having found it worth while to buy our goods at Albany to sell again to the Indians." We must inchne to believe it was to this post on Ironde- quoit Bay the French Minister referred in a letter to the Court of France, May, 1725. The news of this establish- ment on soil always considered as belonging to France appeared to him the more important as it made the pre- serving of the post at Niagara more difficult. " In losing Niagara the colony is lost," as well as the trade with the upper Indians, "who go the more willingly to the English since they obtain goods there much cheaper and get as much brandy as they like, which we cannot absolutely dis- pense furnishing the upper country Indians, though with prudence, if it be desirable to prevent them carrying their furs and surrendering themselves to the English." When Pitt, in the English Parliament (1758), urged his measure for a vigorous and decisive campaign against the French in North America, the prompt annihilation of French dominion, and an end of the long trouble about lake supremacy and Indian trade, he brought Irondequoit Bay into history again ; for the British army in splendid array, with a large force of Iroquois, — the Senecas almost alone standing off from the contest, or remaining in French alliance, — were soon sailing over Lake Ontario for Fort Niagara : " two British regiments, a detachment of the Royal Artillery, a battalion of Royal Americans, two battal- ions of New York Provincials, and a large force of Indian IRONDEQUOIT BAY. 31 allies under the command of Sir William Johnson," eclips- ing completely the glory of the French army under De Nonville that came sailing round Nine Mile Point some seventy years before. What with the gay trappings of the lordly Britons, and the gayer trappings of the more lordly Indians, Irondequoit Bay must have been in a glare of color that early summer eve when this armament encamped on her shores. How much the success of the expedition in defeating the French was owing to that night's camp on Irondequoit Bay the historian has left unnoted ; but that the inspiration for the victory, which culminated in the re- linquishing of the hold of France uj^on Western New York, and the ultimate alliance of the French with the Amer- ican rebels in the Revolution, was largely if not wholly the result of a night spent at Irondequoit Bay, we who know the weird magical influence of the place are inclined to persist in believing. Hennepin's Picture of Niagara 32 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. V. THE CITY OF TRYON, ON IRONDEQUOIT BAY. The Nile has its Cheops, and the Euphrates its Babylon, and Irondequoit Bay its city of Tryon. Rochester looks back to Falls Town, i8 12-18, proud of its antiquity. It may be doubted if many of our good people know that in 1799, when nothing but a disreputa- ble mill stood at the Genesee Ford near the Falls, Tryon Town, or the city of Tryon, had been laid out, and was seemingly on the high road to prosperity. Four families had settled in " the metropolis," and one of them, Asa Day- ton, was mine host of the popular tavern, while Stephen Lusk was at the head of the leather concern, leaving John Boyd, and Asa Dunbar, a mulatto, to look more particularly after the general commercial interests of the town. Tryon Town was to be the queen city of the fair Genesee Country. Tryon Town was to be the great shipping port. Her prophets looked over the tranquil bay and saw it teem- ing with heavily freighted vessels, each one a tributary to the wealth of their merchants, a visible throbbing of the commercial heart of Canada. The first flour shipped from Western New York to Montreal went out from Tryon Town. Village lots were laid out and sold, a warehouse five sto- ries high was built, a mill costing fifteen thousand dollars, an ashery, and a distillery. The customers for its "store" were from a wide section of country. The solitary settler over at Oak Orchard Creek thought nothing of running down to Tryon Town to barter his black salts for a paper of needles, a bit of tea, or possibly a deer-skin, in exchange for a bottle of " sure cure for chills and fever." It was the THE CITY OF TKYON, ON IRONDEQUOIT BAY. 33 resort of hunters and trappers, both white and Indian ; and in 1 801, when Silas Losea set up his blacksmith shop, and a Lynch Court was established, and Oliver Culver was shipping one hundred and eight barrels of pearlash a year to Montreal, and ashes brought one shilling a bushel in trade at Tryon's store, the " boom " of the city of Tryon was at its highest pitch, to die out, alas ! as suddenly and completely as many a real estate boom of to-day. Maude, an English traveler in Western New York in 1800, wrote thus of Tryon Town : " There was a city laid out at the head of Irondequoit Bay, as formerly supplies from New York destined for our western posts were sent to the head of that bay, . . . there, freighted in bateaux, to proceed through Lake Ontario to Niagara River ; thence to be taken across the portage to Fort Schlosser ; and there reem- barked to proceed up the Niagara River, through Lake Erie," etc. The city was laid out at the head of the bay. Tryon Town is a thing of the past. It is as if it had never been. With the development of the water power of the Falls its sun sank to rise no more. Tryon Town was one of the five aspirants in Monroe County alone, not including Frankford, for the honor of the metropolis of the Genesee Valley. These aspirants, look- ing scorn at the " God-forsaken mud-hole at the Falls," were, besides Tryon Town, Carthage, Hanford's Landing, Castle Town, and Pittsford. Sodus, in Wayne County, with its unsurpassed harbor, and the lavish expenditure of the Pultney estate, seemed likely at one time to make Monroe County secondary to Wayne. To have said that Falls Town might possibly bear off the municipal honors had provoked derision indeed. Anything but Falls Town would do that. Pittsford was a pretty village long before Falls Town was hardly better than a swamp. Carthage and Han- ford's Landing were fierce rivals for metropolitan ascen- dancy, while Castle Town, — what should hinder Castle Town, with Colonel Wadsworth's influence in its behalf, from becoming the head centre of what was bound to be the greatest wheat raising district in the country? "And 3 34 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. where was Castle Town? " some of you are asking, — some of you who live within sight of its ancient borders. The place goes by the name of " the Rapids " to-day, and we smile at its old time presumption ; but there are not a few among us who can remember when the steamboat left Rochester every morning for Geneseo, stopping, if neces- sary, at Castle Town, and when the Durham boats added to its activity, to say nothing of the cheery horn of the daily stage. If the Erie Canal had crossed the river at Castle Town, " some things," as Sam Patch used to say, " might have been done as well as others." It may well be questioned if Cleveland and Detroit are not largely indebted to the city of Tryon } If the great oaks that from little acorns grow are under any obligations whatever to said little acorns, Cleveland and Detroit must own that one of the sources of their early prosperity was in the ambitious trading-post on Irondequoit Bay. Oliver Culver, famous among our best pioneers, superintended that big ashery at Tryon Town for three years. He saved his money, and in 1804 bought up a large share of the goods the Tryon Town merchant was glad to sell at a low fig- ure, and with these he went to Cleveland. There was but one trader before him. Indians brought him their furs, and the Pennsylvania settlers drove their pack-horses to his cabin laden with whiskey and brandy, butter, cheese, and honey. He could sell salt at three dollars a bushel, and his Tryon Town goods brought a quick sale and large profits. The suppressed spirit of the disappointed city seemed to liave found an outlet for development. From Cleveland Oliver Culver went to Detroit, where he did well in apples and white fish. He returned to Western New York a few vears after to buy his broad farm lands, and settle down for life. Why are not Cleveland and Detroit indebted to Tryon Town, and shall we not establish its just claim for recog- nition .-• The Float Bridge is to the physiognomy of Irondequoit Bay what a pair of spectacles would have been to Red Jacket. It is more convenient than picturesque, and pos- THE CITY OF TRYON, ON IRONDEQUOIT BA Y. 35 sibly all who cross over it, or fish from its mossy planks, do not know the plucky enterprise of the men who built the first Float Bridge, or revised and amended the old one a few years later. The name of John McGonegal should be on its foundation stones, if it had those appendages ordi- narily necessary to a bridge. It is hard saying just what the Float Bridge depends upon for a foundation. Brush, logs, flags, and muck are made somehow to hold it up ; for the stories the engineers tell as to the amount of dirt that was dumped into that bay, and all for little use when a solid foundation was sought for, makes the average fisherman even stare with amazement. When the Plank Road Com- pany, in 1849, tried to raise the eastern embankment some eighteen inches, it was estimated it would cost about ^20. Night after night the bay swallowed all the dirt that was drawn on during the day ; and when something akin to per- manence was gained at last, the elevation had cost ^700. Its history has not been as well preserved as we could wish, but from all we can learn it was first built about 1836, as a private enterprise, and at great trouble and expense, con- sidering it was a float bridge after all. It opened a new thoroughfare for our city, and is the highway of a large section of country. It is one of the available good fishing places for the boy who delights in a walk of three or four miles with a rod on his shoulder, and has always been the favorite resort of the embryo Isaak Walton. •A 36 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. VI. THE GENESEE OF THE SENEGAS. Irondequoit Bay had its city of Tryon in 1799. Its twin brother, " The Mouth of the Genesee," was then a wide spreading marsh, with Httle promise of a city on its banks at the Upper Falls. "The Little Senecas " River ran through its forest pri- mceval, and bold indeed was the invader who followed its windings into the interior from the lake, while the Senecas were lords of * the domain. The Genesee was the strength of the Senecas. We find it so spoken of in an old colonial document, November 12, 1685. " The Senecas being the strongest are the most insolent. The idea must not be entertained that this nation can ever be reduced except by being in a position to pounce upon them." This proposed pouncing was rendered most diffi- cult, it was affirmed, because of the navigation of their river, the Genesee, " which is full of rapids and cascades, impas- sable except by portages, independent of the distance." " The Gasgonsage " was one of its early Indian names, meaning " Something alive in the kettle." Charlevoix's description, written as early as 1721, is of interest to the dwellers along its banks to-day. " It is very narrow, and of little depth at its entrance into the lake. A little higher it is one hundred and forty yards wide, and they say it is deep enough for the largest vessels. Two leagues from its mouth we are stopped by a fall which appears to be full sixty feet high, and one hundred and forty yards wide. A musket shot higher we find a second of the same width, but not so high by two thirds. Half a league THE GENESEE OF THE SENEGAS. 37 farther a third, one hundred feet high, good measure, and two hundred yards wide. After this we meet with several rapids, and after having sailed fifty leagues farther we per- ceive a fourth fall, every way equal to the third. The course of this river is one hundred leagues, and when we have gone up it about sixty leagues we have but ten to go by land, turning to the right to arrive at the Ohio, called La Belle Rivihe ; the place where we meet with it is called Ganos, where an officer worthy of credit (Joncaire) assured me he had seen a fountain, the water of which is like oil, and has the taste of iron. He said that a little farther there is another fountain just like it, and that the savages make use of its water to appease all manner of pains." This is perhaps the earliest advertisement of the famous oil of the spring in Cuba, Alleghany County, on record. The distance from the third fall to the fourth, from Roch- ester to Portage, seemed somewhat longer to Charlevoix than it really was, but his inaccuracy is readily forgiven, considering the discomforts of the journey. He makes no allusion to the fall that used to be just below the old ford, about where the aqueduct now stands. That fall was some fifteen feet high, and was removed when the foundation stones of the aqueduct were laid, and when other large en- terprises requiring stone were going on, leaving a gradual, shelving slope in the river bed. So much have our de- mands narrowed the old bed of the river we cannot wonder or complain at an occasional assertion of its rights. Front Street, the old settlers tell us, used to be a high water creek, a considerable island lying between it and the main chan- nel. Once, the width of the Falls was their chief beauty. Daniel Webster, it will never be forgotten, immortalized their height in that memorable speech of his to our citizens. " Men of Rochester, I am glad to see you, and I am glad to see your noble city. Gentlemen, I saw your Falls, which I am told are one hundred and fifty feet high. That is a very interesting fact. Gentlemen, Rome had her Caesar, her Scipio, her Brutus, but Rome in her proudest days never had a waterfall one hundred and fifty feet high ! Gentle- 38 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. men, Greece had her Pericles, her Demosthenes, and her Socrates, but Greece in her palmiest days never had a wa- terfall one hundred and fifty feet high ! Men of Rochester, go on. No people ever lost their liberties who had a water- fall one hundred and fifty feet high ! " But to return to Charlevoix's description. Some of those first reports from the Genesee Country were not marvels of accuracy to say the least, as when one official correspondent wrote (1790) of the total exemption from all periodical disorders, particularly the fever and ague, ** which does not prevail in the Genesee Country on account of the rising grounds and fine situations." The mouth of the river as we see it to-day, with its piers and light-house, its dry beach on either side, bears little re- semblance to the wide marshy channels, a kind of swampy bay, through which the Senecas used to glide in their elm bark canoes. When "Walker, the Ranger" built his soli- tary log-cabin on the east bank about 1779, ^^^ ^^^-^ rnost adverse to having neighbors within twenty miles even, a sailing boat of any pretension whatever could not enter the Genesee " save when the wind was right." In digging the cellar of the Spencer House a few years ago the stern of an old schooner was found, record of a wreck at least a hun- dred years before. Underneath it an Indian paddle that crumbled when touched. The fame of the beauty of the Genesee River, its falls and picturesque gorge, preceded by many years that of its extensive hydraulic power. The fame of its fevers and rattlesnakes was possibly in advance of either. Rattlesnakes and fever and ague gave it an unattractive individuality, in spite of its abundance of deer and other game. The beaver, forever associated with Father Hennepin's brief visit in 1679, was nearly extinct when the Senecas gave up their hunting-grounds. Ikit there were bears, otters, musk-rats, and minks, wild ducks and geese, and not a few wild cats or panthers. The old trails of the Iroquois that crossed the bridgeless Genesee are still our highways. Their old ford at the Falls is the heart of our metropolis. State Street and Lake THE GENESEE OF THE SENEGAS. 39 Avenue is an old trail, and Indian Trail Avenue, in IMt. Hope, is the veritable path the red man followed from the pinnacle in his thoroughfare to the river. But the Genesee in this locality failed to attract the set- tler long after Avon had a bridge, and Wadsworth's lands had been largely taken up. The tourist to Niagara Falls by canoe, or on horseback, if not on foot, endured greater peril and hardship for the picturesque than he was inclined to suffer for the settlement of new lands. The Genesee Falls were beautiful to contemplate, providing one's stay in their neighborhood was not protracted, and we hear of the heroic hardihood of famous foreigners and eminent Ameri- cans, who counted sleeping one night at Walker's, and eating fried raccoon, as nothing to "the thrills of ecstasy" the scenery afforded. Aaron Burr and Theodosia made the journey to Niagara on horseback in 179S, he turning- aside at Avon to see the Genesee Falls. In 1797, Louis Philippe, with courtly gentlemen of high degree, endured the perilous ride through the forest from Canandaigua to see the wonderful cataracts of which they had heard so much. Mrs. Orange Stone, who lived in the old house still to be seen just beyond " the Rock and Tree," near the junc- tion of East Avenue and Clover Street, had unmistakably the first royal dinner party in the Genesee Country, for the distinguished gentlemen sat down to her table on their way. It is barely possible that there may yet be found in the old house, standing corner-wise to the road, something, though, it be only a door latch, that came in contact with the royal exiles, who, we are told, made their journey from Canan- daigua to Elmira on foot along an Indian trail. There, an American bateau was built for them, and through the Che- mung and Susquehanna they sailed down to Harrisburg. Stealthily as the Senecas guarded the door of the Long- House the white man crossed its threshold and finally sat down by its fires. He had come to stay. Civilization and barbarism were looking each other squarely in the eye. The white man said he would give the red man so many dollars for a part of the Long House. The red man thought 40 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. well of the offer, but he did not like to sell west of the Genesee River. He would part with two millions and more of acres on the east side, but the west must remain his own. " But," says the white man, " I must build a mill at the ford where you as well as the settlers can grind your corn. What is all this tract to me without a mill, and what is a mill without a yard 1 " Grinding corn in a stump mortar had its inconveniences even for an Indian. So the white man staked out his mill yard, twelve miles by twenty-five, reaching from what is now Caledonia to Lake Ontario, from the Genesee twelve miles wide, and the Indian was content. What did the red man know about a white man's necessity in the way of a mill yard ? When the mill was built at the ford, a shanty twenty- six by thirty feet, the Indian went down to take a look at it, naturally expecting to see something in harmony with the size of the yard required. " Ouoat ! " was his mut- tered surprise, adding " kauskon chicos ! " which in Seneca meant "waterfall." "Waterfall" was the name they called Mr. Phelps, the purchaser, ever after. Once when his agent denied them whiskey, telling them it was " all gone," " no, no," they persisted, "Genesee Falls never dry." And so it came to pass that the Falls on the Little Sene- cas River and that part of the Old Long House surround- ing them passed into the hands of the New Tenant, who had had, as we all know, a sorry time in getting a foothold at all since he first crept in with covetous intent. Stump Mortar. THE TITLE DEED OF THE NEW TENANT. 4.I VII. THE TITLE DEED OF THE NEW TENANT. That undisputed axiom, unpalatable as it is to the weak in their struggle for survival, "no one may claim as his right what he cannot defend," had fullest illustration in what came to pass after the discovery of the New World by the white man. Discovery and possession were one and the same thing, and the royal patrons of the adventurers who planted the standard of their king on many a bleak head- land of the Atlantic coast proceeded at once, in gratitude for the same, to make generous gifts of the new territory to colonists, with charters for government. What so easy as royal largess of millions and millions of acres of wild lands, when Indian right and preoccupancy were as nothing, and geographical lines of still less account } As might have been expected, the same territory was in several instances given to different parties, and colonial claims overlapped each other, as in the case of the lands in the State of New York, including "the Phelps and Gorham Purchase," the tract in which lies the section claiming our special interest. Probably the kings of Great Britain knew as little of the geography of North America as some English subjects of to-day, who ask if the Rocky Mountains can be seen from Boston, and possibly it mattered little to them who in the end should carry off the prize, if they might have the sat- isfaction of tossing it into the arena. In 1620 the King of Great Britain gave to the Plymouth Colony a wide strip of country, an immense back yard, several degrees of latitude in width, and reaching, of course, " from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean." William and Mary in 169 1 granted a sec- 42 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. oncl charter for this same territory, changing the bounda- ries somewhat, but the matter of a few millions of acres was insignificant in such lavish transactions. Charles I., in 1663, granted to the Duke of York and Albany the prov- ince of New York, and that meant not only the present States of New York and New Jersey, but westward indefi- nitely from a line twenty miles east of the Hudson River, and from the Atlantic Ocean north to Canada. Here are two royal grants covering the same land, a large portion of Western New York. Then there was peppery Connecti- cut, with her good claim and charter, not for this same land, but for the southern portion of New York, and the northern part of Pennsylvania, and a good bit of Ohio. We drop the discussion of that unpleasantness and its final settlement to keep to our own thread of the story. What wonder that when in the fullness of time the matter of settling state boundaries and jurisdiction came up there were knotty questions, each claimant with a chartered right to the same acres. It is a long story of labyrinthine legali- ties that Henry O'Reilly treats in detail in his admirable " History of Rochester," under the head of the Lands of the Si.K Nations. Commissioners were appointed by the State of New York, and commissioners were appointed by the State of Massachusetts to unravel the tangled skein. They met at Hartford, 1786, and by mutual concession the mat- ter was amicably settled ; Massachusetts ceding to New York all claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdic- tion of all land west of the present east line of the State of New York, while New York ceded to Massachusetts the fee of the land subject to the title of the natives "of all that part of the State of New York west of a line drawn from a point on the north line of Pennsylvania, eighty-two miles west from the northeast corner of said State, due north to Lake Ontario, excepting a strip of land one mile wide ad- joining the eastern bank of Niagara River, the whole length of said river." The land thus ceded to Massachusetts con- tained about six millions of acres. The Iroquois, as has been stated, save a small minority. THE TITLE DEED OF THE NEW TENANT. 43 had been allies of the British in the Revolution, and had forfeited their lands, no provision having been made for them by the British in the treaty of peace. The general and the state governments, however, had dealt with them as repentant children, and the first Constitution of the State of New York recognized their right to the soil, de- claring the purchase of lands from them unlawful, unless such purchase was made under the authority and with the consent of the legislature. The State claimed, moreover, the exclusive right to buy the Indian title to the land not ceded to MassacJnisctts, and that MassacJiusetts alone, or her representatives, could purchase the land so ceded. The no- torious scheme of the lessees, in this connection, will in- terest those who would make an exhaustive study of the subject. Massachusetts, financially embarrassed, was ready and eager to sell her New York lands, and Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, as representatives of an association, stood ready to buy, offering for the same, in the paper of the State of Massachusetts, three hundred thousand pounds, to be paid in three annual payments. In April, 1788, the Legislature of Massachusetts ceded to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham all of said land for that price, on condition that they would extinguish the Indian title. The ^ , State of Massachu- ^M^tiMh?^ setts appointed the Rev. Samuel Kirk- land, for many years the faithful and be- loved missionary to the Iroquois, to pro- tect them from any wrong, and to hear and present their side of the mat- ter. In July, 1788, at a treaty at Buffalo Creek, the final nego- Indian Treaty. 44 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. tiations for the great purchase by Oliver Phelps, on behalf of himself, Nathaniel Gorham, and their associates, were concluded. Our Senecas, who had sullenly hung back from the sale, refusing to part with their lands, were represented by many of their chiefs. They had come to the treaty, however, determined to stand firm against selling a foot of ground west of the Genesee River ; but they yielded at last, and the Mill Lot, twelve miles by twenty-four on the west side, was added to the lands they sold east of the river. Said Mill Lot included the One Hundred Acre Tract, the nucleus of a city incorporated forty-eight years after, in 1834, with 12,289 inhabitants and " thirteen hundred houses besides publick buildings." About two millions six hundred thousand acres in all were then and there ceded by the Indians to Phelps and Gorham, for five thousand dollars, and an annuity of five hundred dollars forever to the Senecas, which is still paid to the previous tenant of our section of the Old Long House, by the State of New York. Phelps and Gorham, having extinguished or purchased the Indian title to about one third only of the lands of Massachusetts in the State of New York, found them- selves unable to make the required payments for the bal- ance, and so made application to the State of Massachusetts for confirmation of the part so purchased and release from payment for the remainder, the unfulfilled contract to be annulled. By act of the legislature in November, 1788, the title of Phelps and Gorham to the land granted to them by the Indians was confirmed. Afterwards the un- fulfilled part of their contract with the State was cancelled, and they required to pay only a just proportion of what they had agreed to pay for the whole, something over one third. Among the unforeseen events bringing about this result was the advance of 'the currency in which they had agreed to make their payments, it having risen from about fifty per cent, to near par. Massachusetts gladly acceded to the petition. Its financial troubles were lightening, and the enterprise of Phelps and Gorham had greatly enhanced I'en-nsyf-^'^'^i-^'^'- THE TITLE DEED OF THE NEW TENANT. 45 the unsold lands. There was far more money in taking back what Phelps and Gorham could not pay for, than in trying to hold them to the original contract. The lands in our section of Western New York belong to the tract of which Phelps and Gorham were the purchasers. The title deeds are derived through their undisputed title. One of the first conveyances made was that to Ebenezer Allan of one hundred acres for a mill and a mill yard. Townships were at once laid out and the sales began, Oliver Phelps opening the first land-office in America in Canandaigua, 1789. What better inducement could be held up to the would be pioneer than a sound title deed .'' We read in that interesting little book, " The Rochester Directory for the village of Rochester, 1827," how in the spring of 1788, before setting out for the Genesee Country where the final treaty was held, " Oliver Phelps, living at Granville, Massachusetts, prepared himself with men and means to explore the Genesee Country, and with great res- olution and intrepidity took leave of his family, his neigh- bors, and the minister of the parish who had assembled on the occasion, all in tears, and started on his expedition, — they bidding him a final adieu, scarcely hoping ever to see him return again from an Indian country hardly yet paci- fied. . . . The kindness, however, and good faith with which Mr. Phelps, like the celebrated William Penn, always con- ducted his intercourse with the Indians, did not fail to se- cure their confidence and affection ; in token of which they adopted both him and his son, Oliver L. Phelps, as hono- rary members of their national councils." No doubt, many of our land-owners will be glad to read the following tribute to the memory of the man whose name makes good their right to their possessions, with hearty agreement with the writer of the same, — the Roch- ester historian of 1827, Jesse Hawley, the man to whom we are indebted before all others, perhaps, for the Erie Canal. " Oliver Phelps may be considered the Cecrops of the Genesee Country. Its inhabitants owe a mausoleum to his 46 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. memory, in gratitude for his having pioneered for them the wilderness of this Canaan of the west." OHver Phelps was a man of great enterprises, buying tracts of wild lands in many localities. He made large investments in the Southern States. His wealth was over- estimated, and his losses were in proportion to his risks, lie became a resident of Canandaigua in 1802, and died there in 1809. The inscription upon his tombstone, and that of Mary his wife, is singularly appropriate. Above his grave we read : — "Enterprise, Industry, and Temperance cannot always secure success, but the fruits of these virtues will be felt by society." Of " Mary, wife of Oliver Phelps, and daughter of Zach- ariah and Sarah Seymour; died 13th September, 1826, aged 74 years," it is recorded : — " She was alike unaffected in prosperity and adversity." Nathaniel Gorham, a Bostonian, never removed to the purchase with which his name is identified, and had but lit- tle to do with its management. His son, however, lived in Canandaigua many years, and died there in 1826. " Phelps and Gorham " are two names which have added much to the fair fame of the Genesee Country. To them we are indebted for a title deed, clean and just. ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. 47 VIII. ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. The first settler upon historic ground is likely to be a focal centre of the picture forever after. He is an optimist indeed who can contemplate the char- acter of Ebenezer Allan, our first settler, first miller, first householder, and not wish many wishes. Not the least of these would be that Ebenezer Allan's record, instead of being perpetuated, should be destroyed for the comfort of those who shall come after us. Then the historian of 1984, finding the name of Ebenezer Allan in the title deed of the old mill yard, might construct out of his sweetly tempered fancy a creation fitting the scriptural suggestions of the name and the time, and Rochester would have in its future art gallery, perhaps, the picture of a saintly Jesuit celebrat- ing mass in his portable chapel at the Genesee Ford, or a Puritan preacher, a hermit in his cave among the rattle- snakes, — and the children of that far off day would look at the picture and say, " There is the holy Joshua who opened for our forefathers this home in the wilderness." Another temptation must be met by the Rochester his- torian in dealing with " Indian Allan," — the temptation to substitute what Ruskin calls " invented effects of light and shade on imaginary scenes, for the providentially ordered fact." But Indian Allan is one of those " providentially ordered facts," that, like the Cogswell statue in our most public place to-day, make light and shade of no conse- quence whatever. Ebenezer Allan stands conspicuous on the pedestal of our first settler. For many years he was lord of the swamp, "monarch of all he surveyed." His in- 48 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. dividuality was too pronounced, his actions too emphatic, to be passed over with the alkisive suggestiveness that would leave my reader in doubt whether he was saint or demon, sinned against or sinner. We wish, for the fair fame of Rochester, that he had been a Champlain, a Standish, a Roger Williams, almost anything but the brutal Blue Beard he was, but we must tell his story true, and make the best of our " providentially ordered fact." Let us begin that story by telling the best thing that can be said of him. Mary Jemison, the "White Woman," was his friend. More than once his life lay in her hands. Her house was his city of refuge in many a bitter strait. Her allegiance to him was in her love of her race. That alone can account for it, for she was not in the remotest way a copartner of his crimes. Another thing may be said to his credit. It is not recorded that he was ever in his rela- tions with her anything but the gentleman he could be and was when he had selfish ends to carry. Her simple story of Allan begins as follows : — " Some time near the close of the Revolutionary War, a white man, by the name of Ebenezer Allan, left his people in the State of Pennsylvania, on account of some disaffection toward his countrymen, and came to the Genesee River (near Mt. Morris) to reside with the Indians. He was ap- parently without any business that would support him ; but he soon became acquainted with my son Thomas, with whom he hunted for a long time, and made his home with him at my house. Winter came on and he continued his stay. He was always honorable, kind, and even generous to me ; but the history of his life is a tissue of crimes and baseness of the blackest dye. I have often heard him re- late his inglorious feats, and confess crimes, the rehearsal of which made my blood curdle, as much accustomed as I was to hear of bloody and barbarous deeds." This Thomas Jemison was a kindred spirit of Allan's, a sorry drunkard, and given to brandishing the tomahawk over his mother's head in his drunken frenzies. Is it not Huxley who tells us that in the discovery of ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. 49 truth we must often let the imagination play around the phenomena ? That rule must help us in our brief study of Ebenezer Allan, for meagre are the facts upon which to build a biography. The man was a Tory refugee, one of Butler's Rangers, whom Sullivan had left stranded in the Genesee Country. His distaste for civilized life was plainly the outcome of associations with it. Something we may never know had embittered and poisoned him. That he was well known in Philadelphia must be inferred from the fact that for years after he was an Indian trader in the Genesee Country he used to visit that city annually and bring back a pack of goods, for which he was " trusted." Mary Jemison often had charge of his " box of trinkets." A peep into that box would doubtless reveal much of the strange man's history, for it was a precious box to him, although it may have con- tained nothing but the gewgaws with which he won the confidence of the Seneca squaws. His name, " Indian Allan," has left the impression that he was an Indian, But he was neither Indian nor half- breed. Tall and straight as an arrow, when as a young man he hunted with Thomas Jemison, his light complexion, gentlemanly address, and mild and conciliating voice did much in securing the loyalty of the Indians to his schemes for his own advancement, and usually at their cost. He was born to be master, and in his characteristic determina- tion to rule supremely, and that over abject slaves, we find the key to his exile from civilization, and the degradation of his supremacy thereafter. The vague glimpses given us of his face reveal an immobile determination that grew fiendish when his innate brutality was aroused, or his savage will thwarted by a dependent. Then he was the incarnation of cruelty, and his savage rage is associated with many spots in this locality. There is the grave on Shaeffer's Flats, Scottsville, of the boy he sent for a bucket of water, who played by the way, and was beaten to death on the spot. Our Genesee Falls were seemingly to him what the Divorce Court might have proved in a later day. Once when he 4 50 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. would go to Canada without the impedimenta of a certain wife, two men were hired to take her saihng down the fair Genesee in a canoe, it being arranged that they were to let her go over the falls that used to be near the present aque- duct, they swimming ashore, of course. The superfluous Mrs. Allan did not, however, go over the main falls, as it was expected she would do. She struck out for the shore, and gained it. Our imagination has unbounded opportu- nity for full play around the phenomenon of a wife who, under such circumstances, flies straight to her husband, and wins the journey to Canada after all. There is a story about the first mill irons of our first mill that we would gladly exchange for a fact proving them to be clean of blood. It stands recorded in O'Reilly's History, in the synopsis therein given of Allan's life, that while go- ing down in a canoe with these mill irons he drowned the Dutchman who was with him. Now ]\Ir. Shaeffer, the Scotts- ville veteran pioneer, who bought his farm of Allan, contra- dicts the report that the Dutchman was murdered by Allan, but admits that he and the mill irons went over the Falls, and that Dutchman, boat, and mill irons were found below the cataract, — giving no explanation as to how Allan was preserved to recover his irons and build his famous mill. A few more such phenomena will prove the exhaustion of the playfulness of our imagination, leaving the portrait of Allan too repulsive even for Mary Jemison to make somewhat at- tractive. He must have had the faculty of inspiring confidence and winning friends in a wonderful degree. He was no or- dinary man. His autograph shows that he was not wholly uneducated, and shrewdness and intelligence were ascribed to him by the many pioneers who knew him well. He used to travel about the country quite like a gentleman, or, as the Senecas called him, " Shin-ne-wa-na," which means the same thing. Two of his half-blood daughters were sent to. Philadelphia to school, he and his servant accompanying them, Sally, the Seneca mother, being permitted to follow the party as far as Canandaigua. ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. 5 1 But that incident anticipates the day of his prosperity, some time after he built the mill at the Genesee Falls. When Oliver Phelps, in 1788, soon after tlje famous pur- chase of Phelps and Gorham of the Genesee lands, with the extension for a mill yard on the west side of the river, gave Ebenezer Allan one hundred acres of that extension as a bonus for building mills to grind corn and saw boards for the settlers, he could not have known the real character of the man, although it must be admitted that his record at Gardeau Flats was by no means unknown. Perhaps the fact that Allan had been instrumental in preventing a foray of the Indians, and had been hunted and persecuted by the British and their allies, commended the man to his consid- eration, and Allan's smooth tongue and polite address did the rest. Moreover, Allan had the money to build the mill. Where else could be found so adequate a miller for a mill in a swamp, a mill as yet without customers, and which at its raising, although mustering every white man in the re- gion and the country round about, had but fourteen where- withal to make merry with the canoe load of rum which arrived at the mouth of the river just in season ? That was ninety-five years ago. Turn into Aqueduct Street, find the building on the east side next south of E. R, Andrew's printing establishment. That covers the ground where our first raising took place, 1788-9. That first raising would hardly adorn our history if fully de- scribed. Rum had much to do with all our early settle- ments. The Englishman's keg of rum, more than almost anything else, gave the white man foothold on the south- ern shore of Lake Ontario. While the hilarious company of Indians and white men are raising the timbers for Allan's mill, let us make a sur- vey of its environment. Upon all the lake shore between Oswego and Fort Ni- agara there was but a single cabin. That was Walker's, " the Ranger," at the mouth of the river. Walker was one of Butler's Rangers, and when they fled before Sullivan to Canada he concluded to stay behind and hunt, fish, and, 52 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. traffic with the bateaux men. Two women shared his lonehness, or, rather, welcomed him back from his frequent visits to Fort Niagara, when it was his custom to spread the alarm, " The Indians are coming ! " to scare off the squat- ters. There was a trading-post at the head of Irondequoit Bay, and a few Indian traders and squatters up the river on the flats. Shaeffcr had just bought Allan's farm at Scotts- ville. The Wadsworths had not yet turned pioneers. There was no bridge across the outlet of Cayuga Lake. The first road in all the country had not been made. Mr. Phelps had fixed upon the foot of Canandaigua Lake as the head centre of the purchase, but no one wintered there in 1788-9. At Buffalo Creek there was an Indian interpreter and two or three traders. Even Bath, for many years out- stripping Rochester in progress, was an unbroken wilder- ness until 1792. There was a British garrison at Fort Ni- agara whose deserters were frequently befriended by the Indians as they skulked through this region. Geneva had, however, made quite a start in the world, as its township was divided into lots, and it was doing a big business as an Indian trading post. New England knew almost nothing about Western New York, although it had shuddered at the accounts of the massacres of Cherry Valley and Wyoming. Its first missionary society for propagating the Gospel among the Indians on the frontier was not organized until 1796. The Rev. Samuel Kirkland, it is true, began his blessed mission to the Oneidas as early as 1766, and had visited the Genesee Country, writing letters to good Chris- tians in New and Old England of its pagan darkness ; but missionary letters then, as now, had narrow circulation. Stephen Lusk, of Pittsford, who among our pioneers was what a marked epoch is in a chronological table, came into "the new region " in 1789, and as he procured his wheat from Ebenezer Allan on what was afterwards the Shaeffer farm, we conclude his log-cabin was not built at the time of the " raising," and that he was not among the invited to the " Bee." The borders of the great Indian Territory of the unknown West were hardly beyond the roar of our falls. ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. 53 Britain's navy was barely represented on Lake Ontario, and three or four schooners were sufficient for its commerce. Geneva and "the Friends' Settlement," on Seneca Lake, were in fact the only clearings in the Genesee wilderness where a good start had been made promising the immediate and permanent occupancy of the white man, excepting Can- andaigua, and some might well doubt if Mr. Phelps would locate there at once, if at all. 1788. That was the year before George Washington was made first President of what seemed to be thirteen dis- united States. The predictions of our transatlantic foes were not unfounded. Alexander Hamilton, the youngest man in the national convention, was the leader of the Fed- eralists. The new Constitution had not been ratified. " It has an awful squinting," Patrick Henry was saying; "it squints towards monarchy. Your president may easily be- come a king." The city of Washington was unfounded, and New York, that was feverishly striving to be the seat of the national government, had a population of about thirty thousand. George the Third was temporarily insane, and the London " Times " in its very infancy. In the year 1789, the year the first mill at the Genesee ford ground out its first grist, and that seldom exceeded ten bushels a day, and grinding days were scarce at that, Neander was born in Gottingen ; and to-day Neander's library is one of the valu- able acquisitions of the Theological Seminary in the city of which that old mill was the prophecy. The raising lasted two days, and wound up with a dance. That the mill did not do a prosperous business is hardly to be wondered at. There were objectionable features in the domestic life of the miller, — in the moral atmosphere of the place. He was said to be a dealer in stolen cattle be- sides, and in league with the British and their Indian allies. His presence at the mill was never to be relied upon. His absence could be depended upon almost to a certainty. It was a hard mill to reach from the eastern side of the river. The settlers from Brighton and Pittsford, or further south, took the Indian trail running along the southeastern slope 54 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. of the pinnacle, and struck the river near Mt. Hope, pos- sibly following what we call Indian Trail Avenue. That detour was to avoid the marshes. The rest of the journey was made in canoes unless the river was low enough for fording. Fording near the mill was a dangerous experi- ment. As a rule every man was his own miller, and must camp in the deserted or preoccupied cabin at least one night, and exercise his mechanical ingenuity to make the old machinery grind his grist at all. Other mills soon sprang up in various localities, and Allan's was almost de- serted. It had several discouraged owners before it be- came the property of Colonel Williamson, the agent of the Pultney estate, who spent five hundred dollars on it, and then seemed to forget it entirely, for it was suffered to sink again into decay. In January, 1802, it was valued, with one hundred acres of land, at $1,040, and in 18 10 there was but a half acre of cleared ground at the Falls, and that was around Allan's old mill. There is a story of the old millstones and irons which must not be forgotten. The stones were taken from a neighboring quarry, we are told, although some of our old settlers affirm that they were brought from Massachusetts on wagons, and were the gift of Phelps and Gorham or the State of Massachusetts. The irons were bought in Cohocton by Allan, and brought to the mill by Indians on pack-horses. Some say Allan drove the horses alone, walking the whole way. In 1806 these stones and mill irons were carried to a small mill on the Irondequoit by Oliver Culver, Miles Northrup, and Benja- min Blossom, and set to work again. For twenty-five years they did good service, and then again the sound of their grinding was low, and they were allowed to lie neglected and forgotten on the banks of Irondequoit Creek. Happily for the preservation of these, our most venerable municipal antiquities, a few years ago Jarvis M. Hatch, president of "The Young Pioneers," instituted a search for Allan's old millstones. One was found hidden in the weeds, the other serving as a horse-block for a Brighton farmer, one side ARRIVAL NUMBER ONE. 55 having been sledged off in accordance with his views of what a horse-block should be. "The Young Pioneers" soon placed a handsomely dressed stone before the farm house, and bore off their treasures, and laid them where they may be seen unto this day, in the City Hall court- yard, the foundations of the high lamp posts. Enos Stone's reminiscence of the old mill dates back to about 1790. " I carried some grain to Allan's mill, to get it ground for my brother Orange, and I had to remain over night. Allan was there on a spree or carousal. To make a feast he had sent Indians into the woods to shoot hogs that had gone wild, and he furnished the whiskey. There were many Indians collected there. It was a high time, and the chief of the entertainment was enjoying it in great glee." For twenty years after the building of Allan's mill there was little or no effort towards further settlement in its local- ity. Fevers and agues, rattlesnakes, swamp land, and mos- quitoes gave " the falls " an unattractive notoriety. Allan had not added to the charms of the place. When in 1809 the petition for a bridge across the Genesee at the Falls was presented to the legislature, great was the derision thereat. Was there not a bridge at Avon forsooth } Who ever heard of taxing a people for so unjust a measure .-' "Must musk-rats and squirrels have a bridge across the Genesee "i " " It is a God forsaken place, visited only by straggling trappers and British deserters, through which neither man nor beast could gallop without fear of starva- tion or fever and ague." The bill passed, notwithstanding, and we are told that the political party seeking its defeat paid dearly for its opposi- tion to "unjust taxation." The settlement had made an early start but very slow progress when contrasted with the other settlements of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. The bridge at the Falls in 18 1 2 changed matters. The dangerous ford, the steering for the old sycamore -tree, and the not infrequent strug- gles with the deadly current were things of the past, even 56 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. if we have to admit, that for several years as many set- tlers cleared out disgusted as resolved to stay. Land was cheap, terms easy, and not a few had spent their all in emi- grating to the Falls, where sickness as well as poverty des- tined them to grow up with the country. Ebenezer Allan died in Upper Canada about 1814, leaving many descendants. In 1821 a man calling himself Seneca Allan appeared in Rochesterville, claiming to be a descend- ant of the first miller, and more than that, the rightful owner of certain lands within the city limits. Those who remem- ber him as a frequenter of the " Republican" office, often waiting articles for the same, describe him as " very much of a gentleman." He retained the best legal talent of the village, and but for the fact that the plaintiff was cut off suddenly by an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, the aforesaid legal talent might have been handsomely re- warded. Ebenezer Allan has left his name upon the lovely creek that, rising in Wyoming County, passes through Warsaw, Middlebury, Covington, Bethany, a corner of Stafford, Le Roy, and Wheatland, and finds the Genesee at Scottsville. The people of Le Roy, we are told, have considered giving it another name, that of Oatka, "coming out from between high banks." " Ginisaga" is its old Indian name, and really there seems no good reason for calling it Allan's Creek a day longer. SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 57 IX. SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. Before concentrating our interest upon the One Hun- dred Acre Tract and its next door neighbors, generously included in the village of Rochester, let us take a brief survey of some of the earliest pioneers upon the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, the first among those to whom the new title deed was conveyed. Jemima Wilkinson, "The Universal Friend," is an inter- esting study of religious fanaticism. We find her with a band of devoted disciples among the earliest pioneers of the Genesee Country, one of her colony having given her one thousand acres of land at Jerusalem, near Crooked Lake, where her singular community had decided to locate that they might live in separation from a naughty world. The credulity of her disciples was as marvelous as their subjection to her whims. The order to fast forty days on bread and water, or to wear a cow-bell on the neck, or so- journ in Nova Scotia for three years, if given by her was submissively complied with, for was she not the Second Coming of Christ, fulfilling the prophecy in Rev. xi. 3-13, and were not James Parker and Sarah Richards her " two olive-trees," and " two candlesticks " standing " before the God of the earth " 'i She had every qualification for a suc- cessful mission of the kind — illiteracy not excepted — and a readiness to perform miracles, see visions, and dream dreams. She prohibited her followers from marrying, and husband and wife joining her ranks must live separate if they would have her favor. There was a certain com- munism of property, she expecting to inherit that of her 58 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. subjects as a matter of course. She could not disappoint them, it appears, in any way, not even if she declared she could walk upon Seneca Lake and would, her followers carpeting the ground between her carriage and the bank with their white handkerchiefs when she drove up to make good the assertion. They had built a platform over the water, as if they would see her launch out upon a consid- erable depth to begin with. But she is equal to the occa- sion, and so is their faith. She demands to know the pre- cise condition of their confidence, and having been assured that it is as a rock, she serenely tells them that the miracle is wrought if their faith is sufficient, and that it would be a questioning of the same for her to display the power they already believed in. How such entertainment must have diversified the usual monotony of the life of a pioneer I We find the community sowing their first wheat in 1788. The first grist-mill in Western New York was at " the Friends' " settlement. Its site was two miles and a half from the present town of Penn Yan. The "Universal Friend" had many distin- guished visitors, and so helped to advertise the new lands. The Duke of Liancourt was less favorably impressed by her than many. "Her hypocrisy," he wrote, "may be traced in all her discourses, actions, and conduct, and even in the very manner in which she manages her counte- nance." Once when the Senecas encamped on her land, "Good Peter" preached before her in Indian tongue, and when she asked to have his words interpreted, " If she is Christ," said Good Peter, "she knows what I said." This much for a glimpse of an extinct fanatical sect that did much for the opening of the Phelps and Gorham Pur- chase, but rebelled against militia muster to their cost. Another more successful fanaticism had its origin among the early settlers. The Gold Bible of the Mormons was said to have been found in its soil, for Joseph Smith, the prophet, was the son of a pioneer of 18 19, who settled in the town of Manchester near Palmyra. Rochester nar- rowly escaped the notoriety of publishing the first Mormon SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 59 Bible, for it was the prophet himself who in the year 1829 addressed Thurlow Weed in the " Telegraph " office, saying he wanted a book printed, — that he had been directed in a vision to a place in the woods near Palmyra, where he had found a golden Bible, etc. The little he read to Mr. Weed, from a tablet in his hat, sent him elsewhere with his golden Bible, but Rochester may boast of having declined the pub- lication of the same, although Mormonism was first intro- duced to the public in an editorial of Henry O'Reilly's, which appeared in the " Republican," in 1830, Mr. O'Reilly speaking of it as an "absurdity;" and yet Joseph Smith and his recruits were highly pleased at seeing themselves in print, and reminded Mr. O'Reilly many times afterwards of his having introduced them to the newspaper world. Many of the townships and villages of what is now Mon- roe County were far in advance of Rochester as pioneer settlements. It was in 1790 that the Twenty Thousand Acre Tract, now partly included in Rochester, was bought by Messrs. Ely, Pomeroy, Hunt, and Breck, and in 1796-7, when the ruins of Allan's mill stood alone in the wilderness at the Falls, four families settled at Hanford's Landing, arrivinsr in midwinter, making cabins of their covered sleighs until the new log-huts were ready for occupancy. They repaired the old mill sufficiently to make it saw boards for them, but it was not until some fourteen years after that the first store in all these parts was opened, the store of Han- ford at Hanford's Landing. The venerable building that used to stand on the east side of the boulevard was re- moved this spring (1884), and unfortunately before a photo- graph was taken, although it was on our list of illustrations. But there was neither store, nor anything else like civiliza- tion, when Thomas and Simon King, Elijah Kent, and Eli Granger kindled a fire on the snowy ground and gathered their little company around it to cook and eat their first meal in the Genesee Country. They were the first settlers upon the west side of the river below the mouth of Black Creek, excepting Indian Allan in his capricious visits to his SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 6 1 stone that run, rested upon it, so that in raising and lowering the stone to grind coarse or fine, the whole wheel, which was a monster, with the stone upon it, had to be raised with the bottom timbers. This was done with a monstrous lever which run the whole length of the mill, tapering to near the end, which was managed by a leather strap put twice around and fastened to the timbers at one end, while at the other end hung a huge stone. The bolt was carried from a screw made on the shaft under the stone, into which a wooden cogged wheel was geared, in manner similar to an old pair of swifts. The ground meal as it ran from the stone fell upon a horizontal strap about six inches wide, and ran over a wheel at the far end of the bolt. This strap ran in a box on the upper side, and as it went over the wheel, the meal was emptied into a spout and carried into the bolt. In grinding corn, this spout was removed and the meal fell into a box made for the purpose. The bolt, however, had to go constantly, as the science of mill mak- ing here had not reached that very important improvement of throwing out of gear such machinery as is not wanted running. But that was to me a charming mill ! It rum- bled and rattled like thunder, and afforded much amuse- ment to the boys, who, like myself, formerly assisted in the ponderous operation of ' hoisting the gate.' The gate hoisted with a lever similar to the one that raised the stone ; a bag of heavy weights was hung to it, and then it was a half hour's job for a man to hoist it alone. When once hoisted it was not shut again until night, the stones being let together to stop the mill between grists." Harford's old mill was upon the site of the Phoenix Mills of to-day, and was among the antiquities of the region when, in i8i6, Elisha B. Strong and Elisha Beach bought one thousand acres, said acres including on the map of Phelps and Gorham what the pen of the map-maker, at least, had decided should be the city of Athens some day. The two Elishas undoubtedly accepted the surveyor's man- tle of prophecy, but for some unexplained reason, probably because like Carthase of old its site was favorable to the 62 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. natural development of a city, and that it was a quarry for its neighbors as well, they gave us Cartilage instead of Athens, and at once proceeded to make good the ruins promised in the classical name ; for we find them the very next year, before a single good road had been made to their ambitious clearing, building a bridge, the like of which was only to be seen in Switzerland, — the bridge at Schaffhau- sen, to be sure, which was only twelve feet longer span than this daring leap across the Genesee, where the banks were upwards of 200 feet high. It was a single arch, crossing the river between the Lower Falls and what we still call the Landing ; and when it was built, the most lofty single arch in Europe was 116 feet less in length than this in a vi^ilderness, and Europe had not an arch so high by 96 feet. The length of that wonderful bridge was 718 feet ; its width 30 feet. It was the missing link be- tween the Ridge Road and the great thoroughfare that luas to be over another bridge across Irondequoit Bay, and along the northern townships of the purchase. What was the low wooden bridge at Rochcsterville in comparison with this magnificent structure.'' The joint stock company which had given this visible sign of their faith in the future of Carthage proceeded to other enterprises. A store-house and wharf was built on the river, and a road down to the same ; and William Acer built his substantial tavern, draw- ing the oak timber for its beams from his farm in Pittsford, and said tavern can be seen among our ruins of Carthage unto this day. William Acer was father of John Acer, mine host of the old Phoenix of Pittsford in pioneer days, and was one of the early settlers who first bought lands of the Indians, and whose title was afterwards confirmed by Phelps and Gorham. The descendants of John Acer, among whom are Mrs. George W. Fisher of our city, are still in possession of the broad farm lands William Acer settled upon in 1791, said property having been held by the family ninety-three years. The Carthage bridge was a short-lived wonder, but hap- pily for the builders it did not tumble into wreck until it I \ SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 63 had lasted longer than the time they had guarantied it should stand, or lose payment for its cost. It stood a lit- tle over one year, and went down without loss of life, the first of a series of Carthaginian failures that left such scanty provision of relics behind, that the antiquarian of modern Carthage, like him of the ancient city, is found regretting the want of evidence that would assist in reconstructing the venerable metropolis. But as ancient Carthage had its monument in the Cathedral of Pisa, so the Carthage of the Genesee gave from its quarry the foundations for our first aqueduct and many more enduring enterprises. The defect of the bridge was in its famous arch, which gave way when there was no weight upon it. It lacked " bracing," and was'symbolical of many a grand land speculation of the time. So much for the environment of Rochester, at the time when Colonel Nathaniel Rochester with his family of five boys and five girls arrived at their new home in the village in 18 18, and took possession of what was a very delightful residence in those days, even for a gentleman's family, — a substantial, roomy house on Exchange Street that had been occupied by Dr. Levi Ward, a suburban residence, with a fine view of the river and its woody banks and of the isl- and, where the kine fed in the meadow. Very picturesque was the scenery on the opposite bank, and they were not so very far from the spring of water that soon gave its name to the street where it was located. The country road between the house and the river led directly to the Corners, and there was prospect of having an Episcopal church in the neighborhood. There is nothing about the " Break o' Day House " sug- gesting the faintest kinship to the old home of Colonel Rochester, — the hospitable mansion with its well kept gardens and trim flower-beds and pear orchard, — and it seems an unkind freak of fortune that the house which radiated so many blessings should in its old age have fallen from its high estate.^ 1 Colonel Rochester not many years after built the house on the corner of 64 ROCHESTER: A Sl^ORY HISTORICAL. In September, 1800, for we must go still further back if we would see this new home in its relations, four Mary- land gentlemen, well mounted and attended, set out from Hagerstown to see the Genesee Country, of which they were hearing so much. They were gentlemen of means, long- established position, and eminently associated with public affairs. Their names were Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, Colonel William Fitzhugh, Major Charles Carroll, and Colonel Hilton, fast friends and old neighbors. One of them at least, the Christian father of a large family of boys, was considering if it would not be far better for those boys if they were removed from the influences of slavery. His final decision is inferred from the fact that he with the rest of his party made large purchases of land in Livingston County, near Dansville. In 1802, Colonel Rochester, Colonel Fitzhugh, and Ma- jor Carroll bought the " One Hundred Acre " or Allan Mill ;^, Tract for seventeen and a half dollars an acre ; . the site origi- nally given to Ebene- y^ zer Allan as a bonus for building his .T^ mill at the Falls. In May, 18 10, Colonel Rochester closed up his business in Maryland, having decided to move his family to Dansville. Colonel Fitzhugh and Major Carroll would fol- low as soon as they could dispose of their plantations or ar- range to leave them. The removal of three such men from the county seat of Washington County, Maryland, was con- sidered a public loss, and has proved a fast relationship Spring and N. Washington streets, where he lived until his death in 1S31. There have been but few changes in this old house, which is rightfully called the old Colonel Rochester Homestead. i SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 65 between Hagerstovvn and Rochester, which one party at least has never forgotten. Colonel Rochester was the first to take his departure. When that well-remembered caval- cade, — two family carriages, the colonel and his five boys on horseback, and one of his daughters besides, two or three great wagons with four heavy horses each, ten slaves, these the members of two entire families including an old grandmother or " mammy," all under the charge of expe- rienced teamsters, — when this cavalcade passed slowly down the main street of Hagerstown bound for the Genesee Country, the thoroughfare was lined with townspeople, and not a few watched it as they would a funeral train. There was much tearful hand-shaking ; none were too lowly to bid "the Col'nl" good-by. One young man of good family begged the privilege of driving Mrs. Rochester's carriage himself, and was accorded what he esteemed a privilege, and which added greatly to the comfort and safety of the family under his special care. The names of those boys setting off so elate were William, John, Thomas, Nathaniel, and Henry : the eldest aged twenty-one, the youngest a little fellow of four years old, who rode a pet pony and hardly left his saddle in the day-time, during the long journey of nearly a fortnight, save for a nap in the carriage, or when the party was resting at a wayside inn. He remembers dis- tinctly the good road they passed over most of the way, how they crossed the mountains and struck the west branch of the Susquehanna, then onward through the forest to Lycom- ing Creek, and the excitement their arrival made at the little villages along the route ; for very few, if any, of the emi- grants to the Genesee Country had gone through Pennsyl- vania with such an outfit. Moreover Colonel Rochester's previous visits were well remembered, and the event of the removal of his family from an old homestead in the garden of Maryland to the Phelps and Gorham Purchase excited much comment, and not a few of our best settlers are among those who in time followed that cavalcade "up to York State." Some of Colonel Rochester's old Hagers- tovvn neighbors soon took up their line of march as his 5 66 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. followers, among whom are the Stulls of Rush, and other German families, — our townsman Joseph A. Stull being a direct descendant of a Hagcrstovvn pioneer. " Little Henry's" reminiscences of that eventful journey are full of interest ; impressions of the beautiful mountain scenery, the trout-brooks, the occasional block-houses, the hospitality of the residents along the road, the startling ac- cident when one of the teamsters was killed by falling un- der his wagon while descending a steep hill, the arrival at Painted Post and Bath, and finally the entrance into Dans- ville, quite a stirring place even in 1810, but made more so by the addition of a large land-owner, who bought the bor- ders of the mill creek on both sides, and soon had them buzzing with mills of almost every kind ; for in the five years that Colonel Rochester lived in Dansville, he built and carried on a flour-mill, a large paper-mill, a saw-mill, and attended to his farm and wild lands besides. When we remember that he was then past the prime of life, and not as vigorous as some at sixty years, the man's character is more fully appreciated. Is it to be wondered at that Mrs. Rochester found ample opportunity for the development of the contentment which characterized her whole life in the new country, and although depressed at times with longing for the old associations in Maryland, made her new home so charming that her family had few longings for Hagers- town .? In 1815, we find Colonel Rochester on his great farm in Bloomfield, a farm still bearing the name of " the Rochester Farm." He had sold his interests in Dans- ville, and would sooner have moved to the village of Rochester, where he was obliged to spend much of his time looking after his real estate, but the trouble with Great Britain, the fear of an invasion, made it an unde- sirable home. He lived on the Bloomfield farm for three years, and in April, 18 18, moved his family to the village, which counted among its scanty honors the name of RocJi- cstcr above all others. Our pioneers are fond of telling how the news of his decision to reside here was received. It was the uppermost topic at the " Corners," men shaking SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 6/ hands over it as they did at a later day when hearing of a great victory, and just here one of Edwin Scrantom's stories must not be forgotten. " The Colonel lived in a house with a large garden, on the corner of Exchange and Spring streets. He was an early riser and used to work in his garden before breakfast. I remember standing timidly on the outside of his fence one morning watching him. After a while he looked up and said pleasantly, ' Come in and I will show you my gar- den.' " (How much is revealed in this picture of the sim- ple kindness of the man, for Edwin Scrantom was then a "printer's devil," and undoubtedly a fair specimen of his inky craft.) " He spoke very kindly to me, asked my father's name, and looking at my green, lank figure, added smiling, ' You are neither man nor boy. I call you a hobble-te-hoy.' He went on with his work, giving me a pleasant lecture on industry and early rising which I never forgot . . . One day when he was setting out some pear- trees, and I stopped to watch him as I fell into a fashion of doing after that morning whenever I had time, he said, ' I don't know as I shall eat any fruit from the trees I am planting, but as I eat from trees somebody planted for me, I must set out trees for those who will come after me.' He always gave me something to remember and think about." Another boy of that day tells how his mother bade him always to take off his hat when he saw Colonel Rochester, for it was not every boy who knew a man worthy of the honor. Among the many stories that might be told illus- trating Colonel Rochester's strict integrity is the one re- lating to the stormy political times of 1826, when De Witt Clinton and Henry Huntington were the Clintonian nomi- nees for governor and lieutenant-governor, and William B. Rochester and Nathaniel Pitcher were the " Bucktail " or Democratic nominees. There was much betting, and Henry E. Rochester, not of age, having just received one thousand dollars for a lot on Spring Street which his father had given him, took up several bets, amounting to one thousand dollars, upon Pitcher's election, — his inbred deli- 68 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. cacy prohibiting his betting on his brother's chance. He won the bet and his money, and went home jubilant enough with two thousand dollars in his pocket. " I am sure your father will disapprove," said his mother, when he natu- rally expected the congratulations of his family ; and sure enough, the good Colonel was soon asking, from his quiet little room adjoining the parlor, where he usually sat apart in the evening over his papers and books, the cause of Henry's hilarity. The case was plainly stated. " This money must be refunded," said the Colonel at once. " Not one penny of it can you keep ; " dwelling in his clear, kindly way upon the evils of betting, and the influence his sons should be careful to exert in the community. What made the misdemeanor most unpardonable in his eyes was the fact that his son's intimate knowledge of the inner workings of political influences, which made him sure at the outset that Pitcher would be elected, had not prevented his betting. His words carried conviction, and the next day Henry was seen looking up the losers on the bet, and returning the money. The majority, if not all of them, were comparatively poor. One man named Kennedy, a book-keeper in Beach & Kempshall's mill, who had lost his bet of two hundred and fifty dollars, was stoutly determined not to accept the money. It was a fair bet and it should stand ; but a letter from Colonel Rochester himself inclos- ing the check and begging him to remember his duty to the community brought about the desired result. . . . Some three weeks after Colonel Rochester gave his son Henry E. the deed of another lot on Spring Street, worth two thousand dollars, and which was sold afterwards for six thousand, A wiser leader, a safer counselor, was never given to the builders of a city. A true gentleman, never forgetful of the rights and the welfare of the laboring classes ; a true Southerner but a truer patriot ; a consistent Christian whose faith leavened the homeliest acts of his life, — what city in all the land wears so fair a name as ours } Not only is the name of Nathaniel Rochester our inheritance, but his im- SOME OF OUR FIRST FAMILIES. 69 press upon our formative period is still seen in our city's in- dividuality, in a certain conservatism, a sturdy adherence to what has been proved good, no matter what the fashion of the times ; in a sure progress rather than headlong rush, an unpretentious hospitality rather than dazzling display. Our first miller may be forgiven us when we find " the old mill yard " transformed under the proprietorship of a gentleman who was far less the land speculator than a public bene- factor. j^".' ^ t. ^ ^x: ^ ««ii.HjmiT-iir» u Mr •?• / // The Carthage Wooden Bridge, 1818. yo ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. X. A DISMAL SWAMP. The bridge across the Genesee at Falls Town was built in 1812, a detachment of troops to the Niagara frontier cross- ing on its sleepers. Colonel Rochester did not become a resident of the place for some six years after, and James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, who was watching his survey of the One Hundred Acre Tract, and his sale of lots, wrote to Colonel Troup : " I wish that tract of one hundred acres could be bought of the Maryland gentlemen. The bridge and mill seat render it very valuable indeed." But Colonel Rochester was by no means inclined to change his plans. He had made Enos Stone his local agent, and a letter written by him to our first pioneer settler on the east side of the river will be read with interest. Enos Stone's orig- inal farm covered the most thickly settled portions of the east side of to-day, and he was the first purchaser of a lot in "the old mill tract." ^^ --^^ Dansville, 14th August, 18 II. Dear^ Sir, — Inclosed I send you a plat of the village of Rochester^at the Falls of Genesee River. I have sent on advertisements to the printers at Canandaigua and Geneva, mentioning that I have laid out a village, and that you will shew the lots and make known the terms on which the lots are to be sold. The terms are for lots No. 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18, 30, fifty dollars each; for lots No. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, thirty dollars. No. i, two hundred dollars, the rest that are numbered are sold. Persons purchasing A DISMAL SWAMP. 7 1 must build a dwelling-house or store-house, not less than 20 X 16, bythe first of October, 1812, or the lots will revert to the proprietors, and the advance of five dollars be for- feited. Five dollars are to be advanced on each quarter acre lot, and twenty dollars on lot No. i, the residue to be paid in two annual payments with interest thereon. If any person wants a lot above the head of the race on the river, tell them that I will be down in October to lay out lots along Mill Street, up the river, and these lots can be had for building warehouses on the river at fifty dollars for a quarter acre lot. Bridge Street, Buffalo Street, Mill Street, and Carroll Street are six rods wide, the other streets are four rods, and the alleys twelve feet. You will observe that lots No. 26, 27, are to be but three rods on Bridge Street, but extend back more than ten rods, owing to the angle in the street. When I go down in October, I shall lay out the streets, alleys, and lots agreeable to the inclosed plat. Nathaniel Rochester. And here is the list of lot buyers in the village of Roch- ester, or Northampton, Genesee County, if we are to be exact. The sales following Enos Stone's purchase of lot 36 at $$0 are as follows, beginning December 29, 181 1 : — Henry Skinner, lot No. i $200 Hamlet Scrantom, lot 26 50 Isaac W. Stone, lots 23, 34 100 Abraham Starks, lot 20 50 DaA^jd C. Knapp, lots 21, 22 200 Amasa Marshall, lot 25 50 Apolenus Jerry, lot 32 125 Israel Scrantom, lots 18, 19 100 Luscum Knapp, lot 45 60 Hezekiah Noble, lot 5 60 Joseph Hughes, lots 15, 62 80 Ebenezer Kelly, lot 16 60 Ira West, lot 3 3° Ira West, lots 50, I r5 260 72 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Elisha Ely, lots 39, 40, 41, 133 360 Porter P. Peck, lot 154 100 Josiah Bissell, Jr., lots 7, 13, 31 260 Stephen Lusk, lot 6 50 William Robb, lots 61, 62, 63, 116, 117 . . . . 800 Michael Cully, lot 79 100 Cook and Brown, lot 83 100 Harvey Montgomery, lot 88 250 Roswell Hart, lots 8, 56, 57 400 Charles D. Farman, lot 129 300 George G. Sill, lot 154 90 James Stoddart, lot 130 100 Fabricus Reynolds, lot 131 200 Only one of these lots reverted, and nearly all were paid for by the original purchasers. ^ Few villages were offering lots so low, but it was Colonel Rochester's idea that good settlers must be land-owners, and that the real value of his property was in the character of the men who first settled upon it. At the time of his death in 1831, there were but four places in all New England with a greater population than Rochester, Western New York. The immigration that followed his purchase of the mill tract not only exceeded former years as to numbers, but also as to the respectability of the immigrants. Our pioneers as a rule were not the " flood wood " of the East, but men of good family, and ex- ceptional enterprise. They were substantial merchants and mechanics from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and New England, who had higher aims than their own personal success. Hamlet Scrantom's name must head the " Arrivals of Families " on the Old Mill Lot Register. Enos Stone's has the honor for the east side, for in 1810 he and his wife and "the hired girl" raised the first white man's cabin on the bank about where the new Osburn House now stands. The framework of that historical edifice may still be seen in the rear of No. 28 Elm Street. The story of Hamlet Scrantom's arrival is familiar to many of us, so graphically 1 See Turner's Phelps and Gorhani's Purchase, p. 587. A DISMAL SWAMP. 73 has it often been told by his son, the late Edwin Scrantom, to whom we are indebted for many a unique picture of pioneer days. Hamlet Scrantom was living in Durham, Connecticut, when in 1805 he first succumbed to the western fever, and had a brief convalescence in Lewis County, in this State. But a relapse resulted in his visit to his old neighbors, the Wadsworths in Geneseo. There he met with Henry Skin- ner, who had bought lot No. i (now Powers Corner), at Falls Town. He would build a house on it for his friend Scran- tom if he would only settle there, a tempting offer accepted at once ; and we see Hamlet Scrantom setting forth from Turin, Lewis County, one April day in 1812, ox-goad in hand, his wife and six children comfortably packed with the household goods, the dinner chest, and the "bunks," in the big canvas topped wagon that his neighbors undoubtedly watched until out of sight, with predictions it was as well he did not hear. His oxen were strong and so was his wagon, a good beginning ; and there was an extra horse, the pet of the children, for a hard pull, or for a change to the ox-driver and the older children, who must walk some of the way. Hamlet Scrantom was a little late in getting off. As a rule, the emigrants chose sleighing for many reasons. Better cross a frozen stream on the ice, than try fording a swollen one when the spring freshets were coming down. The Cayuga bridge they find cannot be crossed, because of some accident it has sustained from the ice; but a big scow takes them all aboard, a drove of oxen as well, and their shipwreck had been inevitable but that their bedding was sufficient to stop up the hole made by the heavy tramp- ing of the cattle. Eight days brought them to Canan- daigua, where they hear nothing cheering from the Gene- see Country : far from it. The bridge is not yet finished there, and fording the Genesee in the spring is to take one's life in his hand. Had they not heard of the man swept over the Falls, not a week before, — he and all his household goods .'' He had been buried in a coffin made of one of his boxes, close to the river below the Cataract, 74 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. the first white man's grave in that locality. Those Falls would prove no good to anybody with their eternal roaring, and had they heard of the rattlesnakes, the fevers, and the mosquitoes ? Hamlet Scrantom did not turn back, however, nor is it on record that his wife and the six children lifted up their voices and wept because he did not. The ninth day brought them to Orange Stone's, by "the Rock and Tree." Yes, the bridge was building. It would be done in the summer. They had better not try fording the river any lower down than Castle Town. I£nos Stone had a boat at his saw-mill, but crossing there was risky unless the river was low. So they followed the trail back of the pinnacle and struck the river just above the Rapids. One Gid Allen was to ferry them over. A young fellow named Zachariah Lewis pushed the boat out into the swollen stream. They slept at Castle's tavern that night. There were other arrivals before morning, when Hamlet Scrantom, all unmindful, I fear, that it was May Day, woke and called his big boys early, for they must yoke their oxen, and, leaving mother and the little ones behind, go down to the Falls and see what the new home looked like. Was not that the very first May party along the banks of the Genesee .-' We do not hear that they looked for trail- ing arbutus, but they had a sharp flurry of snow. And now we see the white horns of those patient oxen plunging through the wild grape-vines and tangled forest growth, that made " getting down " to what is now Buffalo Street a hard matter. The log-house they were looking for, and which they expected to find on the very lot where Powers Block now stands, was not so conspicuous as they expected. I doubt if any of the thousands, who, in the long, never-ending procession following that ox-cart, have brought up at our Four Corners, straining their vision for a first glimpse of the magnificence towering thereon, have ever anticipated more than did that shivering party who for a while looked all in vain. Their Powers Block was not to be found. Oh yes, there in the thicket, verily, a ^!& ^ A DISMAL SWA3IP. 75 pile of logs ! How glad we all are that Mrs. Scrantom had decided to rest one day at Castle Town. Mr. Edwin Scrantom shall tell the rest of the story in his own way : — " A few hands were at work building the bridge. They said that the men who were to build our house had been taken down with fever and ague, and had gone back to Big Tree (Geneseo). Going up a long ladder at the west end of the bridge we crossed on the string pieces of the two piers to the east side of the river, and found the tavern of Isaac W. Stone, a small wooden building on our present South St. Paul Street, near Main, the most commodious and roomy part of which was the bar-room. A little fur- ther south, and near where the east end of the Erie Canal aqueduct now reaches the bank, we found Enos Stone's house and family. He was building his saw-mill on the river near where Harvey Ely's mill was built afterwards. He said my father might move his family into a shanty he had lately moved out of. It was near his own, and what was more, father was to help in running the saw-mill." The next day, in the melting snow, we see the family moving into their new home, — a house with neither cellar nor chamber, an earth fire-place, and a smoky chimney! " Those sixty days," writes Edwin Scrantom, then a little boy, " were the longest and the dreariest wanderers ever saw in this world. Not an ounce of butter, tea, coffee, or sugar in the whole time." But the house over the river was " getting on." Hamlet Scrantom was turning out the boards at Enos Stone's saw-mill, and when the river fell, they were taken over the ford near our present jail, — by the old watchword no doubt, " Steer for the sycamore-tree ! " The Scrantom family then, as now, were decidedly in- clined to making the most of "a high day." Having cele- brated May I St in a memorable manner, July 4, 18 12, finds them moving into the first habitation at the Four Cor- ners. ... "In the day-time we could hear and see the deer in the swamps. They went to what we called 'the deer lick ' for water, — a springy place near the corner of what •j6 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. is now Buffalo Street and Plymouth Avenue. At night we heard many wilderness sounds above the roaring of the Falls, — the mournful hooting of the owls, the sharp barking of the foxes, and sometimes the howling of the wolves. . . . We used to catch rabbits in our box traps, near where the Arcade now stands, and such bushels of butternuts as we gathered from the trees all along under the ledge of rocks that ran from the river near the old Allan mill, back of what is now the Wilder Block and Smith's Block and the Court House Square." Mr. Scrantom has told many stories of the rattlesnakes infesting that ledge. The Falls Town boy who did not have a string of rattles was like a Roches- ter boy of to-day without a collection of business cards. Here is Edwin Scrantom's description of his first sight of Allan's old mill that May Day, 1812 : — " Having calculated on what was needed for finishing our log-house we made for the river. A thick jungle of bushes, butternut-trees, and v/ild grape-vines lay all along the south side of Buffalo Street, and on the top of the ledge of rocks in the rear of the present buildings. We found an Indian path which led up to the top of this ledge, and climbing up we saw the ruins of the old Allan mill. The old wheels and the millstones were half buried in the earth. The hut where the bridge hands had slept the year before was empty. The door was opened, and when we peeped in there was an ominous rattling in the straw of an old bunk that demanded our presence elsewhere. . . . Enos Stone's clearing was then not so far east as Chestnut Street, nor as far south as Court. . . . The forest was un- broken between him and his brother-in-law, Moses Hall, save by foot-path, and Moses Hall's clearing was where Hiram Sibley's residence stands to-day Looking down the river from ' the Stone's ' there was no break nor open- ing. On the slope near Andrews Street of to-day there were large clumps of towering, wide-spreading cedars, the 'lovers retreat ' of a later era." A letter written by Hamlet Scrantom to his father may well be inserted here. A DISMAL SWAMP. yy July 28, 1S12. Hon. Father, — From the Falls cf the Genesee I now address you. I have purchased a lot in the village of Rochester, which is in a state of nature at present, but the prospect is very promising for business, in case the diffi- culties are settled between the British and American na- tions. A bridge is almost completed here which will cost $8,000, and roads centre here from all directions. The village is laid out on the west side of the river, and my lot is second from the river near the end of the bridge. Just above the bridge are falls of twelve feet, affording the best water-power for mills and machinery. The river is naviga- ble fifty miles above this place for boats, and from Lake Ontario, which is seven miles below, vessels can come up to within four miles of us. The river falls nearly three hun- dred feet in four miles. In sight of the bridge and about seventy rods below, the river is lost to the eye, where it falls ninety-six feet perpendicularly, and thence runs between high banks of some two hundred feet nearly to the lake. At the great falls below the village is a mill building, or rebuilding, calculated for seven runs of stones, only three of which will be put in motion this season. The country is very pleasant and fertile, very quick in the production of all kinds of cultivated fruits, and timbered with oak, chestnut, hickory, black walnut, and white wood, some of enormous size. I saw one white wood log twelve feet long, which produced one thousand feet of clapboards. To persons coming here let them inquire at Canandaigua for the new bridge at Genesee Falls. Farms hereabout are from five to fifteen dollars an acre. Village lots fifty dollars for a quarter acre. The declaration of war made a great uproar for a time and many families moved away from the west of us, but some are returning. About three thousand of the regular troops are stationed at Niagara, the lake shores are well guarded, and we do not apprehend that the British with all their Indians are able to subjugate the inhabitants of this western country. I arrived here with my family on the 2d of May, and with all the gloom of war, think I have 78 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. made a good choice for the future. I have moved across the river and am soon to put me up a house on my lot ; have tended saw-mill thirty-three days, and cut thirty-eight thousand feet of boards. The town where I reside is Northampton,^ village of Rochester, County of Genesee ; but letters at present had better be directed, town of Boyle, County of Ontario, Falls of Genesee River. A post-office will soon be established here, of which I will inform you. , . . I remain your affectionate son, Hamlet Scrantom. Letters like this did much for the settlement of the Genesee Country. All Hamlet Scrantom's old friends, relatives, and neighbors were soon made acquainted with the contents of that letter without doubt, and discussed the matter of "going west," if they did not at once follow his example. Times were hard, taxation oppressive. The Revolutionary soldiers had been discharged without pay. The patriots who had supported the war had been " made good " in government paper, and what was it worth .-' The army had left the work -shops and farms to the brave women, who had saved nothing for the support of disabled heroes. We had no commerce, and the fisheries had been abandoned. One thing we had, that every poor patriot winced under, a national debt of $100,000,000, and a gov- ernment powerless to collect duties on imports, or to com- pel the States to raise their part of the burden. The laws for debtors were severe, and who was not in debt or likely to be } The lands in the Genesee Country were very cheap, and the agents offered the most favorable terms. " Men are earning a dollar a day out there for their labor," was the report, "and buying land for twenty-five cents an acre." Men who could not pay twenty-five cents an acre were working it out, — men of good New England and Maryland stock at that. Wadsworth's handbills were posted up at the village stores, — " Wild Lands for Farms ! " and James Wadsworth in person was holding public meetings in the 1 Northampton reached from the Genesee River to Lake Erie. A DISMAL SWAMP. 79 cast, describing the Genesee Country, and urging emigra- tion to its fertile " flats." Tlie Pultney estate was also early in the field, and all that these agents said so elo- quently and persuasively was indorsed by the soldiers who had marched through the beautiful valley with Sullivan, the drovers of the great herds of cattle to Fort Niagara, the surveyors of the different agencies, and the tourists — an increasing cavalcade — to the Falls of Niagara. "The sons of settlers and trappers out there are making fifty dollars a season for musk-rat and coon furs! " some one would say, arousing the fathers and mothers of big families to face the fever and ague without further tarrying. " Wadsworth offers a premium of six bushels of wheat, a barrel of whis- key, and a barrel of pork for the first dwelling raised in a township. More than that, he '11 go to the raising bee ! " said another, and there was a pulling up of old stakes at once, and the yoking of the oxen into the big sleighs, whose boxes must serve for a roof until the log-cabin should be done. Good sleighing, or let us say " /(?/'<5'«/" sleighing, was the best help for the emigrant to the west. Then the streams were likely to be frozen over, the roads were fair as they could be, and one had a chance to get his crops into the new land in season. Game was plenty. There was no fear of famine where hunters were said to kill sixty deer in a season. " A hundred and fifty trout could be taken from Allan's Creek without changing ground." Bear steak was not bad eating, and bear skins made good breeches and bed covers. Raccoons were plenty enough, and some of the settlers ate fried raccoon three times a day. That was better than letting the thieves get the corn, and raccoon skins brought a good price. There was a bounty, besides, on wolves and wild cats. The lonely inmates of the cabins in the vicinity of Cayuga Lake saw the result of the con- sideration of all these minor items in the increasing num- ber of families "bound for the Genesee Country," who gee-hawed their oxen over the long bridge in the winter and spring of 1 812. It was a hard journey at the best. Streams and sloughs must not infrequently be causewayed, 80 ROCHESTER : A STORY IIISTORTCAL. and logs or fallen trees cut and removed from the track. The night camp after the first arrival at the new home was often on the sheltered side of a snow bank, mother and babies housed under the sleigh -box close to the big fire of hemlock boughs. The rifle was ready for any hostile intruder. The hospitality extended by forerunners in the wilderness was cordial and unbounded. The men turned out for " the raising," and to help split the bass-wood logs for the cabin floor ; while the women took the babies home with them, and kept them until the mother could get things "righted up a bit." In case of sickness, the backwoods' doctor had his remedies, and what was better for stiff joints and bruises than rattlesnake oil, and rattlesnake gall for any kind of fever t Rattlesnake gall pills were made up with chalk, and possibly — if the fancy were suppressed — no worse to take than some of our modern balms with sweeter names, and quite as beneficial. To the early pioneer death had terrors and inconveniences unknown to us, who have never had to give the seasoned timbers of our doors for a coffin, nor to hear the squaws wailing around our desolate houses in token of sympathy with our sorrow. The undeveloped salt springs of the Genesee Country were among its greatest attractions. How can we realize what " the salt difficulty" was to our forefathers '^. If they could do without it, their cattle could not, and there was the necessity of preserving food for the winter. When Peter Schaeffer first came to Scottsville, he paid seven dollars a barrel for salt, — six was the usual price. Seven dollars to Peter Schaeffer or any backwoodsman was a great deal of money, when nothing but potash or black salts was to be sold for cash, and that at great labor and disadvantage. There was nothing so scarce as money, however, not even salt. Peter Price paid ten bushels of corn for shoeing the first horse he ever owned in Rush, and horses managed, like their owners, to get along largely without shoes. Wheat even was not always "good for cash," in fact but seldom ; many a farmer had his granary full and was un- A DISMAL SWAMP. 8 1 able to raise money enough for a pound of tea. But if one could take time to burn over an acre or two of clearing, and leach the ashes, and raise a kettle somewhere for boiling down black salts, he could earn a little " store money," for potash, before wheat, corn, or anything but furs, was one of the resources of this wonderful country, and many a for- tune was made from the asheries. ABELARD REYNOLDS SELECTS A LOT ON THE ONE HUNDRED ACRE TRACT. I am permitted to make the following extract from the unpublished autobiography of one of our most esteemed citizens : — "Having decided on locating in Rochester (1812), I called on Mr. Stone and told him that was my decision, if I could be suited in the selection of a lot. He said I should have my choice, and taking the map of ' the village of trees,' we crossed the unfinished bridge on loose plank, descending the long ladder at the west end. Walking up to the Four Corners and looking at the map, I said I would take lot No. i (Powers Block). Stone said it was sold to Henry Skinner. 'Then I will take No. 22 (Elwood Block).' He said that was sold to Mr. Knapp. ... If he failed to fulfill his contract, I should have it. He recommended the Clinton House lot because it offered a prospect of a hand- some lawn opposite, in front of the Allan Mill, now Child's Basin. He said he considered that the pleasantest lot in the village, but it did not suit me. He then said that the two corners on the south side of Buffalo Street were unsold. I told him that I wanted a central lot on the north side of an east and west street, and that I would take lots 23 and 24 ; and as he had said that Knapp would probably relinquish his contract, I might be able to add that lot to the other two. But lots 23 and 24 were sold : the former to Captain Stone, and the latter to himself in payment for services rendered. I might have his lot, and he thought Captain Stone would sell his. We recrossed the bridge and called on Captain Stone. He said he 6 82 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. would assign the article for five dollars. I paid him that sum and he made the assignment. ... I found the side lines of my lot were not at right angles with Buffalo Street, which through carelessness I had not observed on the map. In the mean time, Knapp had sold the corner lot to Scofield, who asked more than I was able to pay. ... I pointed out the matter of the side lines to Mr. Stone, who thought there was no remedy. ... 1 proposed to Mr. Sco- ficld that he should give me twelve feet from his east front, and from that point run a right angle line with Buffalo Street, which would give him three feet of my rear for one of his front. He thought well of the proposition, and agreed to make the exchange if Colonel Rochester would consent. A man by the name of Marshall had bought lot No. 25, and would not consent to the arrangement unless I would move my east line twelve feet west, leaving my lots the same width as before. I claimed that I had the right to add the twelve feet to the width of my lots, but he would not yield, and as I lost no land by the operation, I came to his terms. Scofield and I then went to Dansville and sub- mitted the matter to Colonel Rochester, and he consented to the arrangement, and said he would change the side lines of all the lots from the corner lot to the river and make them at right angles with Buffalo Street. • . . While at Rochester, I learned that Oliver Robbins owned one hundred acres of land adjoining that of Enos Stone on his north line, and that it was good land and worth five dollars an acre. I called on Robbins and proposed to exchange my fifty acre farm at Washington for his hundred acres of wild land near Rochester. . . . We exchanged deeds, and he paid me the difference in property, among which was a valuable horse that brought us to Rochester in a cutter, that is myself and wife, her sister, Huldah Strong, and Wil- liam A., together with as many articles of iron ware as could be stowed away, perhaps half a ton. . . . For my ap- pointment as postmaster of Rochester, I was indebted to the influence of Colonel Rochester, through Henry Clay, his intimate friend, and the son-in-law of Colonel Thomas A DISMAL SWAMP. 83 Hart, a business partner of Colonel Rochester's. . . . Moving my family here in the winter, when everything wore an unfavorable aspect, I was surprised that my wife manifested no disappointment or depression. There were many hardships to be encountered, and it required resolu- tion and perseverance to surmount them. In the spring of 18 1 3, when I was prostrated with ague and fever, and for six months unable to attend to my affairs, being delirious a part of the time, the whole burden fell upon my wife . . . but she triumphed over every difficulty." . . . 84 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. XL ROCHESTERVILLE. 1812-1818. The names alone of those "first arrivals" at Rochester- ville in the dreariest days of " the City of Mud in a Dismal Swamp," the years between the building of the bridge and Colonel Rochester's arrival with his family as a permanent resident, explains the secret of its marvelous growth. Such men as Abelard Reynolds, Gideon Cobb, "the Elys," Silas O. Smith, Josiah Bissell, Jr., "the Browns," Ira West, Jehiel Barnard, Charles Harford, Dr. Elwood, Joseph Stone, and a score of others as enterprising, could not focalize upon an oasis in Sahara without making it to blossom as a rose; and Rochesterville, even under its maledictory cloud of an inva- sion from Canada, was blossoming beyond the expectations of the most sanguine. The trouble with Great Britain was a serious check on the growth of the place. " If there should be an invasion of the British from Canada," not only the fearful matrons of Rochesterville were saying, " the Gene- see River is the door they will come in by, and it 's little they will leave behind them but ruin and ashes." The de- struction of the bridge would be a great victory for John Bull, so the villagers kept watch of the foe, and not a few made preparation for instant flight, in case the news should come from Charlotte, " The British are coming ! " Yeo's invasion, and the stand of the noble Thirty-three, throws a brilliant glow upon this otherwise rather dusky page of our history. Of the invasion we will treat here- after. Let us first see what had been achieved by the little ROCHESTERVILLE. 8$ settlement between 1812-1818, the most of whose land- owners had bought lots on the One Hundred Acre Tract, and which numbered in 18 18 some 1,049 souls. EUsha Johnson had built the dam crossing the river by the present jail, and which still bears his name. He had also given us Johnson's Race, on the east side of the river. Perhaps in all our history we have nothing of more lasting benefit to record, nor anything more characteristic of our pioneer days, than the succession of blasts in Johnson's Race, which were the 4th of July "music" for 1817. Brown's Race had also been completed, and that of Roch- ester & Co., the latter between Exchange Street and the river. The expense of these improvements, and the engi- neering skill required, give us some idea of the type of men who had them in hand, — wise prophets of our prosperity. Wm. Atkinson's mill had been built on the east side, and the memorable "raising" of the Elys' "old red mill " in Aqueduct Street had taken place, when all the men and the most of the women in the settlement had turned out. The four run of stones at " the old red mill," like those at Strong, Norton & Beach's, and the others, were grinding day and night, for Rochester was making flour for the Eastern market as well as her own ; and what with a cotton- mill, a paper-mill, and saw-mills, Gideon Cobb's semi-weekly ox-team to the landing and back, a bath-house, a weekly newspaper, Jacks of all trades within call of the Four Cor- ners, every religious denomination pushing its mission in the Union Meeting-house, or working for a separate chapel, an occasional spelling-school, and a constant arrival of im- migrants converting every cabin into a boarding-house, — really Rochesterville was not the dullest place to live in after all. Our pioneer story-tellers give us spicy glimpses of those days, when Mrs. Reynolds' kitchen was the pleasantest place in the village, and folks went to Barnard's tailor shop not only for tailoring, but to mend or to have their shoes mended, or to enjoy a singing-school, a prayer meeting, an Episcopal service, almost anything enjoyable that the 86 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. genial Barnard could hold forth ; when the loss of a cow was a public calamity, and when for the support of a school the eight bachelors of the village agreed each to pay for the tuition of a scholar. Silas O. Smith had bought and cleared land where the Irving Block now stands, still the property of his heirs, and having sowed it to wheat and corn, as he used to tell the story, was relieved of the harvesting by the squirrels and coons. He had also included in his clearing the land afterwards given by Rochester, Carroll, and Fitz- hugh to the city for its court house and public buildings. Pomeroy & Mastick's law office was seldom free in those days from a crowd of half drunken Indians demanding a bounty for the wolves' scalps they had brought with them, and which they left in a pile outside. A few enterpris- ing citizens like John G. Bond had built as far back in the woods as Washington Street. Dr. Levi Ward had ar- rived, and was contributing to the welfare of the village in many ways. There w^as a causeway to Culver's, the Ridge Road had been improved, and the mails were fairly regular. Carthage still believed that she and not Rochesterville would be the city of the Genesee Valley, and Carthage had a considerable constituency. S. J. Andrews, a graduate of Yale, and Moses Atwater had wrought a transformation on the east side, in the vicinity of the Falls. Frankford was a rival not to be despised, and Hanford's Landing had become the great shipping point for Rochester flour, and the rivalry between the east and the west side of the river was intense. The population of this stirring clearing in the forest was mixed rather than rough, — idle drunken Indians, as well as a considerable sprinkling of Quakers, contributing to its unique variety. The resources of the place for the study of life in its manifold phases could hardly be called lim- ited when " Hot Bread " and his brother warriors and their squaws could be visited in their wigwams near the High Falls, if one was disposed to recreate elsewhere than in the Friends' meeting-house, or by going on a bear or rattle- snake hunt. The Quakers were a strong factor in our ROCHESTERVILLE. 8/ pioneer days, and a valuable one. There were the Colvins, hatters ; the Thorns, and Frinks, and Jacob Barrington, butchers ; Marshall & Dean, booksellers ; Laban Bunker, cooper ; the Colemans, clothiers ; Braithwaite, baker ; Lar- son & Johnson, boat builders ; the Frosts, the Congdons, shoemakers ; Bell & Lawton, carpenters, joiners, and cabi- net makers ; Philip Lyell, real estate ; Sylvester Cornell,, surveyor ; Lindley Murray Moore, teacher ; Jacob and Joel Pound, grocers, etc. ; Robert Staples, hides and leather ,: Gilbert Everingham, merchant ; Chester Garnsey, mer- chant ; Jacob Strawn, mason ; William Rathburn, grocer and "dealer in everything for cash and barter." A succes- sion of failures from 1830 to 1835 proved disastrous to many of these "Friends," and they lost in time their foot- hold here as a religious body, but many of our most estima- ble citizens to-day are their direct descendants. So wide- spread were the reports of the depth and the continuance of Rochester mud, one cannot help wondering how those good Quaker matrons were ever prevailed upon to settle here at all, and that not a few of them withdrew to Henri- etta. There is a story told of Daniel Quimby whose regu- lar appearance on horseback every Friday, no matter what the weather, coming in from "Hen-retty" under his broad- brim to attend Quaker meeting, was as reliable as an al- manac, and won for him the name of "our man Friday" from the Rochester boys. That was the day of the town pump and the drying-house for lumber, right on the Four Corners, no more in the way than the street car turning-table of a later period, — a day when the whole town turned out to a funeral, and the prov- ident man occasionally " dug his own grave " in the bury- ing-ground. A suicide's grave was usually marked by being cut in two by the spade ; and what with the fever and ague, and the British, and the rattlesnakes, and the mud, we won- der that the children who pushed through the brambles on a summer's holiday to find these exceptional hillocks, were so seldom rewarded for their pains. Those were busy times at Stone's and Reynolds' taverns. 88 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Dr. Ellsworth's hotel helped things greatly, but it was noth- ing unusual for new-comers to camp in their wagons for lack of other accommodation. When Dr. Jonah Brown ar- rived in 1813, he was thankful to creep under Miles North- up's canvas-top wagon that stood at the west end of the bridge, an Indian or two prowling about begging for whis- key. A settler who had bought a lot would drive his big wagon on to it, and his family would live in the same until the shanty was done, the good mothers of the village all calling on their new neighbor in the mean time. But lest I have failed to give the mud of the locality its preponderat- ing place in this picture, I must tell a story, told of the time when Buffalo Street was a kind of viaduct, and a villager seeing what he thought a good hat floating off on the mud, pushed out a plank for it, to discover a very angry man under its crown, a man by no means disposed to be trifled with. Could n't a man cross the street, to be sure, without being robbed of his hat } If Dr. Ensworth's " transients " complained of the state of their boots, he used to call for " hoe and broom " as nonchalantly as his successor touches the electric bell. Batavia was called " the slush tub." Rochester never fell so low as that. " I remember my first Sunday in Rochester," said Mrs. Carter. "It was in 1814. There was Enos Stone's family, Colonel Isaac Watson's, Abelard Reynolds', Hamlet Scran- tom's, Israel Scrantom's, Henry Skinner's, and Elisha Ely's. There may have been others that I have forgotten. The only pleasant room in the place was the cellar-kitchen of Mrs. Reynolds' house, and that stood where the Arcade did afterwards. ... I went to 'meeting' that Sunday in Bar- nard's tailor shop. Silas O. Smith had a few prayer-books and read the Episcopal service, and Mrs. Barnard, Delia Scrantom, and her father and mother did the singing." In the little saddler's shop, where the Arcade now stands, was to be found the man that was perhaps as fair a type of the Rochesterville pioneer as any in the list of honored names. Abelard Reynolds was one of our representative settlers, who had forded the Genesee to lay the foundations ROCHESTERVILLE. 89 of a fortune as he laid the foundations of his new house, with his own hands, drawing the stone from the river-bed himself. His neighbors were quick to discern that the en- terprise of the Massachusetts man who had given up emi- grating to Ohio when he saw Falls Town, and that when he thought it a most forbidding looking place, was a source of good luck indeed. Abelard Reynolds must have been a very busy man in those years ; for we find him a saddler, the first postmaster, the first magistrate, the first west-side innkeeper, the first in many a public measure, to say noth- ing of military and masonic movements, and his interest in the lottery schemes of a day when lottery schemes were a legitimate calling. The brother-in-law who assisted in mov- ing the family to their "home in the Dismal Swamp," where he declared " they must inevitably starve," lost all claim to seership, desperate as was the occasional encounters with the wolf at the Reynolds' door before peace with Great Britain restored the patriot to his family, and removed the ominous cloud hanging over Rochesterville. With Dr. Jonah Brown for "nurse, cook, and doctor" for the sick, before other eminent physicians arrived ; Jacob Howe for the baker, the ringing bass voice of Dr. Backus in the meeting-house choir, the village the wheat-market for not only the valley of the Genesee but all the country round about, its saw-mills buzzing through the night, new settlers flowing in continuously, why grumble at the damp- ness of the thoroughfares, the disagreeable pests of the ledges and the forests, or even the " Genesee fever } " There was a sturdy aim in the character of the settle- ment from the first, a plucky defiance of adverse currents (an evolution possibly of its dangerous ford). A consider- able representation of men of capital and financial reputa- tion among the actual settlers and land-owners conferred what is not always found in such enterprises, a certain sta- bility and conservatism, — the leadership of men who had moneyed interests at stake. Perhaps as great a surprise as the little village ever afforded, not excepting the valor of "the Thirty-three," our next story in order, was when 90 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Harvey Montgomery, who for more reasons than one was rightfully called " the gentleman of the town," defeated the foreclosure of a mortgage by Eastern capitalists with a bid of fifty thousand dollars, to be paid at once. " Who dreamed that all Rochester could raise fifty thousand dollars at once, to say nothing of a single individual ? " It was as early as 1814 that Gideon Cobb and Oliver Culver thought they had closed a fast bargain with Henry Skinner for lot No. i, at the Four Corners. The price asked by Mr. Skinner for the lot, including the log-house, was one thousand dollars, payable half in whiskey and half in pork. Before the papers were drawn, Dr. Ensworth offered cash for the property, and, to the disappointment of Cobb and Culver, his offer was accepted. Under his ownership, the old Eagle, not the palatial brick building preceding Powers Block, but something more like a country tavern, was built, the log-house serving as the barn. In the first " Directory for the Village of Rochester, con- taining the Names, Residence, and Occupations of all male Inhabitants over fifteen years of age, in said Village, to which is added a History of the Village from 18 12 to 1827. Published by Elisha Ely. Everard Peck, Printer," we find a record of the important events of each year. This ram- bling resnmd of our history between the building of the bridge and Colonel Rochester's arrival as a permanent resi- dent is best closed, perhaps, by the record of the old Direc- tory, — in which the women of Rochester are so strangely ignored, — for the years 181 7, 18 18. 18 1 7. — By Act of Legislature passed in April, the village was incorporated by the name of Rochesterville, and on the ist of May the first village election was held for five trus- tees, when Francis Brown, Daniel Mack, William Cobb, Everard Peck, and Jehial Barnard, were elected. Francis Brown was chosen President of the Board, and Hastings R. Bender, Clerk. The first house for public worship was built on Carroll Street [now occupied by the Presbyterian Society]. Elisha Johnson purchased of Enos Stone, from the west ROCHESTER VILLE. 9 1 side of his farm, 80 acres adjoining the river, and surveyed the same into a village plat, constructed a dam across the river, above the old fording place, and excavated a large mill canal from thence to the bridge, 60 or 70 rods in length, 60 feet wide, and 4 feet deep ; opening extensive water privileges, at an expense of $12,000. Orson Sey- mour and others, in the course of the year, became jointly interested with Mr. Johnson in his purchase, the back land of which was yet a forest. The price of wheat during the early part of this year was from $1.75 to $2.25 per bushel. The loss sustained by the millers and merchants was very considerable. William Atkinson built the yellow mill on Johnson's mill canal, containing three run of stones. (Schuyler Moses, who is still living, was the young car- penter who cut the tinlber for the flume of that mill in the woods where Livingston Park now is. The letting in of the water was a great event in the annals of the village. . . . Schuyler Moses has not only lived in Rochester since 18 [7, but in the same neighborhood, corner of Court and Chestnut streets.) This year the steamboat Ontario commenced running from Sackett's Harbor to Lewiston, touching at the port of Genesee. 1818. — Oilman & Sibley built a paper-mill near Atkin- son's flour-mill. Strong & Albright built their mill at Carthage, contain- ing four run of stones. Carthage Bridge was commenced by Strong, Norton & Co. July 7th Everard Peck & Co. established the second weekly newspaper, entitled the " Rochester Telegraph." . . . In September the second census of the village was taken, population 1,049. The exports from the Genesee River down the lake to the Canada market, during the season of navigation, were, 26,000 bbls. flour; 3,653 bbls. pot and pearl ashes; 1,173 bbls. pork ; 190 bbls. whiskey ; 214,000 double butt-staves, together with small quantities of sundry other articles. 92 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN ROCHESTER. There are no less than three claimants for this honor, James Stone, Benjamin Evans, and Mortimer F. Reynolds. I <^ivc their names in the chronological order of their birth, and will leave my reader to decide which one of the three was the first white child born in Rochester, Western New York. Perhaps the first thing to be settled is, what were the boundaries of early Rochester '^ The Rochester of to-day includes much that was not within the borders of Roches- terville, and yet those borders are vague indeed when not limited to the One Hundred Acre Tract. It is easier to learn who was the first white child born in what is now named Rochester, than what territory was within the boun- daries of Rochesterville or the village of Rochester prior to 1 8 14. When Enos Stone, the father of James Stone, the first claimant, came into the country and settled on the east bank of the river in 18 10, his friends in Lenox, Massachu- setts, must have directed his letters to Northfield, town of Boyle, Ontario County, until there was a post-office opened on the west side, when he must have requested his letters to be sent to the village of Rochester, Genesee County, adding possibly " Falls of the Genesee." Colonel Rochester's purchase in 1802 associated his name at once with the settlement. In his letter to Enos Stone, August, 181 1, he speaks of the village of Rochester at the Falls of the Genesee, sending a plan of lots for the same, said lots all within the One Hundred Acre Tract. Hamlet Scrantom in 181 2 writes to his father from " the village of Rochester." In the first Directory of 1827, we find the statement that " the village of Rochester is situated on both the eastern and the western banks of the Genesee River." It speaks of "the centre of the village east of the river," on the farm of Enos Stone, and among other lands then " occupied as the village of Rochester," farm lots in the "towns of Gates and Brighton." In 18 17, by act of Legislature, the village is incorporated by the name of ROCHESTERVILLE. 93 Rochesterville. With this contribution to the elucidation of what was included in the early village of Rochester, I submit the historical facts concerning the " three first " white children born within its boundaries. James S. Stone was born May 4, 1810, in the old house, "The Rock and Tree," near Clover Street. Mr. Stone is still living. When he was two weeks old, his mother rode on horseback to her new home on the east bank of the Genesee River. In 1809 or 1 8 10, one George H. Evans, who had been a sailor, but who had the laudable desire, since his marriage, to cure himself of a longing for his old life on the sea, reso- lutely located himself and his young family where surely never a breath of salty air should weaken his resolution, nor a glimpse of an old shipmate, for in 18 10 he built his cabin a little west and north of where St. Mary's Hospital now is, back of Judge Danforth's .place. He always as- serted his claim to being the first white settler in the locality. He had quite lost his sea-legs when Hamlet Scrantom arrived. One of our early poets sang of him : — " Hail Evans ! who with axe began To ope the forests of this land ! Hail ! Rochester's first white man, Who led the pioneer's small band." This George Evans had a son born to him here in 181 1, and so the friends of Benjamin Evans make claim that he is the first white child born in Rochester, New York. George Evans, the father, wandered down to Lake Onta- rio one day, and having seen its restless billows, could no longer control a desire to go back to the sea. One more voyage he must have, and wife and children could not hold him longer. He went to New Bedford and shipped for a whahng cruise. Upon landing at Newbern, N. C., on his return, he fell overboard and was drowned. His eldest son was for many years a partner of our veteran sign painter, George Arnold. Mortimer F. Reynolds, son of Abelard Reynolds, was born December 14, 18 14, on the site of the Arcade Build- 94 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. ing, and upon the One Hundred Acre Tract. There is no questioning the claim of his venerated mother, still spared (April, 1884), to bless the home that has ever been one of the fairest illustrations of our family life, to being the mother of the first white child born not only on the One Hundred Acre Tract, but its very heart, the nucleus of the city that was to be. I doubt if I have made any easier the answering of the question, " Who was the first white child born in Roches- ter } " I am reminded of Tweedledee in " Alice in Won- derland." " Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, " if it was so it might be, and if it were so it would be, but as it is 'nt it aint, and that 's logic." ROCHESTER CITY BANK Built ill 1837. Torn down in 1S83. OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. 95 XII. OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. I MUST tell this Story for my boy readers particularly, having in mind a patriotic club of young Rochesterians, " The Boys of Seventy-Six," the Rev. Wm. Dorville Doty, D. D., Rector of Christ Church, chaplain. I wish I might help each of you to imagine yourself a Rochester boy of the year 18 13. That would be making you only seventy years younger than you are to-day, and a boy in your earliest teens at that. Please try to think your- self standing on the new, hardly finished bridge across the Genesee, "at the ford," in the early autumn of 1813. I can see you distinctly, in your deer-skin trousers, a made over pair of your father's at that; but deer-skin breeches are just the thing for boys who make collections of snake rattles, trap pigeons, partridges, quails, and rabbits, ford the river when the water is not too high, play at milling with the wreck of Indian Allan's old mill, and explore the woods and swamps with the Seneca boys that camp in the wigwams on Corn Hill. I cannot, however, imagine your standing long on the bridge, for a big emigrant wagon has just driven over from tJic west side, and has stopped, of course, at Stone's tavern, one of the three solitary houses on the east bank, and off you go to see what the last news is from the frontier, possibly calling out as you run, "Are the Britishers coming.^" You join the company in Stone's bar-room, where there is a squad of soldiers most likely, on their way to Fort Niagara, and drovers who are taking cattle to the fort, and the hungry, tired family as well, just alighted from the big wagon, and who have left their log-hut in the clear- 96 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. ing to return to the East until the difficulty with Great Britain is settled. They are positive that Rochester will soon be burned to the ground and the bridge destroyed. Such prophecies are nothing new to the Rochester boy, but as soon as the fugitives are quietly eating their corn bread and cold pork from their own basket, there is a hurrying of bare feet across the new bridge again, to tell at home the last news from the border. That bridge was a very differ- ent structure from the one of to-day, — a wooden bridge with a railing on either side, where one could stand and watch the swift current and hear the roar of the Falls that, until the babel of civilization began, could be heard at all times for some distance from the river. Now having seen the Rochester boy of 18 13, let us try getting a glimpse of the village he lived in. Stand on the bridge in imagination again, and bring the old picture before you. There is the Genesee, with great trees and thick under- brush crowding close to its banks. The woods begin not far from what is now Powers Block, and the chances are you can see deer at "the Lick," the place where they came to drink from a marshy spring on the western outskirts of the clearing.^ There is a high ledge of rocks running along back of the south side of the road, and wild grapes, butter- nuts, and snakes, are the charms of that ledge to the Roch- ester boy. The ruin of Allan's old mill is up there hidden in the bushes. The boys have rare sport with its broken machinery, and with catching crabs on Crab Island, that strip of land the high water sweeps over in the spring and fall, but leaves high and dry for the boys' enjoyment in the summer. Crab Island is the east side of Front Street to- day. If you would see the Falls that used to be just above where the aqueduct now stands, you must shut your eyes, 1 The Lick covered much of that part of the city where the Briggs Block, corner of Plymouth Avenue and Main Street, stands to-day. It was hard get- ting a foundation for that building even so late as some thirty years ago. The old settlers tell a story of a cow that was mired in " the Lick," and quite be- yond reach. She sank gradually from sight and at last disappeared, although the villagers did all in their power to rescue her. OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. 97 for searching the river with open eyes to-day will not help you. They are about fifteen feet high ; and see, there is no dam in the river above, and the Jail island is a sycamore grove, and the river bank higher up, where the Erie depot was afterwards built, is " a good place for bears," and the wolves come down there and howl, the settlers say, by way of a concert. ... In that log-house where Powers Block is to be, a pioneer is living whose children and grandchil- dren will have very different homes in every way from his ; and in that little frame-house, right where the Arcade is to be, lives Abelard Reynolds and the mother of a little boy Willie (yes, the very man whose marble bust fills one of the niches high up in the south end of the Arcade, the impress of whose crutch may be seen on its every floor). He is capering about briskly enough you see, in this summer of 18 1 3, for it was several years after, when playing with "Ham" Scrantom in one of the rough places near the ledge of rocks, he met with the accident the medical skill of that day could not relieve, and which made him a cripple for life. His father is lying very ill with chills and fever, and I fear me, if you stand much longer gazing over this swampy clearing watching the big emigrant wagons coming across it, going eastward with few exceptions, you too will have a touch of the Genesee fever, and little to say in praise of your new home at the Falls. "Going eastivardf" you are asking from the reality of 1884, "going eastward.? you mean westward of course ? " Now boys belonging to historical clubs blunder some- times like the rest of us. This was in the fall of 181 3 you remember, and so I do not need to tell you why the United States and Great Britain were having an " unpleasantness," and what had happened at Sackett's Harbor in May, and how the June before Lawrence had cried out, " Don't give up the ship," and how at that very moment, possibly, the brave Perry was writing to General Harrison, " We have met the enemy, and they are ours." There had been sharp fighting along the Niagara, and it 7 98 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. seemed likely that the trouble had only begun. The mouth of the Genesee was almost defenseless. The ISritish were evidently considering an attack at that point. The settlers in the interior were terrified at the thought of what might befall them in case the Indian allies were turned loose upon the country. In June, 1813, Sir James Yeo, the com- mander of the British fleet, had anchored off the mouth of the Genesee River, and a squad of plunderers had made the few men of the place prisoners, while they carried off what provisions they needed, salt, whiskey, etc., paying for the same, however, which gave rise of course to suspicions that it was a pre-arranged plan for a profitable business transaction on both sides. The news of their landing, how- ever, spread like wild-fire, and every man who could raise a musket or a weapon of defense was marching down to Charlotte before morning, arriving there barely in time to see the insolent invader putting out with their whiskey, salt, and provisions. Of course our men fired after them, but no one was hurt ; and by the last of the next Septem- ber the British fleet was seen lying becalmed off the mouth of the Genesee again, in striking contrast with the excite- ment the first glimpse of its sails had aroused, men wildly flying, like Paul Revere, to spread the news of an invasion. The panic was intense ; and in our admiration of the back- woods farmers who dashed away on their best horses, or waded through the mud on foot to pull trigger on the red- coats, let us not forget the brave women who stayed be- hind with their little children, the thick woods separating them from neighbors. Charlotte was wide awake that September day, 18 13. There lay the British ships, and there was the handful of men to repel their broadside. All at once Commodore Chauncey's fleet, our navy, was seen coming round Bluff Point. Then Charlotte breathed freer, and could cheer lustily. When within a mile from the shore and opposite the becalmed foe, our guns opened fire, and the smoke, sin- gularly and exasperatingly enough, proved a screen for the British, shutting them completely from sight. They re- OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. 99 turned our fire, however, and both fleets went sailing down the lake exchanging shots ; but the British made best time, and were soon beyond the reach of Chauncey's guns, although much disabled, and an officer and ten men were either killed or wounded. Our navy suffered slight injury, and Cooper's Naval History winds up the story: "Sir James Yeo ran into Amherst Bay, where the American fleet was unable to follow him on account of the shoals." You see Sir James Yeo was getting to be the great terror of the Genesee Country, and the women and the children at least had had enough of being frightened by rumors of his approach, and so the emigrant wagons across the bridge at Rochester in the fall of 181 3 came mostly from the west. Great was the distress among many of those fugitives flee- ing in terror, — " mothers separated from their children, and children lost from their families." The State of New York gave fifty thousand dollars "for the relief of the indigent sufferers in the counties of Genesee and Niagara in consequence of the invasion of the western frontier of the State." I must tell you here that there was no Monroe County before 1821. Ontario County reached from a mile east of Geneva to the Niagara River until 1802, and then a Gen- esee County was taken off from it west of the Genesee River. So you see that in 181 3 Rochesterville was in two counties. It was Ontario County on the east side, and Genesee County on the west side of the river, and this appropriation of money for the sufferers in Genesee County was chiefly for settlers west of Batavia.^ Only yesterday I heard an old lady talking about those troublesome times, a lovely old lady, who is now within a few months of her one hundredth birthday. She lived in the village of Rochester in 18 1 3, and this has been her home ever since. Her hus- 1 Amusing stories are told of the debtor's races across the bridge in those pioneer times when the law for imprisonment for debt was in force, and the debtor could only be arrested by the officer of the county in which he was found. " Many a time," says F. X. Beckwith, " have I seen a luckless debtor, coatless and hatless, flying at 2.40 speed for the centre of that bridge Once over the middle line, he was safe from the sheriff behind him." lOO ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. band's name was Abelard Reynolds, the father of the little boy before mentioned, and they lived in one of the few houses on the west side of the river, just where the Arcade now is, and Mr. Reynolds was lying very ill with ague and fever that summer, and when she heard the stories of the coming of the British, she would have him placed upon a cot bed so that he could be carried to a place of safety. Some kept oxen and big carts in the woods ready to be driven off at the first alarm, and the boys were sent to feed the oxen and to watch them, and you can imagine how a sudden rustling in the thicket made those boys start up more than once in terror, and possibly beat a retreat from a visionary Red Skin, stealthily creeping upon the settlement with bloody hatchet. More than once there was a hurried rush to those waiting ox-carts in the middle of the night and a driving off over the bridge, and some had dug deep caves where they could hide, and one man, Mr. Scrantom, bought a new home "way out in the woods," this side of Mt. Hope, on the east side of the river. But at last, just at sundown, one May day, 1814, a man came flying up from Charlotte on horseback, that is, fly- ing as fast as a horse could fly through deepest mud, with the news that the British fleet was actually to be seen coming up the lake from Oswego, — a fleet of thirteen vessels — five large and eight smaller ones, — and every man must turn out in defense of his country, or all would soon be at the mercy of the Indians. There were just thirty-three men in all Rochester that were fit for duty, and Abelard Reynolds, having recovered from his fever, was one of them. Happily they had an eighteen-pounder cannon at Charlotte. It had been drawn there from Canandaigua by seventeen yoke of oxen only a few weeks before, and planted on the height near where the Stutson House now stands. There was a smaller gun at Deep Hollow, — the ravine crossing Lake Avenue near School House No. 7, where a breastwork had been built across the road and named Fort OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. lOI Binder. If the British drove our brave men back from Charlotte, a last stand would be made by the little four- pounder. The planks on the river bridge had all been loos- ened, and could be easily taken up by the retreating settlers, who, once on the east side, and the Genesee between them and the invader, would be out of danger. They would burn the bridge if necessary. Isaac W. Stone, who kept the east side tavern, had been made Colonel of the Rochester army, and Francis Brown and Elisha Ely were the captains. Each man in the village had a musket, and there was plenty of powder and shot. So long had they been in getting ready for a good fight, we are half-tempted to be- lieve they were not altogether sorry when the opportunity came for them to do something besides talk, and that the march down to the landing that night a little after mid- night, through the rain and mud, was not wholly regretted, save by the women and children left behind, and who, we must admit, had the heavier demand upon their heroism. Two men only did not march of "our brave thirty-three." One was the left-handed fiddler of the settlement ; and an- other, whose character has been drawn with a suggestive indistinctness that leads us to conclude the women were his protectors, and that he must have been an addition to some mother's burden, but possibly we are mistaken. Only two women stayed on the west side of the river that night, Mrs. Abelard Reynolds and her good neighbor Mrs. Covert. These two, with the little boy Willie, held the fort alone until morning. Our troops reached Charlotte just after daylight. Squads of armed men were coming in from all the neighboring towns. General Porter had not arrived, but they knew he would not fail to come. There was a thick fog over the lake. The men on the rampart were impatient to know just what was behind that fog, if anything at all. This rampart was built of two tiers of ship timber, the space between filled with manure, and commanded the road lead- ing up from the wharf. The eighteen-pounder stood aimed straight at the fog. The militia were gathering fast, and I02 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL, there was a deal of excitement and bluster, many of the re- cruits disliking the idea of obeying orders. Some had no arms, and not a few carried little bundles on their shoulders. But the faintest-hearted meant fight and were impatient for battle. Our Rochester men said they would go out and inspect the fog, or rather what was behind it. So Colonel Stone and Captain Brown and Captain Ely took an old boat that was in the river, and six seamen with muffled oars, and twelve men with muskets to lie down in the bottom of the boat, — among whom was Abelard Reynolds and Jehiel Barnard the tailor, — and out they pushed, never knowing what they might run into, to be sure. When they were about a mile out, three shots were fired from shore. Why I cannot tell, unless it was to keep their spirits up, nor if said shots brought about the sudden uplifting of the fog, and there they were in plain sight of the long line of the British fleet, and rather closer than was safe and agreeable. They headed for shore straightway, a twelve-oared British barge giving them chase. The barge stopping suddenly, our boat did the same. Why I cannot tell, but we can in- dulge surmises. When Colonel Stone moved shoreward again, the barge pulled back to the fleet, and all was quiet between the two armies until about ten o'clock, and then a flag of truce was seen coming ashore. Captain Brown and Captain Ely, with ten of the bravest looking men that could be found, were sent down to receive it on Light- house Point, and tying a white handkerchief to a stick, one of them went out on a fallen tree and waved it, while his comrades stood with cocked triggers, their orders being not to allow the British to land, truce or no truce. All this while the would-be-invader had seen an endless procession of men marching into the fort on the hill. That was a cunning scheme of the officer in command there, for he had collected his little company, — as compared to the sol- diers and Indians on the fleet, — and by marching them up the hill in sight of the enemy, letting them disappear in the woods, to suddenly fall into the line again marching into the fort, he made Commodore Yeo to believe that we OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. 103 had ten times as many men as we really had, and the Brit- ish began to think they had more serious work on their hands than they had anticipated. Then they were suspi- cious of being made the subject of some "Yankee trick." Those men in homespun, ill-fitting clothing, waiting to re- ceive them, were officers in the regular army, they sur- mised, with uniforms concealed under their baggy trousers and slouchy coats. Our receiving a flag of truce under arms was thought a part of the trick to deceive them into thinking we were ignorant of the rules of war. " Do you receive a flag of truce under arms with cocked triggers .'* " asked the British officer. "Excuse me, excuse me," said Captain Brown. "We backwoodsmen are not versed in military tactics. "Ground arms ! " he called to his men. The message was a demand for the surrender of the public property. In that case private property would be respected. Oswego had capitulated. Oswego had not thought it worth while to risk life and property in defend- ing public stores. Back they went to the fleet, and up the hill hurried the message-bearers, and in due time another flag of truce was seen pushing towards shore, and Captain Brown and Captain Ely with their picked men hurrying to receive it. " If public property will be given up, private property will be respected," said the British. "Blood knee deep first," said Captain Brown. "Your cloth is too good to be spoiled by such a bungling tailor," said the Red Coat, taking hold of Captain Brown's pantaloons, evidently to find out if they covered another pair. " Our haste in dressing this morning to meet our dis- tinguished visitors prevented our putting on our best," said Captain Brown. The Briton was nonplused. It was, he feared, a Yankee trick of deeper dye than any they had suffered from before. They had best withdraw, and with- draw they did. The parley was over, the battle begun. Judge John Williams with a dozen riflemen had crossed the 104 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. river too far up to be seen from the fleet and was in posi- tion behind a gravel ridge on the east side. General Porter had arrived, and had warned Yeo that another boat coming ashore would be taken care of. Commodore Yeo had re- sponded that if the public property was not given up, he would land his army and four hundred Indians and take it. "Land your savages," said General Porter; "they will be taken care of." A gun-boat, sloop rigged, of from 90 to 100 tons burden, had thereupon sailed out from the fleet straight for the mouth of the river, and had fired a six- pound shot. Our eighteen-pounder had answered briskly. A scheme to capture the gun-boat failed. The firing was kept up on both sides. The store-house was struck by a British cannon-ball, and not a few of the land spectators picked up the balls when the skirmish was over as relics of the attack. In fact Yeo's cannon-balls were used many years after, it is said, in breaking stone for our public works. Nobody was killed, although one of the vessels was injured by a rusty old six-pounder of ours mounted on a log. The couriers who were sent almost hourly to Roch- ester to tell the women and children how the fight was pro- gressing had hardly news enough to warrant their going, and the next morning the British fleet sailed away down the lake and ran into Pultneyville, believing it had escaped a Yankee ambuscade. Our brave Thirty-one lingered at Charlotte with their companions in arms as long as there was the slightest cause for so doing, but were glad enough to get back to their homes and tell their adventures, which they always seemed to think more amusing than otherwise. Some eight hundred men in all had gathered at Charlotte from the surrounding country, but as a great proportion of them were undisciplined, and but poorly armed, a deter- mined invasion of the foe had surely been at our cost. Had Commodore Yeo turned his four hundred Indians upon the country, the History of Rochester had contained a page not unlike the story of Cherry Valley and Wyoming. The greatest sufferer from "Yeo's Invasion" — which did not prove much of an invasion after all — must have OUR BRAVE THIRTY-THREE. 105 been the poor mute who was captured, during the excite- ment, on the road between Charlotte and Rochester, and under the suspicion that he was a British spy was most cruelly tortured. To make him speak he was bound and made to stand on a stump, the guns of his captors aimed at his heart. As he did nothing but contort himself fearfully, he was given another trial, and suspended by a rope over the high river bank, a man standing with an axe to cut the same if his silence was persisted in. The agony of the poor fellow ended in his fainting. When restored to con- sciousness, he was released and made off like a maniac to the woods, and was never heard of afterwards. And so ends the story of Yeo's Invasion. Rochester's military glory was not added unto for many a day, and then came the battles of Tod-woddle, Hen Peck, and Lyell Street, and for those you must go to some of the veterans of "The Grays," or "The Light Guards." I06 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. XIII. " Clinton's big ditch." It was in May, 1814, that our brave Commodore Wolsey at Sackett's Harbor received an order from headquarters running" thus : — " Take the Lady of the Lake and proceed to Onondaga, and take in at Nicholas Mickle's furnace a load of ball and shot and proceed at once to Buffalo." "That means," said the perplexed officer, "that I am to go over Oswego Falls and up the river to Onondaga Lake, thence ten miles into the country by land to the furnace, and returning to Oswego, proceed to the Niagara, and up and over Niagara Falls to Buffalo ! " The order is a revelation of the ignorance, even in high places, of the topography and geography of the Genesee Country at that time, and of its difficulties of inland travel. There it lay, the great wheat country of the near future, depending upon Montreal and Baltimore for its market, for the matter of dragging wagon loads of wheat to Albany was both difficult and unprofitable. With four yoke of oxen, the speculator might, in 1804, get a load of wheat, for which he had paid sixty-two and a half cents per bushel, from Bloomfield to Albany in twenty days, and sell the same for $2.15. If New York city was to receive the prod- uce of the State, and if the interior counties were to pros- per, there must be a direct highway to the sea-board. Our inland navigation must be developed. The southern town- ships of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase had in the Sus- quehannah great advantage over the northern, that river CLINTON'S BIG DITCH. 10/ placing them in connection with Philadelphia and Balti- more. Montreal had been the prospective market for the Genesee Country, until the embargo and the war. It was the case of a country developing rich resources, without the opportunities for profitable commerce. There are many claimants for the honor of originating the idea of connecting Lake Erie with the Atlantic Ocean by inland navigation, and to no, one individual can it en- tirely belong. It was a plain necessity of the times, patent to every practical mind. In 1773, Christopher Colles was lecturing in New York city upon Inland Lock Navigation. He even surveyed the Mohawk Country, and published a book upon Roads through New York, but he was thought chimerical and impractical of course. There were many plans and many advocates of the differing schemes for in- land transportation. There was, in time, a Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company and a Western Inland Lock Navigation Company. These were expected to improve the natural water-courses, build short canals between rivers and lakes, — one plan being that of reaching Lake Ontario at Oswego, and cruising alongshore to Tonawanda Creek, and so to Buffalo, leaving Rochesterville out in the cold en- tirely, saving our river port. The Little Falls Canal, less than three miles long, was finished in 1796. It had five locks, and was followed by the building of a canal a mile and a quarter long at the German Flats, connecting the Mohawk with Wood Creek, making what was called a grand canal some seven miles long! Fifteen years was allowed this company for completing its work, and after all it was so expensive with heavy tolls, that land carriage was pre- ferred by the settlers. The idea of a continuous canal, al- most independent of the improvement of natural water- courses, dawned gradually and duskily upon the popular mind ; and to Jesse Hawley, an occasional resident of Roch- ester after he had gained his country's hearing, as much as to any one, are we indebted for the centralization of con- trolling minds upon a practical scheme. Jesse Hawley, from his debtor's prison in Canandaigua, wrote in 1807 the papers I08 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. for the Genesee " Messenger," above the signature of " Her- cules," which did much for bringing about " the exploring of the whole route for inland navigation, from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie." It was a long fight and a hard one that followed the demand for the canal, and nobody was more abused than De Witt Clinton, hissed at, and derided. His " big ditch " would be "filled with the tears of posterity." He had "a bee in his bonnet." Even Jefferson said the Erie Canal was built a century too soon. Madison declared it would exhaust the resources of the nation, and Rufus King would not sanction what would bankrupt the State. Clintonians and Bucktails tore each other in the political arena, and the Fortieth Session of the New York Legislature, April, 1817, was made memorable by two famous bills : one that slavery should cease forever in the State of New York, on the 4th of July, 1827; the other "the New Canal Bill," shaped by De Witt Clinton. A stormy debate followed, in which William B. Rochester, of Rochester, New York, "a young member of great promise, made his first parliamentary efforts in a succession of brilliant speeches." The Canal Bill passed both houses after an alarming crisis when it seemed to its friends hopelessly lost. " If we must have war or a canal, I am in favor of the canal," declared Chan- cellor Kent, "and so I vote for this bill." His vote gave the majority for the bill. This might be considered a digression from the strict limitations of our subject, had not Rochester done more than any other place in Western New York to bring about the result. The incertitude at one time respecting the lo- cation of the canal between the Genesee River and Lake Erie, — the proposal, with influential advocacy, to carry it far beyond our southern boundary, — the exasperating rev- elations of official ignorance as to our exact whereabouts, — the difficulty of crossing our river, — had awakened our people to a thorough understanding of the subject ; and their defense of " the big ditch " had had its influence, feeble folk as we then seemed to be. July 4th, 181 7, while CLIN TOM'S BIG DITCH. IO9 Rochesterville was celebrating the day with a succession of blasts in Johnson's Race, which was then building, De Witt Clinton, at Rome, N. Y., in the presence of thousands of spectators, at early sunrise, dug with his own hand the first shovelful of earth towards the making of the canal forever after associated with his name. In eight years and four months the whole line from Buffalo to Albany was open for navigation, sections of it having been in use since 1 8 19, boats from Rochester entering the basin at Albany as early as November, 1823. The fact that in 1834, ten years from the time of the completion of the canal, Rochester owned or controlled one half of the boats, may be considered as proof of our prac- tical investment in the undertaking, even from the begin- ning, although the good tax-payers of that time were given to saying : " We shall never see it finished, but our chil- dren may." The longest canal in the world had been built in eight and one third years, and November 4, 1824, the State of New York, from Buffalo to Manhattan Island, was jubi- lantly celebrating the passage of the magnificent flotilla that bore De Witt Clinton and a distinguished retinue from its western to its eastern terminus. Buffalo's jubilee had begun as early as the 26th of October, when the waters of Lake Erie had been let into the ditch, the cannon that had been planted all along the tow-path transmitting the news to New York in one hour and thirty minutes, returning New York's response in the same time. What a day that was for Rochester ! We who have fallen into a way of thinking that the canal was ordained for skating rinks and ice fields smile at the wild enthusiasm of our forefathers that November day, when they hurrahed themselves hoarse at the approach of the canal boat Seneca Chief, — its four magnificent gray horses splendidly capari- soned conveying false ideas, perhaps, of what the future canal horse was to be, — leading the flotilla, each boat gorgeously decorated, one called Noah's Ark, with a cargo of almost every specimen of fish, flesh, or fowl in pairs, no ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. and two Indian boys in native costume. On board of The Seneca Chief were the two highly ornamented kegs filled with Lake Erie water, and the bottles holding water from all parts of the world, which were to be poured, with im- pressive ceremony, into the Atlantic Ocean by Governor Clinton's own hand. At every village and hamlet on the canal some demonstration of the popular feeling had been made ; but Rochester had the wonderful aqueduct, and Rochester was " The Young Lion of the West," and so it was fitting and expected that Rochester would do some- thing exceptional, as we must all agree she did, regretting the pouring rain that no doubt added to the duties of her medical fraternity for months to come. The whole population was crowded along the banks of the canal long before the military force of the village — eight companies in full uniform — began firing the /r// dc joic which announced the approach of The Seneca Chief and its train. Across the western terminus of the aqueduct — a very different affair from the present one, scarcely wide enough for the old-fashioned boats — a smart little craft was stationed to protect the entrance, its name indica- tive of its prowess, — "The Young Lion of the West." There must have been some memorizing on the part of The Seneca Chief and The Young Lion before this formidable encounter, or the following dialogue, reminding us of the school exhibitions of primeval times, would have lacked its fluidity. The crowd under their umbrellas may have wondered for a moment at the saucy defiance of the little boat that would block the progress of The Seneca Chief, and the challeng- ing demand from its prow : — " Who comes there .' " " Your brothers from the West on the waters of the great lakes." As the Seneca was laden with the New York delegation, this might have confused an ordinary Lion unused to metaphor. " By what means have they been diverted so far from their natural course.'" CLINTON'S BIG DITCH. Ill "By the channel of the Great Erie Canal." " By whose authority, and by whom, was a work of such magnitude accomplished ? " (The Young Lion seems open to the accusation of unpardonable ignorance, but the Chief makes no unfavorable comment.) " By the authority and the enterprise of the patriotic people of the State of New York," comes in full chorus from the deck of The Seneca Chief, and at once The Lion of the West gives way, the guns boom, the crowd cheer uproar- iously, and the flotilla, with Governor Clinton in full sight, and the Lieutenant Governor James Tallmadge, and the patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, and General Solomon Van Rensselaer, and Jacob Rutsen Van Rensselaer, and Colonel William Stone, all "Brothers from the West," di- verted from New York city by the great occasion, floats proudly into the spacious basin at the end of the aqueduct. The committees of congratulation receive their guests in due form, and now behold them descending from the deck of The Seneca Chief, and marching in the procession, bound for the old First Presbyterian Church back of the Court House, all Rochester and the country round about falling into the line, even if the majority of them must wait in the rain outside while the Rev. Mr. Penny offers prayer, and Timothy Childs makes a stirring address, which the news- papers report as " full of words that breathe and thoughts that burn." Three rousing cheers followed the oration, and then as the unchanging custom of the day decreed when festivity was in order, there was a procession to " Christopher's," on Carroll, now State Street, where a good dinner and a surfeit of toasts awaited the crew of the flotilla. General Mathews presiding, assisted by Jesse Hawley and Jonathan Child. At half past seven The Seneca Chief led the gay retinue through the aqueduct, and not until its last flag was lost to sight did the multitude cease cheering. There was a grand ball that night and a splendid illumination, consid- ering they had no Palmer Fire Works in those days. The Youmr Lion of the West had followed in the train 112 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. of The Seneca Chief, bearing away EHsha B. Strong, Levi Ward, A. V. T. Leavett, Wm. B. Rochester, M. Hulburt, A. Reynolds, A, Strong, R. Beach, EHsha Johnson, and E. S. Beach. They reached Utica late Sunday morning, and let it not be forgotten of Utica that she saw that the whole party went to church. In fact the religious tone of the whole demonstration is remarkable. Albany, with a procession including half of Vermont, led her visitors to the Capitol, where the exercises opened and closed with jjrayer. The theatre presented a scenic play in which there was a canal scene, with boats and horses actually moving. A fleet of all the steam- vessels on the Hudson towed the flotilla to New York, The Seneca Chief in charge of the flag-ship Chancellor Livingston. Now to tell all that was done in New York city, — the aquatic procession, the speech making, the trades' proces- sion, the illumination, the mingling of the waters, the governor's ball, etc., — would be impossible here. A great battle had been fought and won, and Rochester before all others had cause to make merry. It is hard to believe when we read of all this rejoicing in New York city, that strong opposition to the canal had existed there, and that an effort to arrest the work had once been approved of by a majority of its delegates in the Assembly. Hardly was the rejoicing over before the demand for an enlargement of the canal was heard, Rochester heading the movement and pushing it in every way. The project of enlargement was secondary only to the original scheme. The first aqueduct, built at a cost of $83,000, was replaced by a wider and deeper one begun in 1835, costing $600,000. The original locks were inadequate. The public meetings in Rochester, urging the enlargement, were the key-note of the popular sentiment. The memorials and resolutions of such men as Myron Holley, Henry O'Reilly, Thomas H. Rochester, etc., with petitions from our forwarders and millers, were not to be ignored. Genesee wheat and flour were the controlling power of the Erie Canal, and Roches- ter, as the commercial centre of the Genesee Valley, com- 5- :n o ":: ■n S 'n H o s; a w 7. IL. m ^" E3 ^ s •^ > ci^ -^ rO ?3 o C m o 3 { C o CLINTONS BIG DITCH. II3 manded a hearing concerning the management of the same. The enlargement and improvements cost about five times as much as the original canal. The first boats carried not over forty tons. If the Erie Canal was one of the original sources of our prosperity, no less did we contribute to make it what it was, and that chiefly through the foresight and enterprise of .our leading men, who believed that to secure for the State of New York the trade of the Western lakes and a portion of the valley of the Ohio, the enlargement of the Erie Canal was necessary, and would contribute to individual wealth and public prosperity. The canal produced a wonderful change in the physiog- nomy of our city, and it is hard for us now to believe that to live upon its immediate banks was once considered most desirable. It proved a death-blow to many an aspiring vil- lage and the success of as many insignificant hamlets. It brought in new phases of social life, and was to many an alarming invasion of the Sabbath. " Going across " for us to-day is nothing in comparison to a first trip on a " Red Bird Packet," racing with a rival line to Albany. There stands recorded in an old journal of one of our pioneers this item relating to a first journey by canal : "Commend- ing my soul to God, and asking his defense from danger, I stepped on board the canal-boat, and was soon flying to- wards Utica." A reminiscence of Henry E. Rochester gives us an amus- ing glimpse of our city at the time of the digging of the canal. He was a student at Hobart College, and ground had been broken here since his leaving home in the early autumn. He arrived from Geneva late one evening for a bit of vacation, jumped from the stage at Ensworth's, and ran up Exchange Street for home. There were few, if any street lamps in those days, and the night was dark as could be. All at once the foundations of the earth were removed for him, and he found himself floundering in a sea of mud. He was at the bottom of Clinton's big ditch, although it took some time for him to discover his precise locality. 114 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Dripping with sticky clay, he presented himself at his father's door, and enjoyed the fun that followed. "That," says Henry E. Rochester, "is my earliest recollection of the Erie Canal." . . . Mr. Rochester has entertaining reminiscences of his as- sociations with the convicts brought here to work on the aqueduct. He was permitted to go in and out among them freely, and it soon came to pass that his father was at loss to know what became of the lad's pocket money. The future philanthropist was making his first disbursements for " Out Door Relief " in the shape of tobacco to his con- fiding friends, whose confidence in him went so far as per- mitting him to know the details of a plan for escape, which they were contemplating. Mr. J. M. Winslow tells another pleasing story of those early days of the canal. The grand embankment west of Bushnell's Basin was completed, and the commissioners were expected to pass over it in their special boat on a certain day, in honor of which occasion there was a great turn out of the good people in the locality, and mounted officers, be- plumed and be-buttoned, rode up and down the tow-path, ready to do their royal best in any appointed way when the signal heralding the approach of the commissioners should be given. It was a moment of great expectancy, and the best of Monroe County stood before that distrusted embankment, which even the contractors, it was said, had no confidence in. Now this famous embankment 1,500 feet long and 80 feet high, is one of the remarkable features of the Erie Canal. Wonderful as it was to behold in a state of se- curity, each beholder could but imagine what the sight would be if " a break " should happen, and the water go pouring into the Irondequoit valley. Provision had been made for a break, and hereby hangs our tale. At each end of the dangerous section was a stop-gate, lying flat at the bottom of the canal. In case of need it could be soonest uplifted by some one jumping into the water and bringing its mechanism into instant play. It would be an oppor- CLINTON'S BIG DITCH. II5 tunity for heroism on the part of ordinary humanity, which the dwellers in that quiet neighborhood might watch for with vigilance, — an opportunity to win a glorious fame in saving a wide tract of country from disastrous inundation. The crowd deepens, the hour is getting late, the be- plumed officers not a little impatient, when a shrill cry is heard from the base of the embankment: "/^ 's going ! It V going I It's breaking azvay !'' There was a scampering of the panic-stricken crowd in every direction, but those offi- cers did not forget their duty as servants of the people. Into the canal they leaped and up sprang the gates in a trice. What was a thorough soaking of fine uniforms if thereby peril might be averted .'' But where was the break, and where was the perpetrator of the practical joke? The crowd turned in hot pursuit of him, and found him in hiding, trembling with terror. They carried him out on the mill-flume and threw him into the pond, and were back to the embankment in good season to see the commission- ers pass over it in safety. This embankment is the largest on the canal. The precautionary gates were never brought into requisition, although several breaks and some serious, ones have occurred in the vicinity. When the Irondequoit embankment was built, nearly every male resident of the adjoining towns turned out with pick, spade, and wheel- barrow, unless physically unable. Some of the wealthiest farmers in the county are proud of telling that they worked for seventy -five cents a day on the Erie Canal. The great work of the Erie Canal was accomplished by the enterprise and resources of a single State, and it may justly be claimed for Rochester that she was the main- spring of much of that enterprise and of those resources. We read in O'Reilly's History that "admiration of the worth and services of De Witt Clinton caused the Franklin Institute of Rochester to propose a subscription among the citizens for securing a portrait of that statesman," and that Cathn was the artist selected, he finishing the portrait just before starting for the West to undertake his work, " The North American Indians." A brother of Catlin brought the Il6 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. picture to Rochester, and his accidental drowning in the river below the Upper Falls while bathing made great ex- citement at the time, our home poets making it the theme for verses still to be found sacredly treasured in many a pioneer scrap-book.^ There is a page or two in Henry O'Reilly's "Sketches of Rochester" (1838), which those who are not so fortunate as to own a copy of that book will be glad to find here. "transportation on river, lake, canal, etc. genesee river navigation. " The Genesee River is navigable for steam-boats and other lake vessels from the nortJi line of the city to Lake Ontario, a distance of five miles. From near the soiitJi line of the city the river is navigable by smaller vessels for about forty miles, as far as Fitzhugh's warehouse on the Canaseraga Creek, between Mt. Morris and the residence of Colonel Fitzhugh, in Groveland, near Geneseo. . . . Be- tween the north and south line of the city are the Rapids, making an aggregate descent in that short distance of 266 feet. " A small steam-boat ran for a couple of seasons between Rochester and the villages southward along the river, touching at Scottsville, Avon, York, and other points, for the purpose chiefly of towing the freight-boats loaded with the grain and other products accumulated at the thriving villages of the rich valley of the Genesee. The communi- cation between the Erie Canal and the Genesee River is now being much improved by an arrangement partly con- nected with the Genesee Valley Canal. It will shortly be practicable for the Erie Canal boats to cross the Genesee River without reference to the aqueduct, a matter of much consequence, guarding as it will against any detention of navigation in case the old aqueduct fails before the new one is completed. The present feeder is being improved, and a corresponding cut is making on the west side of the 1 This picture cost $400. Its present whereabouts I have been unable to discover. CLINTON'S BIG DITCH. I 1 7 river as far south as the feeder dam, say a mile and a half from the Erie Canal. The cut on the west side of the river serves as part of the Genesee Valley Canal ; and thus both canals and the river navigation south of Rochester are advantageously connected by means that secure the canal navigation from interruption in case of difficulty about the aqueduct ; a policy recommended strongly by the citizens in 1832-33 in a memorial remonstrating against the plans for rebuilding the aqueduct which were recom- mended in a special report from the Canal Commissioners. Although the Genesee Valley Canal will probably withdraw the business chiefly from the river for the extent to which the river is now used, the navigation of the latter is worthy of notice here. The river boats used for bringing wheat to Rochester are, we believe, owned by Mr. Kempshall, Mr. Ely, and other flour manufacturers. William Tone, residing a few miles south of the city, owns several boats, and has done much of the transportation. Scottsville, York, Avon, Geneseo, Moscow, and Mt. Morris, all have warehouses, to accommodate this navigation ; and large quantities of wheat are thus brought down in boats alongside the Rochester Mills. . . . In 18 18 the exports from the Genesee River down the lake to Montreal, during the season of navigation, were 26,000 bbls. of flour, 3,653 bbls. pot and pearl ashes, 1,173 bbls. pork, 190 bbls. whiskey, 214,000 double butt staves, together with small quantities of other articles, all valued at $380,000. "In 1 8 19 the exports in the same way were valued at ;^400,ooo "In 1820 the exports from the Genesee River for Canada were 67,468 bbls. flour and other goods, all valued at $375,- 000. The prices of produce had fallen greatly ; the gen- eral price of flour was $2.25 or $2.50 per bbl. ; of wheat 37 cents per bushel ; and corn from 20 to 25 cents. "In 1 82 1 the price of produce fell so low in Canada, and the canal partly finished, having opened other and better markets, the quantity of produce sent from Genesee River to the Canada market became much reduced. . . . The ii8 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. attention of our citizens ... is now turning to the impor- tance of lake navigation. . . . Whatever improvements are made at the Rapids of the St. Lawrence or around the Falls of the Niagara cannot be indifferent to us — for our steam- boats and schooners may thus have direct intercourse between Rochester and the shores of the upper lakes, or with the cities of the St. Lawrence, if not through that noble river to the Atlantic Ocean. "In 1836 wheat to the amount of 200,000 bushels was imported from Canada, under heavy duties, by some of the Rochester dealers in that article." ^ The Genesee Valley Canal was completed 1838, and it was thought by many that the union of the waters of the Alleghany River with those of the Hudson was second in importance only to the connection between the latter and the great lakes. "When completed," wrote Edwin Wil- liams, " it is believed more property will pass upon it, to and from Rochester, than on the Erie Canal west of the place." It put an end to the river navigation, but its tri- umph was short, and the railroad along the malarial ditch to-day seems a prophecy that the iron track will yet be sup- planted by some means of transportation as much its supe- rior as is the locomotive to the jaded beast of the tow-path. ^ Sketches of Rochester, p. 353. Keg from which Clinton poured the Water of Lake Erie into the Atlantic. Copied /rovi Mrt. Lamb's " History 0/ New York City." A DECADE MEMORABLE. II9 XIV. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1824-I834. I. The Old Map, etc. — 2. The Sabbath Agitation. — 3. Revivals. — 4- The Museum.— 5. Missionary and Reform Movements. — 6. Training Day. — 7. Railroads.— 8. La Fayette. — 9. The Morgan Affair. — 10. The Good- Enough Morgan Affair.— 11. The Arcade, etc. — 12. Old High School.— 13. Sam Patch.— 14. The Cholera. — 15. The City of Rochester. The map of the village of Rochester in 1820, as drawn by the publisher, H. N. Fenn, from actual survey, with out- lines of houses few and far between, save on the main street near the river, Carroll Street, and the immediate neighborhood of the Four Corners, is an illustration of the instability of the names of the early thoroughfares, as well as of the' marvelous growth of the settlement in those first years. There is not a house on North Clinton Street ; on that old map Monroe Avenue is the "State Road to Canan- daigua." There is no street east of Clinton, but quite a settlement in Frankford, around McCracken's tavern. Not a house on what we call Franklin Street, — then it was Washington,— and here is the Franklin of that day, quite in the sparsely settled western district, the North Wash- ington of 1884. Away out on the southern border of the map, quite alone in its otherwise blank section, south of Troup Street, is a house marked H. Montgomery, and as the framework and not a little besides of that fine old dwelling is still standing, and that not far from its original location, — the residence to-day of Mrs. Abelard Reynolds, —it is not a hard matter when standing at its hospitable portal, to imagine what it was when a daughter of Colonel I20 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Rochester entered it as a bride, its well-kept grounds reach- ing to the river bank, and its long approach under great locust-trees winding up to the house from the country- road, now Plymouth Avenue. It is said that when Mr. Montgomery met the beautiful Miss Rochester in the gay and aristocratic society for which Bath was famous, and married her from her father's house in Dansville, the excla- mation of some of his Philadelphia friends upon first seeing her was, "Why she is zvJiitc ! " their ideas of Western New York leading them to conclude that the young pioneer had wedded an Indian maiden of course. Another house in the suburbs, with grounds about it, is that of S. J. Andrews, corner of St. Paul and Andrews streets ; J. Mason opposite has a large tract seemingly all to himself. There is a bridge across the river between where Andrews Street bridge and that of the railroad is to-day, and well-known names are found in unexpected localities. The story of the first naming and laying out of our streets is a long one, and the explanation for some of the erratic meanderings most interesting. Culvers Road, or Blossom Street (now East Avenue), had been laid out by the surveyors as far as the liberty pole, when it was dis- covered that continuing their direct course would bring them far lower down the river than was desired. One went ahead on the straight line, and hallooed from high trees to show where they were coming out. It would never do, and so we have that turn at the liberty pole from East Avenue into Main Street. Franklin Street, as we call it, was afterwards laid out that there might be a direct stage route from the east to Hanford's Landing. Court Street and its bridge came to pass in the rivalry of the old stage lines. There were two companies fighting for the public patronage. One drove up at Ensworth's tavern (Powers Corner). The opposition line had headquarters at the old Rochester House on the canal, at Exchange Street, and Court Street was made resonant in its infant days by the flying horses, the cracking whips, and the twanging horns of the line, whose name matters little to us of to-day. The S" n O ^ <) *** — 1 ,.^ n m H <>>" p ni ^ 2. yj I W4 n e? 5 c Oo ra ni A DECADE MEMORABLE. 121 bend in Chestnut Street, seemingly so unreasonable to present lot owners, came about because Enos Stone had sold nine acres in a square to Everard Peck, on the south side of Main 'or Pittsford Street, one of the temporary names of East Avenue. Chestnut Street was laid out on the west line of that lot. If carried out straight, it would have struck Monroe Street near Lancaster. Nothino- in Rochester to-day bears the name of one ot the original proprietors of the One Hundred Acre Tract Maior Carroll, because the trustees of the village in a fit o resentment decreed such forever should be his punishment for brino-ing suit against the village at an early day to re- cover the b^ed of the river on the north side of Main Street brid-e then occupied as a market. He had sold to the trusrees the lot corner of Mason (Front) and Mam streets bordered by the river, and a market had been built on piers Carroll brought an action of ejectment, claiming he sold only sixty feet. This so incensed our good people, who claimed to the centre of the river, Carroll Street was named State at once, and so remaineth. Colonel Fitzhugh still retains the honor of having a street called by his name but there is no telUng how soon our capricious city fathers may give it another. Historical associations count for little with the average mayor and alderman, else the old Buffalo Road had not been utterly forgotten m West Main Street;" Sophia, in honor of Mrs. Nathamel Roches- ter in Plymouth Avenue ; and General Riley s name re- mo'ved from his "incendiary tract," as the early settlers called those streets he had decreed on his map should be known as Mathews. Kirk, Tappan, Weld, Phmney, and Delevan. University Avenue is a most fitting name for the street upon which our university is situated, all admit , but have we no cause for dissatisfaction when the names of our pioneer land-owners are removed from streets to suit the whim of ofBcials whose changes may be changed to- ""Tuen' Street, let it be remembered, was named for John Allen, "Honest John" of precious memory, an ex-mayor, 122 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. and largely interested in the canal outside of his own pri- vate business connected therewith, not in honor of Indian Allan, as some have supposed. Washington Square was the gift of Elisha Johnson, and its trees were originally the forest growth. The old elm in front of the residence of Mrs. Hoyt on the north side was planted by the hand of a lady called "the belle of Rochester." The big elm on South Clinton is said to be a child of the forest primeval, and so let us all unite in saying, " Woodman spare that tree." Front Street is Mason Street on the old map. When the fine new market was completed in 1837, Mason Street was named Market by the city fathers. Then the opening of the street leading from its front to State Street made them to change their minds. The new street should be ]\Iarket Street, and Mason Street must accept its old name again. This decision was of short duration, however, and Front Street was the appellation officially conferred one week after. Let this brief allusion to the early naming of our streets provoke interest in a subject that will amply repay study, and, it is hoped, strengthen the desire manifested of late, that old names of old streets may not be so ruthlessly cast aside, associated as they frequently are with persons and events interwoven with our history. It appeared at one time that we might have contention in retaining the name of our village. Another post-office in the State rejoiced in the name of Rochester, and about 1820 it was decided that one of the claimants must yield to the other. Of course we had not the remotest idea of yielding, but the village of AccoTd, Ulster County, is enti- tled to our gratitude, notwithstanding, and we may be par- doned in wishing it had chosen a prettier name. So much by way of preface to what we may fitly call the Decade Memorable, the ten years preceding our incorpora- tion as one of the cities of the Empire State. The individuality of the promising, pushing little town A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 23 was already pronounced. There was nothing commonplace about it. It was talked about. It was always doing some- thing that kept its name in the newspapers. It was as noisy as its Falls, and the tide of its political influence was not unlike that of the Genesee above the Cataract. Some- thing the country was interested in was forever happening in Rochester. Its reformatory movements were not always without the blaze of fanaticism that commands attention at least, or a unique peculiarity conferring their fame indis- putably upon their place of origin. And so it came to pass at an early day that the extraordinary rather than the ordinary was looked for in Rochester, and expectancy was gratified. " Rochester," wrote Thurlow Weed, in his auto- biography, of the city where the foundations of his after success was laid, "was made up of young, dashing, generous people, attracted there from Eastern New York and New England by reports of its rapidly developing elements of prosperity. There were few or no idlers there. ... It was no place for the slow, mousing, and close-fisted." It was, he might have added, a centralization of original, far-seeing minds, who began a series of agitating movements, in or- ganizing the society which developed into the American Bible Society, scattering its Bibles over the whole country. As early as 1821 the Monroe County Bible Society was founded, Levi Ward, President ; but not until 1825 did its characteristic mission begin, at a meeting of its friends at the Eagle Tavern, when perhaps Josiah Bissell, Jr., called "Leather Stocking" among his host of friends, projected the scheme which sent sub-agents through the county giv- ing Bibles to those who were destitute of them and could not buy. And that, be it known, was the beginning of the American Bible Society. The Sunday-School campaign of those days was an ag- gresssive one. There were conventions and celebrations, much marching of the children to Washington Square or to one of the churches for singing ; long speeches confer- ring of badges, and gatherings around long tables laden with cake and lemonade. General A. W. Riley still has 124 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. the cane with which he marshaled the first Sabbath-School Convention held in Rochester, when 2,000 children with their teachers were gathered in Washington Square. Jo- siah Bissell, Jr., and A. W. Riley were what was called a " make or break team," very active and somewhat ultra in religious and reform movements, ready to spend time, money, and strength for any cause they had in hand, and they were never empty-handed. They were large land- owners and daring speculators, and had as much to do as many with shaping the future of Rochester. It was " Bis- sell and Riley " that built the first meeting-house of the Third Presbyterian Church in one lucek, fifty feet long and twenty -five feet wide, on North Clinton Street, a little north of the present Washington Hall Block. The congre- gation were meeting in a school-house on the corner of Mortimer Street, which was too small. The pastor, Mr. Church, conferred with the brethren after service one Sun- day afternoon as to what should be done. " Bissell and Riley " were there, and said a new meeting-house should be ready for the next Sabbath, and so it was, to the amazement of those who went into its courts with thanks- giving. General Riley gave the lot for the first orphan asylum, corner of Asylum and Scio. It was valued when given at $2,000, — was sold when the asylum was moved to its present location for $4,500. THE SABBATH AGITATION. It may be questioned if Rochester was ever responsi- ble for a stormier agitation than the one she originated and kept alive on the Sabbath Question. That it was wicked to run stages and boats on Sunday, and quite as wicked to patronize those who did, was hotly proclaimed from Rochester, and Aristarchus Champion, and "Bissell and Riley" headed the movement for the suppression of Sun- day travel, — starting a line of Pioneer Stages at an expense of about $60,000, partly contributed as stock, — petitioning Congress for the abolishing of Sunday mails, circulating pledges even, for the signing of all good Christians, wherein A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 25 ' they solemnly promised never to patronize boats or stages run upon the Sabbath Day. A little sheet, called " Plain Truth," came out in hot opposition to all this, and in look- ing it over it is hard to decide which party had the ex- cess of fanatical intolerance. "What cannot be accom- plished by moral suasion must be done by physical force," comes from the pulpit of the Third Presbyterian Church. " Shall we become SLAVES to an order of men who style themselves Presbyterians ? " shrieks the element of nega- tivity. At the great meeting held in Auburn protesting against a religious party in politics, we find W. H. Seward denouncing Sabbatical intolerance. The zeal of the oppo- site party leads its advocates to insist on publicly asking a blessing at meals in hotels, etc. Bissell is charged with refusing to accept a pair of boots that were sent him on a Sunday stage-coach, and here is the report of what was said by a Monroe County divine before a convention in Philadelphia, when asked how the Pioneer line of stages was succeeding : — "The Pioneer Line of stages must, will, and shall suc- ceed. I will sacrifice every cent of my property to support it. If necessary, I will take the bread from my children's mouths for its support. It is on God's side and must pros- per. Rather than see this pious undertaking crushed, — rather than see the hopes of God's people cloven down, I will write Reverend on the front of my hat, mount the Pio- neer stage box, take the reins and drive the coach myself," At this, of course, the scoffers howl in derision, and the press is full of stories, etc., told at the expense of the Pio- neer Line. Here are a few of the " Wants " of the New York " Telescope " : — "Wanted. A good Orthodox family horse which must do work on the Christian Sabbath, and which will not need any meat or drink on that day. " Money Wanted. ^10,000 on ample security at 6 per cent., the interest to stop on Sunday. Orthodox money preferred." . . . Lewis Tappan gave $3,000 for supporting a Christian 126 rochestf:r: a story historical. line of stages. Alarmists cry out that there is an impend- ing danger — the union of Church and State — that Tract Societies are so many nests of vultures' eggs — and that Bible Societies are creating a moneyed aristocracy. Above the babel of vituperation the voice of a wise conservatism is heard at last. At a public meeting held in the long room of the Clinton House, Rochester, Wm. B. Rochester in the chair, and A. M. Schermerhorn, Secretary, reso- lutions were adopted in favor of the Sunday mails and against compulsory measures for enforcing the better ob- servance of the Lord's Day. We find the names of promi- nent citizens on the committees appointed at this meeting for preparing and presenting for signatures a suitable memorial to be sent to the Postmaster General as an ex- pression of the wishes of the meeting in relation to a Sun- day mail. It will interest my readers to see the names not only of those identified with this assembly, but that of the "Friends of the Fourth Commandment," held several months before. The committee upon preparing and presenting resolu- tions for the conservative party was E. Griffin, Nathaniel Rossiter, Dr. Elwood, Elisha Johnson, and Heman Norton. WARD COMMITTEES. First Ward. — Henry O'Reilly, William T. Cuyler, E. Griffin, Wm. Brewster, Anson Coleman, E. F. Marshall, Second JFard. — Warham Whitney, E. M. Parsons, Samuel Stone, A. M. Schermerhorn, S. S. Alcott, Seth Saxton. Third Ward. — Jonathan Child, Heman Norton. T. H. Roch- ester, Isaac Hills, Ebenezer Watts, Josiah Sheldon. Fourth Ward. — Elisha Johnson, John Gilbert, Isaac Marsh, Miles Carter, Daniel Tinker, James Valiet Fifth Ward. — Enos Stone, Nathaniel Rossiter, R. Van Kleeck, S. G. Andrews, Jacob Graves, Samuel Works. Among the facts stated in the terse letter to the Post- master General was that the village had a population of 12,000 souls, and " the amount of postage for the year end- ing 30th September, 1828, was $6,808.67." " From this A DECADE MEMORABLE. 12 J fact some estimate can be had of our correspondence, and of the necessity of giving facilities to that correspondence." The undersigned names concurred in the resolutions of the opposition, when some 400 persons met at the Clinton House to denounce the prevailing evils of Sabbath Break- ing:— A. W. Riley, Chairman ; D. Sibley, Secretary ; E. Peck, C. J. Hill, L. A. Ward, S. Murdock, J. Bissell, Jr., Thos. Kempshall, H. N. Langworthy, P. Smith, A. Wakelee, F. Starr, A. Chapin, W. H. Ward, H. Raymond, J. Watts, A. Champion, L. Ward, Jr., D. D. Hatch, W. Kempshall, E. Cook, W. Brewster, A. Reynolds, B. Campbell. E. D. Smith, T. Egleston, J. Harris, S. P. Gould, C. Dunning, J. Peck, David Hoyt, O. Sage, J. K. Livingston, J. H. Thompson, O. N. Bush, H. Ely, D. Scoville, L. L. Peet. The Pioneer Line was in one sense a failure, and Josiah Bissell, Jr., and A, W. Riley were heavy losers with others, but the agitation of the subject which placed their com- fortable and well managed coaches upon the road resulted in great and lasting good. Public sentiment was educated to a higher regard for the Lord's Day ; and although the extreme measures of the Sabbath party were defeated, it had gained much for religion and true progress. REVIVALS. Rochester's individuality in those early years was charac- terized by a fanatical restlessness demanding a sphere of excitement. When was it not an enthusiast with a mission of some sort for its own, if not the world's salvation .? The spirit of the Thebean monks, the Crusaders, the Jesuit Missionary, Joan of Arc, and like spirits, is manifested in its irrepressible tendency to make converts to something at any cost. The religious revivals of our early days spent themselves with a violence that left no little wreck behind, wonderful as was the harvesting of souls. The private journals of those days — and I have a pile of them before me — are filled with morbid introspection and self-dissec- tion, which makes them of less value to the antiquarian than to the student of psychological distempers. The Rev. 128 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. Charles G. Finney was one of the most successful evangel- ists who labored here, converting many who proved to be the strength of our churches for the remainder of their lives. The first public temperance meeting in Rochester was held in July, 1828, and from the active workers in the cause here the influence went forth that in time awoke the land to a consideration of the question. Dr. Penney, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, preached the first temperance sermon in Ireland, it is said ; and Gen. Riley, — called the "old war horse" of the temperance move- ment, — a man who has made over eight thousand temper- ance speeches, and distributed six thousand temperance medals in Europe and America, not only claims for Roch- ester the honor of being the head spring of the movement, but adds that the Woman's Crusade in the West, of a few years ago, received its direct inspiration from here. THE MUSEUM. Prof. Henry A. Ward's world-famous museum, where any day one can see, for the asking, giant salamanders from Japan, turquois from New Mexico, the last crop of meteor- ites, — anything, in short, the student in natural science may crave to look upon, — hardly fills the place in the Roch- ester of 1884 that did Bishop's dusty little museum in the old days, when, for twenty-five cents, one could behold not only " some small remains of the mastodon found in Perrin- ton," but wax figures whose glittering eyes, and genuine daggers, and redundant hair, made little children scream with terror. There was Othello not smothering, but stab- bing Desdemona, and Indians with terrible names scalp- ing settlers, and soldiers in smart uniforms swinging ver- itable swords. There was Lady Jane Grey, and Robert Bruce, and La Fayette, and Washington, almost anybody, in short, the most curious would care to see, " true as life." It was at the museum that the learned pig was ex- hibited, — that famous pig that could pick out any play- ing card called for, spell, and add. It was at the museum that every unique monstrosity traveling about the coun- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 29 try was sure to be introduced to the Rochester public. One morning the press advertised a new curiosity at the museum, something unHke anything offered before. There it was in a case — an exorbitant dentist's bill for filling the tooth of the proprietor. All day long the museum hand- organ ground out its melody near the Four Corners. In its pauses the screeching of its parrots might be heard far up the street. . . . And what became of the figures, its grand- est attraction.^ Our pyrotechnist, James Palmer, tells that story. They fell into the possession of Silas O. Smith some time before St. Luke's Church was moved to build a mis- sion on the east side. Silas O. Smith had no use for wax- works, but he did desire to make all things work together for the foundation of the new chapel, whose congregation was meeting temporarily in Palmer's Hall. If Mr. Palmer would buy the wax-works, the money received would be given to the mission. Mr. Palmer paid one hundred dol- lars for the unique collection that must have cost the orig- inal owner a far greater sum. That one hundred dollars went to the foundation stones of Christ Church, East Ave- nue, and was the first money contributed therefor. . . , Some of us can testify that those wax figures scattered along the entrance hall, — Gen. La Fayette in a new role, extending a welcoming hand at the top of the stairway, — did much for increasing the attendance upon the Sunday- School. The child who could slip away unseen, and mount the forbidden stairway leading to the upper hall, where transfixed beauties stood confronting every shape of re- venge, agony, and patriotism, was in danger of forgetting catechism and collect for that day at least, nor was it an easy matter to secure his attendance upon another school. Mr. Palmer sold the unique collection to a museum in Columbus, Ohio, in 1862, and possibly the Lady Jane Grey of the infantile raptures of some of us may be seen there to-day as Mrs. Hayes, Margaret Mather, or Mary Anderson. The wonderful metamorphosis which wax creations may evolve is illustrated in Mr. Palmer's story of the fate of " the Rochester beauty," which had as many more definite 9 130 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. names as there were lovelorn swains to confer them. Mr. Palmer prefaces his reminiscence by saying that these wax- works were superior to any in New York city. They were, in fact, a rare importation, — one of the exceptional things that fell to Rochester by the law of its destiny. When he bought them of Mr. Smith, it was his intention to bring them out as good as new for the delight of the patrons of his cosmoramic views ; and as the collection would hardly be complete without what was then demanded of wax, — William Tell shooting the apple from the head of his son, — Mr. Palmer proceeded to transform Othello, who had per- sisted in stabbing Desdemona instead of smothering her, into Gessler, the tyrant, while a nameless figure answered for Tell, " the Rochester beauty " filling the part of the patriot's son. But Tell needed a hand wherewith to handle his bow. " Having melted all the odds and ends of wax anatomy I could find," says Mr. Palmer, " the matter of the right complexion giving me no end of trouble, — I prevailed upon a friend to pose his freedom-loving hand for a model ; but as we knew nothing of the necessity of preparing for the operation by shaving, the getting rid of the mould was something like skinning eels, and perhaps the laugh was all on one side. The wax hand was a success, however, but the owner of the model had little inclination to sit again." MISSIONARY AND REFORM MOVEMENTS. The spirit of missions in Rochester made manifest de- velopment as early as 181 8, the Christian women of the village heading a movement for the benefit of destitute congregations in the vicinity. A " Female Missionary Society " was organized, Mrs. Elizabeth Backus, President. The name of Backus since that time has never been lost from our charitable enterprises. In 1822 "The Rochester Female Charitable Society " was founded, "embracing in harmonious union all denominations," — its object the es- tablishment of charity schools, and the relief of the poor in sickness. This society, still in vigorous existence, needs no description nor words of commendation here, but the r;:Ji^^^:Vf^tt ''<^'^ —-Jlvi^^^^v'itf ;■•- .. y^ CHRIST CHURCH. East Avenue, as built in 1S55. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 131 names of its original officers and visitors will be read with interest to-day by those who can find in our present chari- table organizations many of the descendants of this old executive board. The first meeting of the society was held at the house of Everard Peck. Many are the blessed streams outflowing from that home. Mrs. Dr. Levi Ward was elected President ; Mrs. Everard Peck, Treasurer. Mrs. Abelard Reynolds attended the meeting. The early rec- ords of the society were lost, but the names of the treas- urers from 1823 to 1826 are as follows : — 1823. Mrs. F. Whittlesey. (Still living — 1884.) 1824. Mrs. Coleman. 1825. Mrs. I. West. 1826. Mrs. Jonathan Child. The records are preserved from 1827. In that year we find Mrs. James K. Livingston, President ; Mrs. Mary Scovel, Vice President (The orthography given is that of the Recording Secretary.) Directors. — Mrs. Sampson, Mrs. Burr, Mrs. Plumb, Mrs. A, Alcott, Mrs. Coleman, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Bissell, Mrs. Cumming, Mrs. Beach. School Couimittec. — Mrs. T. H. Rochester, Mrs. Peck, Mrs. Hurlburt, Mrs. Atkinson, Mrs. Child, Mrs. West, Mrs. Dunning, Mrs. Mathews. Treasurer. — Mrs. F. Whittlesey. Collectors. — Mrs. Babbet, Mrs. Pomeroy, Miss S. Ward. Superintendent of Schools. — Miss Ewing, Miss Stone. Visitors. — Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Henry, Mrs. Abel, Mrs. Coleman, Mrs. Cuyler, Mrs. West, Mrs. R. Backus, Mrs. Sheldon, Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs. Hurlburt, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Scovel, Mrs. Parsons, Miss Harral, Miss E. Ward. Many of the present board of managers have been con- nected with the charitable society for years. For further details of the society see Statistical Department. The young men of Rochesterville organized a Domestic Missionary Society as early as 1821, sending missionaries to Niagara County, then almost a wilderness, and we find 132 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. a Foreign Mission Society in 1827, which held monthly " Concerts of Prayer " for the conversion of the world, and was the direct means of leading eleven Rochester Christians to go forth for the salvation of the heathen beyond her borders. The missionary zeal of this marvelously growing village demanded many outlets. There was the Tract Society as early as 1826, Levi A. Ward, President, that scattered religious leaflets at every door and upon canal boats, in taverns, wherever the word in season had even faint chance of finding root. The friends of this cause presented a monthly tract to each family in the city which would receive it. Then of organizations for the children there was surely no lack, for we read of three contemporary " Unions," — " The Monroe Sunday-School Union," " The Monroe Sabbath-School Union," and " The Genesee Sab- bath-School Union." The distinctive lines between these missions were no doubt quite as reasonable as our pad- dock-limitations of to-day. There was an association of Sabbath-School Teachers, and a Sabbath-School Depository, an Orphan Asylum, and a Young Men's Association, whose lectures upon Anatomy, Physiology, and kindred subjects were well attended, — home talent as a rule furnishing the lectures every Tuesday and Friday evening during the sea- son. The Mechanics' Literary Association and Appren- tices' Library and the Rochester Athenaeum were each maintaining a public library, and contributing good lectures. The young lawyers had their Pi Beta Gamma, with John C. Chumasero as President, all for " improvement in ora- tory," and practice in debate. There was " The Rochester Academy of Sacred Music," that gave the world the famous ballad-singer Henry Russell ; three Temperance Societies, and an Anti-Slavery Society that discussed the subject of abolition, and kept it before the public with remarkable discretion for those times. O'Reilly gives us the names of the officers of the Anti-Slavery Society for 1838. They were as follows : — Lindley M. Moore, President ; George A. Avery, Rus- sell Green, O. N. Bush, David Scoville, Vice Presidents ; SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH. Corner Main and North Clinton Streets. Present site of Washington Hall. Purchased of Third Presbyterian Church, 1S34. Burned, 1859. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. Built, 1824. Sold to the City for Site of City HaU, 1871. ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, P. E. Built, 1S25. In use, 18S4. ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, R. C. Corner of Piatt and Frank Streets. Built, 1823. Site of present Cathedral. From O'Rally, iS^S- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 33 Oren Sage, Treasurer ; S. D. Porter, Corresponding Sec- retary ; E, F. Marshall, Recording Secretary. An Anti- Slavery State Convention was held here in the Court House January loth and nth, 1838. TRAINING DAY. Those were the times of the old Training Days, when the now obsolete militia laws requiring " all able-bodied free white male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty- five " to attend " company, battalion, or regimental muster or training," with due accoutrements and ammunition, the penalties for non-compliance being severe and rigidly en- forced. The failure to appear, " armed and equipped as the law directs," subjected the delinquent to court-martial ; and as there was a prevailing inability and unwillingness among patriots at that time to submit to the requirements of Training Day, unless belonging to the military, the court-martial had its hands full, and many of those who did comply dressed themselves in ludicrous costumes, — one of our captains, we are told, leading his host of " Fantasticks" or " Invincibles" mounted on a bull, with a handsaw for his sufficient weapon of war. Colonel Amos Sawyer marshaled " The Invincibles," and there are those still among us who can remember him tricked out as Falstaff, calling to his men to "left wheel " on State Street corner one day, and at their failure to do so adding, " Why in Jupiter don't you left wheel .-' " Those were halcyon days for wags like John Robinson, Reuben Bunnel, Sam Drake, and Sedge Hall ; but once it came to pass in Brighton, they tell us, that John Robinson was put under guard for his pranks, and kept marching up and down a hollow square at the point of the bayonet. Colonel Aaron Newton was a magnate not to be trifled with when in command, as many of the Floodwoods ^ learned to their cost, when they carried their fun a trifle too far, and gave him a band beating a tobacco keg for a drum, and an old fife, whose performer could only play a rambling snatch from Bonaparte crossing the Rhine. Of course a '^ All but uniformed militia companies were called Floodwoods. 134 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. law was passed making such high sport a misdemeanor ; but what did that matter when popular sentiment was with the frolickers, and Training Day was looked for as our South- ern friends count on Mardi Gras ? The mock battles were a farce beyond description, when the contending armies in grotesque array charged with rolling-pins, brooms, hay- forks, or anything that might be called a weapon of offense. Training Day was at last abolished, and perhaps none were better satisfied than the Fantastic Invincibles themselves, serious as Rochester must have seemed without their regu- lar frolics.^ Tonnewanta Railroad Bridge. (,1838.) RAILROADS. All this was several years before the first locomotive had been brought to Rochester on a canal boat, The Young Lion, a " pony " for use in building the Auburn road. Steam railroads were talked of, and were in operation, but not in Rochester. Even as late as 1838, when O'Reilly's History 1 "This burlesque (Fantastics) originated in this city, and ISIr. John Robin- son, then exercising the tonsorial art, was the originator of this powerful engine of ridicule, that conquered more than ninety thousand old muskets, mullein stalks, and broom-handles, in the hands of brave men thoroughly disgusted with puerile and useless tomfoolery. ... It was so effectual in this city it ran like a prairie fire over the whole State. . . . And in one year there was not an organized company of country militia called Floodwoods in the State." — L. B. Langworthy, Notes and Reminiscences of Rochester, iS68. A DECADE MEMORABLE 1 35 was published, its author could say: "As the whole route between Auburn and Albany will be completed about the same time as the Rochester and Auburn Railroad, we may anticipate that, in the course of three years, the journey between Rochester and New York will be made by railroad and steam-boat within twenty-four hours, or between sun- rise on one day and the same period the day following. Visionary as the prediction may seem at first sight, a little calculation will show its practicability and probability." Under the head of the Tonnewanta Railroad, on which traveling by locomotive was begun between Rochester and Batavia, May, 1837, we read: "When the entire route from Rochester to Buffalo is completed, even before the Rochester and Auburn road is finished, it is estimated that not less than four or five hundred passengers will pass daily from point to point during the traveling season of the year. . . . The whole road will be run, it is contemplated, under a single arrangement, with one set of cars and loco- motives. . . . We are hardly too sanguine in assuming that, within two years, or in the year 1840, the entire route from Boston to Buffalo, through the city of Rochester, will be in active and successful operation." Carthage Railroad. Until then, Rochester was happy in its one railroad to Carthage, — a horse railroad, with " pleasure cars " thereon, — two horses driven tandem. Captain Cheshire playing his A flat key-bug] e a little before the train started from the east end of the old aqueduct, at the head of Water Street, that no one need miss the steam-boat at the northern ter- minus of the route for lack of clear warning. What a de- lightful trip that was on a balmy day, close to the east bank of the river, at some points only a few feet from the awful precipice, through the green fields of Dublin, to the pictur- 136 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. esq Lie road down to the wharf. There was an inclined plane for the transit of goods, and the rash excursionist sometimes ventured aboard ; but occasional accidents made walking preferable to such venture, particularly as cars, on the western bank at least, had been known to break away and land in the middle of the river. The road was two miles long, and John Greig, of Canandaigua, was its presi- dent ; F. M. Haight, its secretary, and A. M. Schermerhorn, its treasurer, lived in Rochester. Horace Hooker & Co. were the lessees of the road, and Mr. Hinsdale the agent. LA FAYETTE, 1 825. It was in the summer of 1825 that General La Fayette gave the people of Rochester the happy occasion of wel- coming him to the stirring village that was not in exist- ence when he left our shores thirty-nine years before. Every one within the radius of Rochester who could possi- bly reach the village was there that June day, bright and early, to see the man the nation delighted to honor, and wdiose progress through the land was a triumphal proces- sion, each place on his route seeking to outvie all others in expression of sincere joy. It was a memorable day for Rochester, and everything that could contribute to the per- fection of the hero's welcome was brought into requisition by the able committee, with Dr. Levi Ward and James K. Livingston at its head. Hon. Jacob Gould and Judge Ashley Sampson were on the Reception Committee. The town was gay with bunting and arches of evergreens and flowers. Couriers heralded the approach of the packet bearing the beloved hero, his son, George Washington La Fayette, courtly and handsome. General Philip Van Court- landt, and a party of ladies and gentlemen well known in political and high social life. Three miles west of our ex- pectant metropolis, Rochester gave her first welcome to her honored guest in King's Basin, Greece, Judge Sampson ex- pressing the same in these words : — " General La Fayette, our country's benefactor, in behalf of the citizens of Rochester, I bid you a cordial welcome to A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 37 our village." The General, to whom such official greeting had long since become at least a tri-daily occurrence, replied with graceful cordiality : " Sir, you are very kind. I thank you." On the outskirts of the village two young girls, dressed in white, were duly escorted to the pack'et,''and taken on board, dropping at General La Fayette's feet a bouquet of beautiful flowers, which he at once gave to his , son with orders for careful preservation. Upon alighting at Child's Basin, he was conducted to the magnificentl}^ draped platform, where Wm. B. Rochester made an address of welcome. A banquet at the Clinton Hotel was next in order, and a drive through the city. Among the pleasing incidents of the day was one illustrating General La Fay- ette's wonderful memory of faces. A daughter of Judge Church was the guest of Mrs. Colonel Rochester, and among those presented to General La Fayette. Her mother was a daughter of General Schuyler, his old companion in arms. The resemblance between grandfather and grand- daughter was marked, but it was not expected that General La Fayette should discover it, as he instantly did, asking who the young lady might be. So exhaustively was La Fayette's triumphal procession reported, it is hard to find a new item, even in the memory of those who shed tears, as everybody is reported to have done, upon seeing him. But nowhere is mention made of the General's poodle dog, which shared his master's honors ; so let it not be forgotten of William A. Wells, who lived on Lancaster Street, that to him was the care of the pet in- trusted during the sojourn in Rochester. BASE BALL. Thurlow Weed tells of the base ball playing of those days, when the club of nearly fifty members met on Mum- ford's meadow every afternoon in the season, just below the Falls. It requires not a little exercise of the imagination for some of us to think of Addison Gardner, Frederic Whit- tlesey, Samuel L. Seldon, Thomas Kempshall, James K. Livingston, Dr. George Marvin, Dr. F. F. Backus, Dr. A. 138 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. G. Smith, and Thurlow Weed, as shouting " Go home ! Go home ! Back up second I'' etc., etc., vociferously at each other, their coats and waistcoats in a pile on the grass, their friends cheering lustily at a luckless tumble or successful home run. THE MORGAN AFFAIR. September, 1S26. This was the first of many agitating movements concen- trating the gaze of the country, if not of the whole civilized world, upon Rochester. William Morgan, a free and accepted Mason, who dis- appeared simultaneously with the publication of his book exposing the first three degrees of Masonry, was a resident of Batavia in 1826, the year of his abduction from Canan- daigua, whither he had been summoned on a charge of petty larceny trumped up for the occasion. As two or more of his immediate abductors were Rochester men, and "the mysterious carriage " conveying him from Rochester to Lewiston was Rochester property, — while Rochester, di- rectly after his removal from Canandaigua, became the cen- tre of what was called "the infected district," our Masons and anti-Masons being the foremost men in the subsequent trials and investigations, our press the organs of both par- ties, — this subject has a place in our history. William Mor- gan had lived here one or two years before moving to Le Roy, where it is said he was disappointed and embittered in not getting the work he sought on the building of a Ma- sonic Lodge. He had been one of the workmen on our aqueduct. He wrote his notorious book in Rochester, and the " Daily Telegraph" had been cautiously approached for the publication of the same. The later editions were printed here. It is said that upon Rochester Masons was thrown the responsibility of disposing of him at last. Many of the leading Masons and anti-Masons investigating the mysterious affair and imj^licated in it were our leading citizens, and the effects of the excitement did not disap- pear from our political, social, and religious life for many years, if it may be said that they are yet eradicated. Bit- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 139 ter and intense animosities were engendered, outlastino- the grief of Morgan's personal friends for his loss. A new and powerful element was introduced into political strife. Masonry, in this part of the country at least, was well-nigh annihilated. The lodge founded in Rochesterville as early as 1 8 17, and the installation of the Monroe Encampment in July, 1826, in St. Luke's Church, notwithstanding the influ- ence of its Sir Knights and the promising foundation of that first regular conclave, could not stand the tide settino- in against Masonry with "the Morgan affair;" and, "rather than intensify the passions of their fellow -citizens, the fratrcs discussed the subject of returning their charter and disbanding" as early as February, 1829, which they did, "and for eighteen years," says their historian, "this chiv- alric body slumbered quietly. This wicked institution was under the ban of wily politicians for several years, but a more auspicious day enabled the surviving members to seek a return of their authority in conferring the order of knighthood in this flourishing city." But as late as 1838, at the time of the writing of Henry O'Reilly's history, it therein was recorded : " Masonic institutions have ceased to exist in Rochester, or the surrounding country," and all because of measures taken to suppress a book which, if left unnoticed, would have proved but another failure in its au- thor's unsuccessful life, or even if read would have given little reliable knowledge to those possessed with a craving to know the secrets of Masonry without joining the order. The book itself was almost lost sight of in the political whirlpool that followed the abduction ; for in the horror of Free Masonry which resulted in the utter failure of the law to bring the criminals to justice, to secure witnesses, or to find a trace of the missing man, reparation was sought in the ballot. No man belonging to the order of Masons should hold public office, and upon that issue anti-Masons and reformed Masons were called upon to vote. The in- tense anti-mason feeling became a powerful lever in the hands of designing politicians. No crime was too black •to be charged to the order, and only for the division in the 140 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. anti-masonic faction, it had carried things with a high hand. A considerable portion of the first volume of Thurlow Weed's autobiography is devoted to a detailed account of the Morgan affair. He was the foremost leader of the radical anti-masonic party. All we shall ever know of the fate of Morgan is told by him. That he was murdered, drowned in the Niagara River, at the instigation of a few fanatical zealots of the order, who knew no other way out of their difficulty, there is no room for doubt. But we may reasonably deny, from the evidence advanced, that the ab- duction and murder of Morgan were the result of the true teachings of the brotherhood, or that Masons generally were acquainted with what was taking place. The course of De Witt Clinton is an illustration of the views of every good Mason at the time. De Witt Clinton, like Washing- ton, Franklin, La Fayette, and Jackson, was a Free and Ac- cepted Mason, and it can never be said of him that he left a stone unturned in his efforts to bring the criminals to justice. No one was louder in demand for investigation than the older Masons. The young men led what was called the conspiracy, defended their order by affirming — what gained credence with many — that Morgan was in hid- ing, or in duress in Canada, and that the agitation was a clever device for selling the book. Surely a book never had a better chance for making its mark, but who of us to - day is any the wiser for its publication } The petty persecution of the author culminated in a mighty crusade against Masonry ; and Morgan, cruelly, uselessly murdered as he was, died rather for publishing a foolish book in hope of pecuniary gain, than for the defense of high principle or exposure of wTong. Had his book — granting truth in its revelations which his abduction confirmed in many minds — unearthed anything more harmful than the brief expos- ure of " the poor blind candidates " at initiation, the secret grip, and what seems to the unsophisticated a careless mode of salutation with a twenty inch gauge, a square, and a common gavel when the third degree is sought for, we A DECADE MEMORABLE. , ., would have been less at loss to explain to his credit the breaking of the terrible oath which he gives to the world wuh all the rest. The secrets he attem.ned to betray we e those initiatory rites of the first three degrees, and the secret signs without which no one can enter a Masonic Lodge. His description of those necessary means of de- fense against imposture would prove about as helpful to he uninitiated invader as would the directions for tmlock- ing a bank safe for the interpretation of unfulfilled proph- ecy. One has only to practice giving the grip according to his explanation, to see the folly of the whole revelation He was well known here in Rochester, where he had many warm friends. He was fifty years old at the time of httle chln'^^'S ' rr "'"' "'* " >'°""S wife and two little chi dren. He had quarreled with the Masons in Le Roy, and moved to Batavia with the resentful determina- tion of exposing the secrets of the order. The book was written here, just when is uncertain, but those who care to know the precise locality where this one of our many dragon s teeth was sown, will perhaps contemplate with in- vest hereafter ,55 West Main Street, a little east of St V^r% ^°T ' """^ °''"P'"' •'y "■ "• Woodward, who tells of finding a secret closet when recently making re- pairs. His portrait gives us an amiable, scholarly face? but there ,s an unmistakable weakness about the chin, that the high philosophical forehead and the spectacles p ished up ThTnifflrrT".'' "'.'T ™"""' '^'^ '" -' -"'-'i Ih, uT '■'"""''' "' °f '^^ fi<^'i'i°"^ 'Charge upon which he was arrested. He had borrowed such a garment a a feeWe 'fl ^-^"^""^''"^ -'' f-'«' '» -'-n it. He wa as a feeble fly ,„ a strong web. He had written and was publishing the secrets of Masonry in violation of his oath The brotherhood had in vain pleaded with him to give up them"™:crr'' t^' r^ ''^'" '--^y ™-- '° ^-^roy them , and when he disappeared and the country was on fire what wonder that many were firm in believing that he had made a good bargain with the Masons, and would have an easier time in providing for his little family on his far northern farm in Canada .' 142 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. In an editorial in the " Commercial Advertiser " on the Morgan Atfair we find the following : — "The Masons were, at this time, divided into four classes. First, there were the guilty Masons and their immediate confidants, if not allies. Second, the thorough-going Ma- sons, who, if not actually guilty, were rather disposed to think that the actors had served the traitor right. Third, retired Masons, who had resumed their aprons in conse- quence of the spirit of persecution that had gone abroad, and who, conscious of their own innocence, felt bound to resist the intolerant spirit of anti-masonry. Fourth, a much larger body of Masons than either of the preceding, having virtually retired from the institution, were now mere passives, condemning the outrages as far as they believed them true, but doubting, nevertheless, whether any sub- stantial cause existed for their excitement." To this statement Thurlow Weed has added : " There were at that moment two classes of anti-Masons : first, those who believed that the outrages perpetrated upon Morgan had the sanction of the lodges, chapters, and en- campments ; second, those who believed that the outrages which had been committed by zealous and misguided mem- bers of the order had only the sanction of Masons kindred in character and spirit. This second or latter class now looked for some emphatic and decisive action on the part of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter in condemnation of the outrage upon Morgan, in asserting its own innocence, and in vindication of its character." At the next session of the Grand Chapter (1827) the committee to which the Morgan matter was referred reported the following resolution, which was adopted : — " Resolved, By this Grand Chapter, that we its members, individually and as a body, do disclaim all knowledge or approbation of the proceedings in relation to the abduction of the said William Morgan. " And that we disapprove of the same as a violation of the majesty of the laws, and an infringement of the rights of personal liberty secured to every citizen of our free and happy Republic." A DECADE MEMORABLE. 143 The Monroe County Morgan Committee, organized for the investigation of the mystery, had its head centre here of course, and although Masons were at first considered ehgible, they finally withdrew, and perhaps the most con- spicuous men of the time were the vigilant, unwearied members of that committee, working in unison with com- mittees of neighboring counties and towns. We find upon Mr. Weed's list of the members, Samuel Works, Harvey Ely, Frederick F. Backus, and Frederic Whittlesey. In a memorial sent to the legislature, praying that an addi- tional and larger reward should be offered for the appre- hension and conviction of persons engaged in the abduction and probable murder of Morgan, and for the appointment of a special commissioner to conduct the prosecutions, the following names composed the Rochester committee : Josiah Bissell, Jr., Frederick F. Backus, Samuel Works, Frederic Whittlesey, Thurlow Weed, E. S. Beach. Two Rochester men, Burrage Smith and John Whitney, gained a most unenviable notoriety from their intimate association with Morgan's abduction and disappearance. Their connection with the mysterious carriage, the property of a Rochester man, Ezra Piatt, a Royal Arch Mason, could not be doubted. They disappeared the February after the abduction, and it was subsequently learned that they fled to New Orleans, where Smith died. Whitney returned to Rochester in 1829, when he was tried upon an indictment found in his absence, and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for one year and three months. Colonel Wil- liam L. Stone, who wrote an impartial account of the affair in 1832, in a letter to John Quincy Adams, sums up John Whitney's testimony, in the trial of Parkhurst, Whitney, and others, as follows, John Whitney having admitted that he was with Morgan in the carriage on that eventful jour- ney : " There was no scuffle, nor was any force used. . . . Morgan expressed a willingness to go if his situation could be made to suit him, and he was assured it should be so. The object in keeping him secret was that Miller and those with whom he had been engaged in printing the book 144 ROCHESTER: A STORY IITSTORTCAL. should not know where he had gone, so as to follow him ; he said Miller had misused him, and he did not wish him to know where he had gone ; appeared anxious as any one to keep his journey secret ; witness s*aw no bandage over his eyes ; no threats were used ; Morgan was told he could not expect friends unless he used his friends well ; he said he had done wrong and was willing to get out of the scrape ; he knew they were going to Lewiston ; it was the understanding that the arrangements to be made for him were to be as good in a pecuniary point of view as the spec- ulation of Miller in publishing the book ; nothing definite, however, had yet been agreed upon." " The conspiracy," writes Thurlovv Weed, who, it must be admitted, had as thorough a knowledge of the case as any one, " rising from Morgan's arrest for debt to his re- arrest for larceny, had no purpose beyond securing his sep- aration for a year or two from his Batavia associates. Nor did the idea of taking his life occur to the most reckless until the refusal of the Masons in Canada to receive and send him to the Far West Fur Company, as was expected, threw him back on their hands. Morgan had now been confined for several days in the unoccupied magazine of Fort Niagara. He was becoming noisy, violent, and trouble- some. The Lewiston Masons sent a messenger to Roches- ter to inform the persons who brought Morgan there that they must take the responsibility of disposing of him. The subject was anxiously discussed in the chapter at Roches- ter. Who, besides Whitney, went, in consequence of this message, to Niagara is not known." This statement is confirmed by a confession made by John Whitney in 1831 to Thurlow Weed, to whom he after- wards promised to make a written statement of the affair to be sealed up for future use. John Whitney died before this written statement was made, but in the detailed report of the conversation to be found in Thurlow Weed's autobiog- raphy, he is reported to have said in the presence of Colo- nel Simeon B. Jewett, of Clarkson, and Major Samuel Bar- ton, of Lewiston, and Mr. Weed : " When our friends in A DECADE MEMORABLE. I45 Canada refused to take care of Morgan, the Lewiston peo- ple sent word to Rochester that he could not be kept much longer in the fort, and that we must come to Lewiston immediately. . . . Simultaneously, the installment of an en- campment of Knights Templar drew together, at Lewiston, a large number of friends, of many of whom the question of what was to be done with Morgan was asked. But the matter was so perplexing that no one seemed willing to act or advise. In the evening, however, after we had been called 'from labor to refreshment,' Colonel William King asked me to step into another room, where I found Mr. Howard, of Buffalo, Mr. Chubbuck, of Lewiston, and Mr. Garside, of Youngstown. Colonel King said there was a carriage at the door ready to take us to the fort, into which we stepped and were driven hastily away. As we pro- ceeded, Colonel King said that he had received instruction from the highest authority to deal with Morgan according to his deserts, and that, having confidence in their courage and fidelity, he had chosen them as his assistants. On reach- ing the magazine, they informed Morgan that the arrange- ments had been completed for his removal to the interior of Canada, where he would be settled on a farm, and that his family would follow him, in accordance with the assurance previously given him by Johns. With this assurance, he walked with them from the fort, where a row-boat awaited them. The boat was rowed in a diagonal direction to the place where the Niagara River is lost in Lake Ontario. Here, either shore being two miles distant, a rope was wound several times around Morgan's body, at either end of which a large weight was attached. Up to that time, Mor- gan had conversed with them about his new home and the probability of being joined by his family ; but when he saw the rope and the use to be made of it, he struggled desper- ately, and held firmly with one hand to the gunwale of the boat. Garside detached it, but as he did so Morgan caught Garside's thumb in his mouth and bit off the first joint." The mystery of the Morgan affair to us of to-day. Masons or non-Masons, is not what became of Morgan, but that 10 146 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. this little book of his should have so incensed even a small faction of the Order that they could approve of his ab- duction. Those familiar with masonic literature are aware that the publications of the fraternity tell more concerning the ori- gin and objects of Masonry than this betrayal of a sworn member. They give us, beside, an abundance of illustra- tions of the symbols of the mysteries. One may rise up from a perusal of "The General Ahiman Rezon and Free Mason's Guide, by Daniel Sickles, 33°" with a clearer in- sight into the symbolism of the order, and the rites of the ancient craftsmen, than a study of Morgan's Exposure of Masonry can ever afford. Copies of the first edition of Morgan's book are not easily found. There is still a con- viction in the popular mind that the Masonic Order is in league to destroy every copy, and that this has been their mission since 1826. Our churches suffered severely during the excitement. There were saints who could not commune with Masons, or have a Mason in the pulpit of the church they attended. The beloved rector of St. Luke's for eight years, a Mason of high standing, was so unfortunately associated with Ma- sonry his resignation was inevitable. The old First Church was torn with dissensions between its members. Henry O'Reilly and Thurlow Weed, the foremost leaders of the local factions of " the infected district," represented more intense partisanship than that existing between Mason and anti-Mason. Henry O'Reilly was the brilliant editor of the "Advertiser" and a Jacksonian, but not a Mason. Thur- low Weed's "Anti-Masonic Enquirer" was devoted to the Adams' party. There was a fanning of the faint embers of the old flames when the monument to the memory of William Morgan was erected in 1882 in the cemetery at Batavia. This mon- ument is of granite and about sixty feet in height. The block upon which the inscriptions are chiseled is four feet square and nearly six feet high, and the faces containing the inscriptions are polished. Its columnar shaft is sur- HENRY O'REILLY. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 147 mounted by the statue of a man represented as making an address. The inscriptions are as follows : — [South Side.] SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF WM. MORGAN. A NATIVE OF VIRGINIA, A CAPTAIN IN THE WAR OF l8l2. A RESPECTABLE CITIZEN OF BATAVIA AND A MARTYR TO THE FREEDOM OF WRITING, PRINTING, AND SPEAKING THE TRUTH HE WAS ABDUCTED FROM NEAR THIS SPOT IN THE YEAR 1826, BY FREE MASONS, AND MURDERED FOR REVEAL- ING THE SECRETS OF THEIR ORDER. MORGAN. [West Side.] THE BANE OF OUR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS IS TO BE FOUND IN MASONRY ALREADY POWERFUL AND DAILY BECOMING MORE SO. I OWE TO MY COUNTRY AN EXPOSURE OF ITS DANGERS. — CAPT. WM. MORGAN. [ East Side. ] ERECTED BY VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTIONS FROM OVER 2000 PERSONS RESIDING IN CANADA, ONTARIO, AND TWENTY-SIX OF THE UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES. [North Side.] THE COURT RECORDS OF GENESEE COUNTY AND FILES OF THE BATAVIA ADVOCATE KEPT IN THE RECORDER'S OFFICE CON- TAIN THE HISTORY OF THE EVENTS THAT CAUSED THE ERECTION OF THIS MONUMENT. I cannot refrain from republishing in this connection a tribute to John Whitney, found in the columns of the "Craftsman," the masonic organ, for June, 1829, after his sentence for imprisonment : — " Of the character of John Whitney through his career of life thus far it is almost irrelevant to speak, for the voice of community, the unwilling testimony even of those who, for purposes best known to themselves, have seen fit to perse- cute him, is lifted up in his praise. He was the useful citi- zen, the kind neighbor, the generous friend, the industrious mechanic, the faithful husband, and the fond father." John Whitney died in Chicago in the summer of 1869, forty-three years after the abduction of William Morgan. Who shall say that each was not equally the martyr of fanat- 148 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. icism and self-misled at the outset ? Inhere are not lack- ing among us those who can see in the joyless life of John Whitney after that fatal September night as much to com- miserate, even to honor, as in that of the murdered man, whose mental suffering, though terrible, was not pro- longed. THE " GOOD ENOUGH MORGAN " AFFAIR. If the Morgan affair of 1826 gave Rochester unenviable notoriety, that of the " Good Enough Morgan " affair of 1827 intensified the interest of the whole country in several of our political leaders and the warfare they waged in our journalism and courts. The names of men high in office and social standing almost disappeared for a while in op- probrious epithets : " Masons Jacks," " Mingoes," " whis- ker pullers," " kidnappers," etc. There are two versions of the story in which so much undying bitterness originated. Thurlow Weed's "Autobi- ography " gives one, Henry Brown's " History of Political Anti-Masonry," another. The last mentioned book was pub- lished in 1829, its writer, a lawyer of Batavia, Western New York, and copies may be found in the New York Mercantile and Astor libraries. The impartial reader of the two conflicting accounts has at least the following facts from which to draw conclu- sions : — Morgan had disappeared. The Masons, as a body, were charged with his murder. But there was no proof that he was dead. Many believed he was in hiding. Thurlow Weed, the animating spirit of American political anti- Masonry at the time, and one of the Rochester Committee seeking the apprehension and conviction of those concerned in the Morgan abduction, read in the Orleans "Whig" one day (i2th of October, 1827) what caught his vigilant eye at once. The body of an unknown man had been found on the lake shore near the mouth of Oak Orchard Creek. The description given by the coroner led Mr. Weed to think it might be the body of William Morgan, who, he believed, had been drowned in the Niagara River more than a year A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 49 before. " Teeth sound, except two missing on the lower jaw ; a set of what is generally termed double teeth in front," was the particular item leading him to start at once with several friends for Oak Orchard Creek, as Morgan's teeth were known to be double, and his size corresponding to that of the body described. He sent to Batavia request- ing those who would be most likely to determine if it was Morgan's body or not to aid him in his investigation on an appointed day. " In passing through the villages on my vi^ay," he says, " I gave notice of the contemplated investi- gation, and invited citizens generally to be present." Mrs. Morgan's attendance was also secured, with two teeth of her husband which she had preserved — an unusual preser- vation, we must all admit. At the first inquest some one had said, " Perhaps this is Morgan," but a Mr. Potter, who found the corpse, replied at once such could not be the case, as the body had whis- kers and was not bald, and every one who had ever seen Morgan remembered his bald head and smooth face. That ended the matter for the nonce. The man was buried, but his clothing was kept by the coroner, in case some one should try to identify him. The second inquest was instigated by Mr. Weed. A statement published in the Rochester "Advertiser " shortly afterwards, representing that he caused the corpse to be disinterred on a Saturday and left in the charge of " three trusty men to guard it against the Masons " until the Mon- day following, and that the hair and whiskers disappeared in that time, etc., was the cause of the indictment brought against the pubHsher and editor of the " Advertiser," and which was withdrawn without trial at last, after hanging over their heads twelve years, although they never made retraction. To this second inquest the coroner summoned twenty- five intelligent citizens, all residents of the town of Carle- ton. " Before the body was exhumed," says Mr. Weed, " Mrs. Morgan, Dr. Strong, Mr. Fitch, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Dyer, etc., were called upon to give in detail their recollection of I50 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. i^Q personnel TyViA of any peculiarities by which it might be identified. . . . The face was so discolored and distorted that no feature of it was distinguishable." The two teeth were found to slide into their cavities satisfactorily, and there was a convincing scar on one of the great toes. The end of the inquest was, Mrs. Morgan declared the body to be that of her husband, William Morgan, and attended the public funeral at Batavia dressed in deep mourning, when a funeral discourse was delivered by one James Coch- ran. The report of the Rochester Committee attending the inquest closed as follows : " For ourselves, we do con- ceive that the body discovered on the shore of Lake Ontario has been identified as the body of Captain WiUiam Morgan beyond the shadow of a doubt. In this discovery we can- not but trace the hand of an overruling Providence, who, when all human efforts were found too weak effectually to penetrate the mysterious secret, has chosen his own time, and by his own means to throw a broad light upon this dark mystery. This induces us to rely with a stronger hope upon the same Providence to unravel the remainder of this entangled skein, and to provide means for bringing all the perpetrators of a daring outrage to merited punishment. (Signed) Samuel Works, Harvey Ely, Frederick F. Backus, Frederic Whittlesey, Thurlow Weed." " ' Morgan is found ! '" I quote from Brown's " History of Political Anti- Masonry." '"Morgan is found,' was the theme of every tongue. Heaven had laid bare its out- stretched arm to avenge his death, and that not upon the guilty perpetrators only, but the whole fraternity. The already excited town received a new impulse, and future triumphs were rung in every ear. The cry of vengeance was wafted on every breeze, and mingled with every echo returning from the lake, where Morgan's ghost, it was said, performed its nightly rounds." Surely a political A DECADE MEMORABLE. 151 party never saw the fall election drawing near with more confidence of sweeping success than did the anti-Masons that October when they buried their supposed Morgan. There was outspoken dissatisfaction with this second in- quest, but Mrs. Morgan's recognition went a long way with the multitude. Said the " Daily Advertiser," in one of its editorials, " The more we hear and see, the more thor- oughly satisfied are we that there was foul play some way or other connected with the second inquest over the body recently found. It is utterly unreconcilable with our no- tions of right in such cases that anything tending to throw light on a judicial investigation should have been withheld or smothered by those assisting at it ; but that something similar to this has been the case is susceptible of positive proof." ..." Certainly it was an extraordinary discovery, bordering on the miraculous," said Colonel Pratt, " that a human body, floating about in Lake Ontario for a year, food for fishes and undergoing decomposition, should be found with head and hair complete." It is to Henry Brown's History, and to Henry O'Reilly's "Good Enough Morgan," published 1880, that we must turn for a fuller insight into the third inquest than Mr. Weed vouchsafes. The anti-Masons were on the high tide of political suc- cess, " when a voice from Canada," says Henry Brown, " dispelled the general joy — a still small voice — the voice of a widow and her fatherless children claiming the remains of their dead. Their pretensions for a while were treated with levity, and they were even insulted and abused." The story that speedily came out was as follows : — One Timothy Monro, of the township of Clark, Upper Canada, in company with his friend, John Cron, had visited Newark on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, oppo- site Fort Niagara, September 26, 1827. While awaiting the sale of his cargo, he, with his shipmate, John Cron, crossed the river in a small boat. Returning, the skiff cap- sized near the place where Morgan was said to have been murdered, and Timothy, Monro was drowned, notwithstand- ing the efforts of John Cron to save his life. 152 JWCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. When Mrs. Monro saw the notice of the body found at Oak Orchard Creek, she started for Batavia at once, with her son and John Cron, to satisfy herself of its identity. One account is that messengers were dispatched from this locality to bring her here. Her appearance on the scene was naturally exciting, and a large representation of Roches- ter men attended the third inquest. The Morgan Commit- tee, it is said, declined to lend their presence, but the oppo- site faction, headed by Ebenezer Griffin, Henry O'Reilly, Jacob Gould, Robert H. Stevens, etc., were unsparing in their efforts to secure a thorough investigation. Just before this third inquest took place, and when the public ear was quick to catch each item concerning the new phase of the matter, and fanatics and demagogues were magnifying every circumstance that could further the interests of their party, Mr. Weed uttered the memorable words, whose exact rendering we may possibly never know, but which went over the country like wild-fire. His own version of the affair, given to the New York " Graphic," is as follows : — "When this last inquest was pending, the lawyer, Ebene- zer Griffin, father-in-law of Judge E. Darwin Smith, and en- gaged by the Masons, said to me one day, ' What are you going to do for a Morgan now .■' ' * This man is a good enough Morgan,' I retorted, ' till you produce the man that was killed.' He went off and reported that I said the de- ceased was 7i good ejiough Morgan until after election. This lie was first published by Henry O'Reilly, editor of the Rochester " Daily Advertiser," and it made such an excite- ment that he stuck to it and elaborated it. Finally, the lie took this form — that I pulled out the beard, cut the hair, and otherwise defaced or mutilated the features of the On- tario corpse so as to make them resemble Morgan. ... I was abhorred by tens of thousands. Old acquaintances cut mc. I was pointed at on the street. Friends gave me the cold shoulder. I received threatening anonymous letters. I was a marked man." The following affidavit appeared in the "Daily Adver- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 153 tiser," and in the form of handbills, and was circulated at the polls throughout the county the following Novem- ber : — " William C. Greene, being duly sworn, deposeth and says that he, the said Greene, with others, did attend the poll of election held at Harvard's, in the town of Gates, in the County of Monroe, and that there Mr. Thurlow Weed did say that he, the said Thurlow, did pull the whiskers from the face of the body found at Orchard Creek, and that John Marchant did shave the same, he, the said Thurlow, being one of the Morgan Committee. "William C. Greene. "Subscribed and sworn this 6th day of November, 1827, before me. ,, " Samuel Miller, J. P. The third inquest of the body at Batavia followed Mrs. Monro's and John Cron's examination at Gaines, where the clothing had been preserved. Mrs. Monro's descrip- tion of the clothing worn by her husband when he left home, and confirmed by John Cron, was surprisingly mi- nute and exact, even to the yarn in the darning of the socks, and the mending of the pantaloons. This of course was before she had seen the clothing in the coroner's keep- ing. That it was that of Timothy Monro was believed even by those who still persisted that the body must be Morgan's, although when the body was produced at Batavia, before an intelligent and impartial jury, upon which there were more anti-Masons than Masons, the decision of the second inquest was adjudged false. The face had changed beyond recognition, but it was a bald, whiskerless corpse, accord- ing to Brown's and O'Reilly's version, while Mr. Weed's is as follows : " Monro had a heavy black beard and coarse black hair, while the beard of the body found was grayish, and the hair long, soft, and of a chestnut color ... so that while the clothes were minutely and accurately described by Mrs. Monro, the body sworn to by her and her son was not the body upon which the clothes were found ; " to which 154 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. the opposition naturally retorted, " they would ask us to be- lieve that William Morgan's body, which they say was sunk with weights and bound by a cable tow in Niagara River, thirteen months ago and more, had somehow managed to get inside of Timothy Monro's clothing." Jonathan Hurlburt, Coroner, impaneled the following jury : Guy Carlton Towner, Osburn Filer, Alva Smith, Heman Pomeroy, Jr., Joseph Furman, Charles C. Church, Truman Hurlburt, Hall S. Gregory, Cornelius L. Sweet, Daniel P. Adams, William H. Webster, Abraham Van Tuyl, John Thorp, Jr., William Blossom, Elisha Parmelce, William H. Wells, Burnham Gilbert, John Waldo, Benja- min Henshaw, Ebenezer Pomeroy, Lemuel Holden, Ezekiel Betts, Oswald Williams, Nicholas Sagenddorph, who re- turned a verdict that "the said body is that of Timothy Monro, and they do say upon their oaths as aforesaid, that the same Timothy Monro came to his death by drowning . . . the 26th day of September, 1827." A paper signed by Ebenezer Griffin, James F. Mason, and Jacob Gould, was widely circulated, giving an account of the inquest, the verdict of the jury, and their agreement with the same. And yet there are those to-day who seem unshaken in their conviction that the body in the Batavia cemetery, upon which three inquests were held, is that of William Morgan, The importance of the decision of that third inquest can hardly be estimated. It changed and purified the political atmosphere. The second decision had placed at least fifty under the suspicion of murder, because of the charge of their connection with Morgan's disappearance. With Mor- gan proved to have been drowned, indictments for his ab- duction would have been indictments for murder. Mrs. Morgan married not long after the third inquest. THE ARCADE. Rochester without the Arcade, even now that the city is sometimes called a suburb of Powers Block, would be very like Europe without the Mediterranean, Venice without A DECADE MEMORABLE. 155 canals, and Pisa without its tower. The Arcade is the channel through which all the converging streams of our municipal life flow in a steady, quiet stream. It stamped our individuality when we were hardly expected to have individuality ; it characterized us, and that creditably, when Carthage Bridge was unforgotten. We, whose memories recall the day when it was our pride and the wonder of the stranger within our gates, watch every change in its structure with tardy approval, for it is preeminently the monument of the enterprise and seership of early Rochester, and the birthplace of much that has shaped our destiny. The Old Arcade. Far more of the first things in our annals date from the old Arcade than from any other locality. Rochester has been called " the great place for starting things." The ap- pellation is not misapplied, and the association of many of our movements with the Arcade we leave to those who would pursue the subject more exhaustively. That little saddler's shop on the west side of the river was the nucleus of much of our prosperity. There is an item in the simple autobiography of that poor saddler that has place here, for 156 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. it tells US how the pioneer of 1812 was enabled, in 1828, to build on the site of his first home in Rochester the largest and most expensive building in the United States west of Albany, and the finest in the State outside of New York city, a far greater venture for the owner, and a more ex- ceeding joy for the people, than was ever the magnificent building on the Four Corners, which has naturally given the Arcade the place of a venerated antiquity. The extract from the autobiography takes us back to the troublous times of the War of 18 12, when the little settlement was suffering from fear of an invasion by the British. "During the summer and fall of 1813 the basement story of the large house was finished and some of the rooms above, and we moved into it, and rented the one we left to Elisha Ely. Captain Isaac Stone " (the east side tavern keeper) " having been authorized to enlist a company of volunteer cavalry for six months as General Peter B. Por- ter's volunteers, Harvey Ely and I contracted to equip them, he to furnish the clothing and I the saddlery, to be paid for when they received the money from government for their services. As soon as my health became suffi- ciently restored, I began the work." The saddlery was paid for in good time and the war was over. The nest Qg^ was prudently invested in the first tav- ern on the west side, the house where General Scott and his staff were entertained on their way home from the fron- tier, and where Mortimer F. Reynolds was born. George Frauenberger is the historian of the Arcade, and I cannot do better than quote from the interesting leaflet he has issued, " History of Reynolds' Arcade, 1828 to 1880." In speaking of our first west side tavern, he says : — " It was there that the first justice's court was held ; the first physician practiced the healing art ; the first lawyer expounded to a gaping crowd the principles of legal lore ; the first school opened (taught by a lady who continued to reside in the city until her death in* 874, and two or more of her pupils still reside here) ; the first religious meetings were held ; the first newspaper published ; the first masonic A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 57 lodge ; the first tailor's shop ; the first saddler's shop, and the first restaurant established. " In Spafford's ' Gazetteer ' of the State of New York, published in 1824, is the following descriptive paragraph: * Rochester — post village or borough — capital of Monroe County. It is incorporated and ought to be called a Post Borough,' Although in the four years between 1824 and 1828 the business and population had materially increased, it required considerable enterprise and courage to erect a building of the cost and dimensions of the Arcade at that early day. Confident as the builder was in his hopes and anticipations of the future Rochester, he could hardly have conceived the wondrous change that has occurred in the frontier village, proud of its then 8,000 residents, to the great city of to-day boasting of its 100,000 inhabitants. "The completion of the Arcade marked an epoch in our early history as the centre of business and population. It was the largest and most expensive building in the United States west of Albany, and the finest in the State outside New York city. Here the Athenaeum was started, and an auditorium furnished expressly for its uses, in which was inaugurated the first mayor elect of the city of Rochester ; here the first strictly religious newspaper, the ' Observer,' was published ; here was published the ' Craftsman,' a ma- sonic journal ; and here was painted the first portrait, the first daguerreotype, the first lithographs, the first wood and steel engravings ; here the first sculptor of the city (and perhaps of the country) has wrought on marble the faces and figures of some of our eminent citizens ; here the late lamented Wm. A. Reynolds opened the first seed -store, and in connection with M. B. Bateham commenced the nursery and green-house business, from which has grown the extensive seed-house of Hiram Sibley & Co., and the gigantic nursery establishment of Ellwanger & Barry, to whom he transferred the business. Here for fifty years have the people of this vicinity come to deposit and receive their mail matter, and who can tell how much of hope and disappointment, of joy and sorrow, the little missives have 158 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. conveyed. Here was the electric telegraph office opened soon after the completion of the first line west of Albany ; here have merchants, mechanics, artists, printers, lawyers, doctors, surveyors, architects, dentists, and hosts of busi- ness men pursued their various callings and practiced their professions ; here has justice been administered, the nup- tial tics been sealed, and perchance prematurely severed ; the naked clothed ; the hungry fed ; the thirsty had their thirst assauged : the poor had the gospel preached, and some, alas ! life's fitful fever o'er, have been summoned from the scenes of this busy whirl of commerce to join the multitude who people the silent abode of the city of the dead. " When first erected, the Arcade did not extend through to what is now Exchange Place, but what was then known as Bugle Alley. It was subsequently extended northerly and easterly to meet the requirements of the business which has centred in and around it, and, as far as practi- cable, to keep pace with the increase and growth of popu- lation and business, and the improvements and taste in architectural structures, the natural concomitants and out- growth of a larger and wealthier population. The old- fashioned style of architecture, with high narrow windows, that formed the original store fronts, has given way to broad sheets of French and American Plate Glass ; and the old wooden arch, with its small lights of window glass, has been replaced by the massive iron rafters and immense plates of rough glass weighing fully seventy tons. The upper rooms of the building being fitted up for artists' studios, they have for more than two generations past been occupied by artists in the various departments of art." The story of the many artists who have had their studios in that upper floor of the Arcade, — their successes, fail- ures, windfalls, and mishaps, — would make an interesting volume of itself, and one of no small size. D. ]\I. Dewey, who has been a tenant of the Arcade since 1844, seem- ing to many of us as much a part of it as the gallery and skylight, has, as a dealer in works of rare excellence, and A DECADE MEMORABLE. j ^g by his encouragement of genuine talent in our local artists, done much for the formation and perpetuating of a high standard of art in Rochester. His " Brief Sketches of our Painters" from Paul Hinds (1820) to John W. Miller, the fresco-painter, who to-day makes Powers' art gallery to bloom as a rose, gives us, with many other glimpses of the lives of our artists, what we cannot help noting in this con- nection, — the fact that the majority of them first set up their easels, in our midst at least, in the old Arcade. Many a now famous artist has hung out a sign on that upper floor, bearing an unknown, and, perhaps, while with uS, an unnoticed name. The year 1834 in our art history is memorable as the one in which Grove S. Gilbert came to Rochester, of all our artists the acknowledged head. It is hard to define his superiority. Artists say, "You have only to look at his portraits and there it is," — the indescribable something Gilbert Stuart called the "that" of a picture, for lack of any other name. Self-taught, forbidden by stern necessity to become a copyist if so inclined, ignorant of the rules deemed indispensable for the regulation of genius, he began to work out his ideal of true portraiture in his own way, which he could neither teach nor explain ; and the result was, artists of eminence in the eastern cities were soon deriding him for staying longer where his matchless brush could never bring him the ducats he deserved. But Gilbert had a peculiar fondness for his Arcade studio, and his true artist temperament made worldly emoluments to him of little value. He was content to abide with us, and paint his portraits in his own time and his own way, refusing, even when not overburdened with orders, to paint such — and here it is hard to find a better word than Gilbert Stuart's — as did not have the " that " in them for him to paint from. The "that" was not a thing of the outward physiognomy with him. He painted from the inner life, the personality, and his portraits must give the best and characteristic phase. If he caught the revelation clearest and strongest in someone feature, — the eye, the outline l60 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. of a cheek in a certain mood, — the rest of the face was secondary to him, dependent upon it. One can easily understand his Hmitations ruled by ideas so uncompromis- ing to every principle seeking gain or the approval of his patrons. I doubt if all his sitters appreciated the honor conferred upon them when he consented to reproduce their faces upon his canvas ; and why his portraits, in addi- tion to their exquisite management of color, and breadth of chiaro-oscuro, have an ideality the true artist recognizes as the reality subtly caught by one who could discover its existence. The self-depreciation of Gilbert has always been a wall of adamant between him and extended fame. To praise his work required more tact than to criticise that of many an inferior artist. His ideal was exalted. He humbly did his best, and that not for your commendation ; and now in his declining years, his old Arcade studio forsaken, he half wonders why he ever attempted to paint at all. A collection and exhibition of his portraits would renew the inquiry, " Why did he not become the most famous of portrait painters } " Mr. Dewey tells the story that when, after much solicitation, Gilbert was finally prevailed upon to send one of his heads to the Academy of Design several years ago, the work so e.xcited the admiration of the artists that Elliott, the distinguished portrait painter, offered Gil- bert's name at once as a member, and he was unanimously elected. He would never have sent the picture of his own free will. In the forty-five years and more in which he painted por- traits in the Arcade studio, the following persons are among the many who have sat before his easel : Jesse Hawley, Dr. Matthew Brown (it was this portrait he sent to the Academy of Design), the Rev. Dr. Wisner, a former pastor of the Brick Church, the Rev. Dr. Whitehouse, of St. Luke's, the late Bishop of Illinois, the Hon. Levi Ward, considered by Mr. Gilbert one of his best pictures. Dr. Dewey, Harvey Humphrey, Mr. and Mrs. D. M, Dewey, several portraits for the family of Gil man H. Perkins, etc. A DECADE MEMORABLE. l6l " I never voted but once, if I remember rightly," is one of the reminiscences won from him when he was in a story- telling mood, — the modulations of his low, peculiar voice reminding one in some inexplicable way of the something hard to define in the charm of his pictures, — "and that was in 1848, when I voted for myself. You see we Abolition- ists got up an Abolition State ticket of our own, and it took the whole thirteen of us here to fill the offices. They nom- inated me for member of assembly," pausing tranquilly for us to have our laugh. " We voted for John G. Birney for President that campaign, — would rather lose our vote than vote for the slave power. Who were the old Abolitionists then .^ My memory fails me, but there was John Kedzie and Isaac Post and Burtis," — looking dreamingly at a sunny spot in the carpet, to break out with gentle impa- tience, — " Can't I remember those thirteen old Abolition ists } Well," submissively, " their names may come to me by and by." Among the artists of the old Arcade to whom the appear- ance of our public streets is largely indebted are our sign painters. We have only to imagine what our thoroughfares would be like had Arnold, Van Dorn, Ethridge, Lines, etc., been lacking in the true artistic sense, to give thanks from a full heart. George Arnold's first sign, painted in 1826, was "A. Reynolds, Postmaster." Speaking of the sign painters of the Arcade brings up inevitably from the past Othello Hamlet Ethridge, a man as closely identified with the old building as are the Genesee Falls with Rochester. To think of the entrance as it used to be, Eugene Sintzinch's paintings of Niagara on either side, making the passage on a hot sultry day something like a plunge into the Rapids, is to see the striking figure of Ethridge passing along the gallery, or posing at the entrance, his unique costume in- suring the gaze of a stranger at once, if it did not result in tracking him to " 10.000 Arcade" to learn what his be- longings could be. There was a flavor of Hamlet and a smack of Othello in the man and his costume, wherever you found him ; and we can easily believe the story that at a l62 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Canadian resort, once on a time, he enjoyed the jest of passing for "me lord." He usually wore black trousers, a black velvet cutaway coat, a red waistcoat, — if waistcoat was not renounced entirely for an expanse of snowy linen, and, when the weather required it, a rather brigandish looking circular cloak, black on ordinary occasions, white on the extraordinary. His jet black waving hair fell upon his shoulders, his beard was long and fastidiously cared for, a white dress hat with a wide band of black crowning all, save when at work, when the jaunty skull cap made us won- der his artistic sense did not lead to his wearing it exclu- sively. He made his own clothing, every stitch, and those stitches were the perfection of needlework, and the fitting all that Othello Hamlet Ethridge required. His peculiarity was neatness, his specialty, diamonds. He always carried a fortune of rare gems around with him, and was the supreme authority on diamonds. He could tell you who wore paste, and whose diamonds were of the purest water. His glit- tering eyes read a false stone at a glance. There seemed to be something in common between him and diamonds, a clairvoyant sympathy impossible to define or explain. Ec- centric in his friendships and confidences, he was often imposed upon, and disappointed in those he trusted most. Yet he was quick in his sympathies and ready to help the unfortunate, until, perhaps, the gratification of these kindly impulses was at the root of the misfortunes which led him once to an asylum for the insane. He was an interesting character study, whether attempting to play Claude Mel- notte, or lifting his voice with the converts of a Methodist revival, as in his younger days. It was then that a good brother remonstrated with him for his gay apparel. "If there's any more religion in your clothes than in mine," said Ethridge, " I '11 change with you." He excelled in sign lettering, particularly script. He could not paint a good picture, but those wonderful signs children at least delight in, signs giving a different word from different stand-points, were his specialty. It must be admitted that of the list of names of those who have given !52 5 s 3 m ^^ '- () > y ■7 ^ 3! S r: T — ci? - C 7^ On >o "' T J. ;i- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 163 a certain indigenous individuality to the Arcade, a list headed by William A. Reynolds, followed by D. M. Dewey, G. S. Gilbert, J. M. Mundy, the sculptor Fleming, and old Charlie Cazeau, if there is a name more inseparable from memories of the place than another, it is that of Othello Hamlet Ethridge and his diamonds. Contemporaneous with the building of the Arcade was that of many edifices, both public and private, still credit- able to our city's architecture. The cement covering the front of the Arcade calls for special mention. The same is found on the Jonathan Child building on Exchange Street, the old residence of Jacob Gould, now Dr. Rider's, South Fitzhugh Street, and possibly some others. The secret of its composition w^as known only to the Frenchman who was brought here from New York to prepare and apply it. He died suddenly and his secret with him, but the excellence of his cement needs no vindication in Rochester. The latter part of this memorable decade saw ambitious buildings and private residences going up like magic. It may have been over the borders of the time specified that many of a particular architectural school of mansions, with majestic rows of Grecian columns across their gable fronts, gave our third ward its academical appearance. John Allen built a house in the prevailing fashion on Allen Street, and the old Mumford place on State Street deviated but little from the severe rule. The Whittlesey homestead, and that formerly of Jonathan Child on South Washington Street, are among the finest and best preserved specimens of this early style. The office of Austin, the architect of those days, reflects the same in miniature, the pigmy Parthenon on Exchange Street, facing Court, still standing. ... It was in this memorable decade that the old Aqueduct House, at the west end of the first aqueduct, and directly in the way of the proposed new one, was moved over to Spring Street, where it was a fashionable family boarding-house for several years, and known as the Spring Street Hotel. In turning over the old files, one can find advertisements set- ting forth the attractions of the Aqueduct House, for what l64 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Other hotel could boast of such location, not only on the banks of the canal, but with the world famous viaduct at its very portal, and a stretch of grass plot for its rurally in- clined boarders besides. If the Arcade was the forum of ancient Rochester, Child's Basin and slip was its Mediterranean, conditioning and vitalizing its canal commerce. Exchange Street was a great business thoroughfare, and the building erected by Jonathan Child on his canal slip was considered only secondary to the Arcade. The upper floor had been intended by Mr. Child, who was a devoted Mason, for a Masonic Hall, etc. ; but the Morgan affair changed all that, and it was converted into a theatre, in whose magnificence the puritanical prophets among us saw the doom of our city's prosperity. One of the reminis- cences of that old theatre is of the night when Lord Mor- peth, in passing through Western New York, honored our playhouse with his attendance, and presto ! the drop cur- tain was a view of my lord's country house and park. What more could we have done had we made ready to re- ceive him .'' It was in this decade that the great majority of our mills were built, introducing into the geographies what many of us have been proud in reciting : " Rochester is famous for the largest flour mills in the world." The market buildings were on the north side of Main Street bridge, an open plat- form, adjoining the bridge, of twenty feet, designed for a vegetable market ; next a raised platform on a grade corre- sponding to the sidewalks of Buffalo and Main streets, of which the market was a continuation. Next to this was a covered meat market having in the centre a walk of twelve feet wide between two rows of turned columns, and on either side the places for stalls, each ten by fourteen feet. This building was built on the plan of the fine new market in Boston, and cost some three thousand dollars. The south side of Buffalo Street, between the bridge and Aqueduct Street, the northern boundary of Allan's old mill yard, was an open space for market and produce wagons until the MILLS OF CHARLES J. HILL. MILLS OF E. W. SCRANTOM. From O'Reilly, iSj8. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 165 present buildings upon it were erected some time in tiie early Forties. There was a town pump in the locality, and it was not until the magnificent market house was built on Mason, now Front Street, in 1837 or 1838, that the appear- ance of our Main Street was changed from that of a coun- try market place into something more like a commercial thoroughfare. And here may be told the story of the wooden ox that used to adorn the facade of the new mar- ket house, long since removed to give place to the present public buildings. Its image is indehbly impressed upon the The New Market. (1838.) earliest memories of some of us, and a very good and artistic piece of workmanship it was, the gift of Nehemiah Osburn to the city. He was one of the contractors for the building, and added that much to its decoration, one Peter La Place, a mechanic of undeveloped genius, fashioning the same with- out design or model, or, as he expressed it, "just outer my own head." First he made the fore legs, according to Mr. Osburn's story, and set them up. Then the hind legs, bridging them with the body, which was designed and fin- ished in sections. The result was so successful that when it was borne down Front Street at midday in an open wagon, one poor Irishman at least was nearly paralyzed with terror, thinking the beast was alive and making ready to leap at 1 66 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. him. A search for this venerable relic, which should have had a place in our future historical museum, has revealed the suspicion that the fires of our Poor Department were kindled with its remains. There are a few lingering- speci- mens of the art of Peter La Place on the fence posts of Nehemiah Osburn's residence, at the corner of East Ave- nue and Elm Street. THE OLD HIGH SCHOOL. Pioneer days were hardly over, when our pioneers, in the comfortable, even luxurious homes they had founded, were Rochester High School, chiefly considering how they might give their children the advantages of superior education. In the " Directory " for 1827 we read : — "The extreme occupation and multiplicity of urgent pub- lic objects has hitherto prevented the citizens of Roches- ter from making those efforts in the cause of literature and education which their importance demands. There is as yet no public library of general literature, nor public semi- nary of education. Measures are in operation, however, for prosecuting both of these objects, which it is hoped the present year will see in a good state of advancement. The private and district schools of the village are about 20 in number, in which 1,150 children and youth are instructed in all the branches of a common and classical education." rP" c~ -►.-^-j [ MILLS OF WARHAM WHITNEY. EAGLE MILLS. From O'Riilly, 1S3S. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 16/ It is in that same " Directory " we find the following note- worthy statement : " It is a remarkable fact, that in a pop- ulation of nearly 8,000, not one adult person is a native of the village ! The oldest person now living in the village, who was born here, is not yet seventeen years of age." The burden of the little "Directory" is a plea for educa- tion, and, in its fervid effort to gain the hearing of parents, it goes on to say : " There is yet no institution of learning- enjoying a pubHc and organized patronage. There is no edifice built for science, no retreat for the Muses, no aca- demick grove yet planted." There was the Monroe High School, in Henrietta, which the farmers of that vicinity, aided by a few individuals in Rochester, had built, at a cost of some five thousand dollars. Miss Mary B. Allen had been engaged as its principal as early as 1828, when it was the only incorporated institution for education between Utica and Buffalo. The then famous monitorial system of the school gave it an extended reputa- tion, and Dr. Ward and Jacob Gould, of our city, were its enthusiastic supporters. " During the two years that I was there," writes Mrs. King, formerly Miss Allen, in her "Au- tobiography," "there were few days that we did not have visitors in the school. In some cases wedding parties came there for their first trip." It would never do to encourage this rivalry in a little vil- lage like Henrietta, and so we are not surprised to find in the "Directory" for 1832 the following advertisement, un- der the head, however, of " Rochester Seminary " : — " This Seminary was organized as a public Institution in 1832, on a plan to meet the actual wants of Rochester and the surrounding country. Until a more central loca- tion can be prepared by the comprehensive and united pol- icy of this city, the Seminary occupies the premises of the Rochester High School, in Clinton Street. The edifice is of stone, three stories high, 80 feet by 50, with its grounds and apparatus costing ^7,500. "The Seminary has four Departments, and a Professional Teacher for each. 1 68 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. " The Female Department occupies the third story, in six rooms. It is under the immediate care of a Principal, Miss Mary B. Allen, salary 1^500, and assistants. Average number of young ladies, 70 ; many of whom are taught by the professional gentlemen in their respective branches. "I. English Department. Boys from 7 to 14 years, aim- ing at a thorough English Education, or an early acquaint- ance with Latin, Greek, French, or the elements of several sciences, form the English Department, conducted by Mr. Josiah Perry, late Principal of the Ogdensburgh Academy. Salary, $600 ; Pupils, ^35. " 2. Department of Mathematicks and Natural History. Young Men and Boys, in Commercial Arithmetick, Book Keeping, Mathematicks, Botany, Mineralogy, Chymistry. Surveying, and Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, enter this Department, conducted by Mr. Daniel Marsh, A. M. Salary, $700. The Cabinet of Minerals, the Botanical Col- lection and Apparatus, are adequate. Students not in- cluded in other departments, 35. " The appropriation from the Literary Fund of the State was $466, for 186 students, the first in number of any acad- emy in the State. Young men and Ladies pursuing stud- ies during the year, with a view to teaching, 65. The num- ber of district schools making application for teachers from November to January, over 30. "It is a leading object of this institution to furnish qual- ified teachers. The number of students having the Gospel Ministry in view, 25. The institution has a Board of Trus- tees, viz. : Charles M. Lee, Esq., President ; William Atkin- son, Secretary ; O. N. Bush, Treasurer. There is also a Board of Examiners, to inspect the institution and recom- mend improvements, viz. : Rev, Plenry John Whitehouse, of St. Luke's Church ; Rev. William Wisner, of the Brick Church ; Rev. Tryon Edwards, of the First Presbyterian Church ; Rev. Oliver C. Comstock, of the First Baptist Church ; Rev. Barton H. Hickox, of Grace Church ; Rev. Luke Lyons, of the Free Church ; Rev. Elon Galusha, of the Second Baptist Church ; Rev. Millard Fillmore, Minis- — 2 c 2; C/) 50 ^ fit fit A DECADE MEMORABLE. 169 ter in charge of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; Hon, Ashley Sampson, Hon. Moses Chapin, Hon. F. Whittlesey, Dr. W. W. Reid." The Rev. Chester Dewey, whose name recalls the sweet- est memories of the old pupils of the old High School, was not called to become its principal until after the resignation of the Rev. Gilbert Morgan. Before his memorable arrival, not long after 1836, the school had passed through the great revival season, and Mrs. King's description of the effect upon the pupils, scoffers and converted alike, leads at least to a study of the contrast between the educational system of that day and this. Dr. Dewey's advent must have changed many things for the better, so healthful was his influence in every way. In May, 1874, the old school-boys of this earliest epoch of The Institute were inspired by one of their number, Hon. Edward M. Smith,^ to have a reunion here in Roches- ter, and lo ! from every corner of the land were they sum- moned, — those who attended the High School before 1843, — and a fair majority responded, gray-headed men the most of them, of honorable names not a few. An organization had been perfected at a previous meeting, to be called " The Old School-Boys of Rochester," and the following officers elected for the ensuing year : President, Edward M. Smith ; Treasurer, S. G. Philips ; Secretary, William G. Congdon ; Executive Committee : William N. Sage, Jacob Howe, T. A. Newton, Henry F. Smith, J. B. Ward ; His- torical Committee : T. C. Montgomery, James L. Angle, Newell A. Stone." The reports of that supper, at which more than a hun- dred merry, story-telling old boys, dignified titles appended to the famous names of a considerable sprinkling, made some of the old school-girls, at least, to question if " the celestials " of the old Institute had, after all, occupied that ■ While reading this proof a cable disj^atch from London announces, " April 12. E. M. Smith, American Consul at Manheim, died of apoplexy last even- ing in a railway carriage. He was on his way home." He was to iiave sailed for New York on the 15th. I/O ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. place in the thoughts of " the terrestrials," and the denizens of the lower story, whose appellation is perhaps forgotten, as had been supposed. But even without them the reunion was a delightful gathering, and from the many cajDital things that were said upon the occasion, the letters read, the mem- ories revived, we get our truest insight into the life of the High School pupil, at least prior to 1843, with much valu- able historical knowledge besides. The papers of the Society, including those called out by the reunion of 1876, have been placed in my hands by the Secretary, Mr. Cong- don, and in looking them over for a resume here, I regret they may not be published entire, as historical limitations necessarily exclude many of the most interesting docu- ments. The uppermost topics at the feast and in the letters sent with regrets and memories were " the beloved Dr. Dewey," "Old Perry," Professor Wetherel, and the unique peculiarities of the building, class-rooms, and best remem- bered pupils. Among the latter the names of Norman Peck and Fred Starr were perhaps most frequently men- tioned. The distinguished men who were once old High School boys were catalogued : Ex-Senator Doolittle, Presi- dent of the Chicago University ; Ely S. Parker, an Indian chief upon Grant's staff during the war, and the writer of the terms of the surrender at Vicksburg ; General M. R. Patrick ; C. P. Dewey, a son of " the Doctor," and editor of the "Commercial Advertiser;" Hon. E. Peshine Smith', Attorney General Barlow, of Wisconsin ; H. M. Whitney, of Sandwich Islands fame ; Colonel John D. Sage ; Anson G. Stager, of the Western Union ; Dr. Haydcn, the naturalist, connected with the Smithsonian and Yellowstone expedi- tions ; E. Delafield Smith ; Marcius Jewell ; Wm. F. Cogs- well ; John N. Pomeroy ; Seth Green ; and a host of others, not forgetting Mrs. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), who read her first compositions on the platform of the old High School. Let it first be recorded what these time-mellowed hearts had to offer in memory of Dr. Dewey. Professor Wetherel sent his sincere regrets from the office of the Boston " Cul- tivator," and the following sentiment : — (^,a A DECADE MEMORABLE. I /I " The memory of Professor Dewey. The friend of God and the benefactor of men, — a name that the old school- boys will ever tenderly cherish and delight to honor." Dr. McKnight, of Elmira, testified to the blessed influ- ence of Dr. Dewey upon the boys under his care. The principles he taught them were the foundation of their character and influence. " First and foremost among our teachers," wrote James B. Smith from Humboldt, Kansas, " stood Dr. Dewey. We know to-day that we never over-estimated him. Our boy- ish impressions of his manliness, learning, wisdom, good- ness, and geniality, were confirmed all along life. What a lot of boys he always had tagging after him on his way through the lane, and along Clinton Street. I certainly never knew another man of his age whose whole nature was so overflowing with the freshness, spirit, and enthusiasm of youth. It was my honor to be his humble bottle-holder during the courses of lectures he delivered in the school- room next St. Luke's Church. One night, after turning the corner of St, Paul and Main, he suddenly seized me and pitched me into a basement stairway partly filled with drifted snow. Off he scampered as gleesome as a boy of fourteen. " ' Can't be doing anything there. Smith ! Can't be doing anything there, Starr! ' was the signal for Fred and me to get to work after ten or fifteen minutes fooled away in that curiosity shop of pulleys, levers, etc., in Fred's desk. Of course you all remember his automatic desk lifter. . . . When he left the firmament of his calling here, it was as a star of the first magnitude, and his rays still fall earthway, illuminating the hearts and minds of many Christian patri- ots. ... I have heard that he died leaving books and tool chest together in his study." It was to the writer of that letter that the Rev. Darwin Chichester referred in his : " Henry F. Smith had a busy brain and was always making things lively. He was never so sober, however, as when he was making others laugh. How well I remember Dr. Dewey's saying to him once, * If T72 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. you could control the weather, Smith, we should have thun- der and lightning all the time.' " " How well I recall," wrote Derick Boardman from Troy, *' the old Institute, and that untiring student of nature, the ever-to-be-venerated Dr. Dewey. Do you remember him, in his long flowing gown, as he would pleasantly summon us from play to the be-whittled desk, or, as he led us on some geological spree along the banks of the river, how his face would brighten when some of us would show him a specimen of the Silurian age, or when he could point out to us the smoothing track of the drift of the glacial period } " " Dr. Dewey," said Charles B. Hill, " was the teacher we all loved, immortal in the hearts of the old school-boys. Do you remember that at one time considerable ingenuity was displayed among us in the construction of complicated ma- chinery for raising and holding up our desk covers ? Well, Smith had one of these contrivances in operation, and was carefully brushing his hair before a mirror on the desk lid. Dr. Dewey came in, watched him, smiling, for a moment, and said, ' Smith, it 's the inside of your head that needs brushing.' " " Don't you remember," asked Cyrus Durfee, " how he would answer us when we kept asking to go out .'' * Go out ? No ! there's a thousand boys out there already, and less, too.' " Many and touching were the sincere tributes to the mem- ory of Dr. Dewey. His name was the sweet minor chord of the full melody ; and what was that of Professor Perry, " Old Perry," as he was called ? The boys are of age, and shall speak for themselves on the subject. Their testimony is a confirmation of Mrs. King's suggestive evidence, when she says that Professor Perry's " thorough discipline will be long remembered by the boys under his care." The first witness to Professor Perry's standing among his old pupils I find on a card accepting the invitation to the re- union : " For Heaven's sake, don't have old Perry's ghost at the banquet," suggesting, possibly, the letter straightway received by the secretary, purporting to come from Perry's srhost : — A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 73 " Although I have received no invitation to attend your reunion, it would give me great pleasure to make you all unhappy upon that occasion, and I know of nothing that could make you more miserable than to see old Perry again in your midst. . . . When I was in the flesh, it was my practice, you will remember, to go in on my muscle daily, and polish up such boys as Hen Haight, Bob Allen, Fred Whittlesey, and the Bissell boys — to wallop Charlie Hill, Ans Gorton, Ev. Kempshall, Joe Ward, and Chet Dewey, and to dust the jackets of Billy Congdon, Ed Smith, Ans Stager, Fatty Backus, and the rest, whose names I have for- gotten. ... I am now in charge of the Juvenile Delin- quents in the subterranean House of Refuge, and I make it lively for them. Give my love to all the boys who won hon- orable scars on the skirmish line of early life under me, par- ticularly to Seth Green, who, I am told, after stocking the rivers and lakes of America with bull-heads and suckers, has opened a fish market at Lane & Paine's drug store." "But Perry had his good points," contended the Rev. John Copeland. " He could beat grammar into a boy's head when nobody else could." This called up Dr. Kemp- shall's story, of course, when old Perry thrashed Whipple and himself for being late, and how Whipple ran a long pin into the master's neck "nearly up to the head." " Shades of old Perry and Brittain ! " sighed a Doctor of Divinity, "how they start up !" " I remember how instinctively I shrank into my first boots when I met the gaze of his terrible eyes," said Charles B. Hill, and story after story followed, — a terrible retribution for the old master. What a horrible dream that had been for him in the old times, had he foreseen that banquet and heard the memories of his old pupils. " No teacher," wrote James B. Smith, " ever bequeathed to his pupils a raggeder-edged reputation than old Perry. His memory was execrated by every boy, with one excep- tion or two, in that famous two hundred. I think Murray Moore loved him. . . . Perry does not really deserve all the maledictions we heap upon his memory. There was some 174 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. excellence in the man. His ideas of discipline were in accord with the convictions of the day. He was approved by our parents arid sustained by them. Some of us are indebted to him for what thoroughness we had in the rudi- ments of a scholastic education. ... If neatness and clean- liness be next to godliness, old Perry was far from being a devil. He helped me to ideas for making a model school. . . . You all remember that formula we used to repeat, ' Missed one, here before the bell rung, studied two hours at home.' ... I can see those buckskin gloves with which he handled shovel and tongs. I can see that hammer and. screw-driver with which he used to frighten Billy Allen, telling him he would take him in pieces and make him over into a better boy. Were any of you ever put into the wood box and made to wear a fool's cap .? . . . My cheeks tingle now as I see the blow with which he felled Cal Holmes to the floor. I can see him choke Ame Policy, and the rest of us dancing to his rawhide, but I still admire the emeralds in his spray breast-pin and the rich tones of his voice in the devotional exercises. . . . He taught us a lesson that our children profit by. Let us honor the good there was in him for the good he brought us, and believe that had he lived and taught in this day, he would have been more gen- tle, tolerant, and humane." " There was always something to think and laugh about when Norman Peck was around," wrote another boy. " His desk was a curiosity. The underside of that lid was a sight to behold. When the girls marched in for recitation and sat behind him, that lid would go up, the teachers won- dering what the girls could be laughing at. He had turned that desk into something like a canal boat. 'No smoking allowed,' was what greeted their eyes, and other startling posters." " Do you remember," somebody was asking, " how after a boy had spoken his piece one Friday afternoon with great dis- play of voice and gesticulation, Norman Peck mounted the platform, and, imitating the preceding speaker, exclaimed, ' Has the gentleman done t Has he completely done .■' He A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 75 has done,' and walked gravely to his seat unmoved by the uproar of applause, Dr. Dewey saying, ' You have done ex- ceeding well, Mr. Peck,' enjoying the affair heartily." " Cal Holmes was the orator of the school," writes one of the boys. "Jed and Bick Newell were the best runners. Kas Jervis the organizer of societies. Bissell, the roaring debater. Charlie Seelye was the skeptic. Jim Miller, the Britisher. Hen Haight, the dead shot at marbles. George Guernsey had a passion for trombones. Gus Backus was the club boy. Ed Wright, the obstinate boy. Hugh Allen was pugilistic. Jim Bush was a roarer. Bill Bingham, a swell. John Haywood, the paragon in mathematics. Fred Starr had great mechanical skill, and it did n't answer to call Jim Smith a ' sorrel top,' unless you could stand the racket." " I keep among my treasures," said another, " an old book with the name of Seth Green written in it in a boy's chirography on the inside of the cover, — a name known to-day wherever rivers flow or fish flop. In another of my books is a sketch by Thomas Rossiter, who became a dis- tinguished artist before he died. . . . There was Wm. N. Sage, with fresh, rosy face and resolute mouth, and laugh- ing eyes." " I wonder if the Rev. Dr. Miller remembers," asked the Rev. T. Dwight Hunt, "the time he waded with me through a covered sewer extending from a swamp near the canal at Washington Street, across and under Buffalo Street, and so down past Howe's Bakery towards the river } Rare times we had there underground, for which we had been well trounced had the folks at home been the wiser." Dyer W. Fitch gave among his many pleasant reminis- cences this one, which belongs to us all : — " I well remember among my school-fellows an active boy of marked individuality, whose restless spirit no pent up school-room could long confine, and who was given to taking practical observations of what was going on at all times and seasons at the Falls, the Bay, and the Lake. . . . If the school-master did wink sometimes harder than he 176 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. ought at the boy's absence from school, it was all for the best, for Seth Green was developing the special bent of his ofenius in a new school of culture." " I remember our class in Geometry," writes George Needham, " but recall few names but Sandford Smith's, and two of Miss Allen's pupils, Celestia Bloss and Helen Mal- lett, who were the equals of the boys in all their reci- tations." Among the acceptances and regrets sent in are many showing that the old boy nature was still alive in the writ- er's heart. Charlie Backus scrawls a big " Yes," and his rollicking autograph. Wm. Emerson promises to be on hand " when the first bell rings." George P. Bissell de- sires to come and means to, but remembers Joe Ward owes him " a licking." George Green is shad hatching on the Hudson, and must be excused, while C. Bissell recounts the lions in his way to the reunion with amusing brevity. Jacob Howe writes from Clifton Springs, " I am where I used to be sometimes you know. I can't go out to play with the rest of you. I am kept in." " I am now in my seventy-seventh year," writes B. New- man from Victor, regretting he cannot meet with the boys. " I have lived in Victor forty-seven years, but my memory of my school-days in Rochester, from 18 14 to 1820, is the pleasantest memory I have. I boarded at Marcellus P. Covert's, and Lawyer Mastick boarded there. I went to school with Edwin Scrantom and his brothers. Our teachers were Mr, Cook, Mr. Moses King, etc." " I think I am about as old as any old school-boy," said Edwin Scrantom. "I went to the first school ever taught in Rochester, — Huldah Strong's. I went to Moses King's first school in Frankford, and the two schools together did n't make a corporal's guard." " The district schools of early times," wrote William Bar- nard, " were not as popular as the free schools of to-day. We boys had the idea they were got up expressly for poor folks. . . . One of these select school-teachers, Mr. Wilder, paid great attention to writing. There was a post near his A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 77 desk full of gimlet holes, with our names under them. After writing we stuck our quill pens there for him to mend before the next day. Among the early teachers of the select schools were Mr. Freeman, Alexander Kelsey, D. B. Crane, Ellery S. Treat, and Erastus Spaulding. The first district school was next to St. Luke's Church, a long one story frame building, its one room divided by a sliding partition. I think it was taught by Mr. and Mrs. Brayton." One more pleasant reminiscence for the benefit of the school-boy band scattered far and wide over our land. To have been a boy in Rochester before 1850 was to have at- tended the old High School — and where do we not find the Rochester boy .^ "The old High School boys," said Charles B. Hill, "are scattered in every direction ; you will find them wherever you go. I remember years ago while waiting in a lonely and seldom visited spot in California for a steamer to San Francisco, as the boat came up to the dock, I heard a voice from the upper deck exclaiming, * Charlie Hill ! Where did you come from .? ' and there, one of a lot of red- shirted, long -bearded miners, was Jake Barhydt, whose smiling face I see here to-night." These reunions were of the boys who attended the High School prior to 1843, although we find among them the names of students of a later date. The High School had seen its best days before 1848. The superior free schools of the city were the chief cause of its decline. Its financial basis was never sound. A. W. Riley was the contractor for the building, upon which the trustees expended a greater sum than was authorized. When it was burned down in 1850, the trustees were still owing him a considerable sum, of which the interest only was fully paid. Perhaps it was at the time that Mrs. Greenough had charge of the young ladies department that the Institute was at its apex of suc- cess. It was then the fashionable school of the city, for young ladies at least, and the receptions and entertain- ments of the highly cultivated preceptress were much talked about. There were few if any prayer-meetings held 1/8 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. among the pupils in those days, but the tableaux vivants and masquerades were magnificent. Sara J. Clark was a pupil about 1842-43, and the school-girls of a later day, when Grace Greenwood was a famous name, knew just where to find her autograph on the pencil bescribblcd walls. Professor Wetherel was associated with the Insti- tute longer than any other teacher. His tall, erect figure, military bearing, piercing eye, and peculiar gesticulations with his inseparable ruler, come up as inevitably with old High School memories as do the buttonwood- trees, the rickety stile, and the long wood-piles filling the playground in the fall, slowly but surely diminishing before spring with the demands of the great box, three-storied stoves. What a cheerless, dusty, inconvenient building it was, and must have been at its best, compared with the High School of to-day, \v'ith its elevator, steam-heaters, carpets, and electric bells, and yet I doubt me if the High School pupils of to- day will ever look back to their luxuries with anything like the sentiment the latter day pupils even of the Institute perpetually bestow upon its memory. How common it was to find mice in our dinner baskets, to have them leap from our desks in the morning, to trip our light fantastic toes against the loose upstarting nails in the floors, to drink tepid water from the pail in the hall, and to shiver in the great gusty school-rooms on a cold day. Of course each pupil furnished desk and chair, thus adding to the variety of the school-room furniture. The blackboards stood slant- ing against the wall, a capital hiding-place from which the truant could peep out and make the class a mystery to the teacher. We broke up the chalk ourselves, no chalk pen- cils then, and were smothered in the dust of the " rags." We did have curtains, strips of unbleached factory that flapped to the zephyrs on a summer's day, unless we tied them into knots. The old bell-rope lay in a coil directly before the entrance to the young ladies' school-room. The odor of the cooking going on at noon-time in the little room where lodged the janitors, — school-boys working their way up life's ladder, — how definitely we knew their bill of A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 79 fare. The High School pupils of to-day will remember with gratitude, it is hoped, the perfected system of teach- ing and discipline which they enjoy ; but they need waste no pity upon us who paid handsomely for all we received at the Institute, and never dreamed of criticising our envi- ronment. The High School boys of to-day will in 1924 have few study-hour pranks to relate, fewer barbarities of teach- ers to depict, few or no instances of hand to hand en- counter between teacher and pupil. Their reunions will be enlivened by rehearsals very different from those of the boys of " Old Perry's " time, or even Leander Wetherel's, a man far in advance of the ideas of his co-educators a decade ago. " When I think of those old Institute days," wrote one who was a pupil of Miss Rogers in 1849, "^ fii^d myself marching in to prayers, and sitting where we were bidden to sit against our wishes, where we could not see Professor Benedict's boys. Professor Wetherel's were the little fel- lows as a rule. Dr. Dewey, Professor Benedict, and Pro- fessor Wetherel sit in the desk, or, if prayers are begun, one is reading a chapter, the next beside him will offer prayer, and to the third will fall the extempore address. Can you see Miss Rogers overlooking our ranks without turning her head, or seeming distraction from chapter, prayer, or sermon } has a four-leaved clover in her shoe. The first lad who comes in late after prayer is begun is to be linked with her destiny. Joseph Biegler ! and how solemn he looks, wondering, of course, why the girls laughed when he came in. Will you ever forget how many feet make one mile } That statement on the black- board is burnt into my memory. And then we go into Dr. Dewey's class-room, and hear him recite the lesson in Natu- ral Philosophy, for he has that delightful way of discours- ing upon what we ought to know but don't, turning upon us occasionally, however, with his 'Now do you know.?' . ' Well, what do you know .? ' It is in the chemistry class one morning that he expresses the wish that it was the season for red cabbage, as then he could show us a certain I So ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. experiment. Sage speaks up promptly that he can bring red cabbage, adding, for the Doctor is surprised and puz- zled, ' but it 's pickled,' and the Doctor's laugh rings in with ours. ... I go into the Virgil class, and Professor Bene- dict's big school-room is a model of order and discipline. He is a young man, dark brown hair, and searching eyes, low voiced, but the master in every sense, and so acknowl- edged. ,1 think I could translate better if the room was not so still, and if the Professor's eyes were less marvelously penetrating. . . . Professor Wetherel hears the ' Parker's Aid.' Will we ever dare again to confront him without our exercises .'' dro]:)ped a slip of paper on which she had written in a disguised hand : — "'Professor Wetherel's dear little wife Must study her grammar all of her life.' He will ask her to parse that to-morrow, see if he don't. . . . And now the boys who study P'rench with Miss Rogers are coming into class. There is Sed Hetzel in his green plaid blouse, brimming over with fun and frolic ; Gus Strong, a model of correct deportment, and Jesse Shepherd, who keeps us in rosy apples and hickory nuts that he brings from Irondequoit every morning. Charley Powers is one of this old P'^rench class, and how handsome he is, dark as an Indian, his short, closely-fitting jacket setting off a fine figure as only those jackets can. . . . Chet Hey- wood and Ike Seelye — how like two lions on guard they seem at our school-room door ; and Ed Gould and Jimmie Hart clattering down East Avenue on their ponies every morning from Brighton ; Jimmie Pitkin and Charlie Bel- den, inseparable as the Corsican Brothers ; Billy Seward, Vin Smith, Hod Bush, Pom Brewster, the Humphreys, the Whittleseys, H. F. Smith, Andrew Semple, Otis, Bristol, Fenn, Alden, Ledyard, etc., how plainly I can see them all in their boyish garb and faces." The fire-blackened ruins of the old High School were re- moved at last, and the beautiful stone church built by the Third Presbyterian Society, and now owned and occupied A DECADE MEMORABLE. l8r by the Unitarians, was erected on its site. There is Httle or nothing in the locahty that was a feature in the old-time picture. The narrow lane from Lancaster to Clinton Street was long since closed. If anything could transport the old pupils back over a space of thirty-five years and more, it would be passing between those high board fences of the lane, through pools ankle deep. Then we should hear the old clang from the belfry, the boys shouting at their game of ball, and see the heads of merry girls thrust out from the upper-hall window over the entrance door, casting benedic- tion upon some luckless lad below. There is a bit of history in the name of Lancaster Street, calling up what may be termed one of the Blue Glass theo- ries of education. The Institute was founded upon the Lancastrian system, and Joseph Lancaster, making a great noise in the world at that time, was declaring that it was possible by his sys- tem to teach ten thousand children in different schools, children not knowing" their letters, to read fluently in three weeks, or three months at the longest. His monitorial school in England had become world-famous. Pupils, as monitors, were trained to fill the places of teachers. Mrs. King gives a detailed description of the system in her "Autobiography." The Henrietta Academy had adopted it. It was a system of signals and monitors. " Ecce Sig- num," that well-remembered inscription on the Principal's desk of the Institute, was an heir-loom of the discarded Lancastrian system, that so soon became unsatisfactory to both teachers and pupils. Lancaster Street is in memory of our Lancastrian School. Dr. Dewey, in connection with Professor N. W. Benedict, had charge of the Collegiate Institute for fourteen years. In 1850 he was elected Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in the University of Rochester, a position he held until his retirement from all active duties at the age of sev- enty-six. He was the author of a " History of the Herba- ceous Plants of Massachusetts," which was published by the State, and of many valuable contributions to our permanent 1 82 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Botanical and Scientific literature. He lived to a blessed old age, keeping up his studies almost to the last, copying out his Meteorological Journal, and arranging his large col- lection of sedges, the accumulation of years. On the 15th of December, 1867, he tranquilly passed away, aged eighty- three. Among the many tributes to the good man's mem- ory is one by Dr. Anderson, President of our University, published in the Smithsonian Report for 1870, and from which the following extracts are made. Speaking of Dr. Dewey's professorship in Williams College, from 1806 to 1827, Dr. Anderson says: — " He entered upon the work of accumulating and organ- izing the apparatus and collections requisite for the study of chemistry and natural history with great zeal and enthu- siasm ; while he was equally earnest in giving instruction in the severer portions of the broad department for whose cultivation in the college he was made responsible. He fitted up a laboratory, and commenced making collections for the illustration of botany, mineralogy, and geology. This was accomplished mainly by personal labor and ex- changes with those engaged in similar pursuits in our own and other countries. These labors gave the initial impulse to the cultivation of the natural sciences in Williams Col- lesre, and laid the foundations of its now large and valua- ble illustrative collections. . . . His intellectual life was a beautiful commentary on the remark of Gibbon, that ' it is a greater glory to science to develop and perfect mankind than it is to enlarge the boundaries of the known universe.' . . . He kept his youth, through the simplicity, purity, and elevation of his moral and religious life. His trust in the moral order was as habitual and as firm as it was in the law of universal gravitation. . . , We all honored him as a sage ; we loved him as a father. I have never yet met a man who so completely as he illustrated the moral elevation and spiritual beauty of the Great Teacher's Sermon on the Mount. ... To the whole population of Rochester his pres- ence in the streets was a benediction." Mrs. King, who was associated with Dr. Dewey as a A DECADE MEMORABLE. 183 teacher at the Institute in 1837, a-^^^l who is still living (1884), has many pleasant recollections of him. She tells the following story : *' I remember one instance of self-con- trol that is seldom exercised. One of the ministers was absent from the city, and the doctor was the only one that could be found to supply the pulpit. His youngest and darling child was very sick at the time. He sat by his bed- side through Saturday night, and until nearly ten o'clock Sabbath morning, when the spirit of the loved one took its flight. He then knelt by the bedside, committed his family to the compassionate care of a faithful God, and, asking strength for himself, went out and fulfilled his engagement, saying that individual affliction ought not to interfere with the worship of God's House." Miss Mary B. Allen's Seminary on North St. Paul Street, which she opened about 1838 in the former residence of Dr. Ward, has a place in the memories of many, who will thank the family of Dr. Ward for the accompanying sketch, originally drawn by Eugene Sintznich. 0X The Old Allen Seminary, now the Site of the Warner Buildings, North St. Paul Street. 1 84 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. SAM PATCH. 1829. There is a nameless grave in the little burying-ground on the east side of the Charlotte boulevard, just in sight of the lake, — a sunken hillock almost hidden by riotous myr- tle and pine needles, — where lies a man of world-wide fame, whose euphonistic name is forever associated with our city and the Genesee Falls. "Rochester?" says the far-away stranger. " Oh yes — Sam Patch." Sam Patch has a just claim upon us for a correct version of his story, which is a part of our history, if not for a head- stone. His relations to subsequent events were not insig- nificant, hard as they may be to explain. The overwrought and prolonged mental disturbance that followed his death must have left visible record on public affairs. The major- ity of those who saw him sink to rise no more — and the whole country lined the banks of the Genesee — were long troubled with self-reproach. The preachers of the Sunday following intensified this impression ; Josiah Bissell, in the old Third Church Sunday-School, telling the children that all who had by their presence, or in any other way, induced Sam Patch to jump over the Falls were accessory to his death, and would be accounted murderers in the sight of God. Those were solemn days in Rochester, when the best part of our population had an uncomfortable convic- tion that the brand of Cain might be written upon their foreheads. This story of Sam Patch is not compiled without consci- entious painstaking, so various and contradictory are the many versions. Very few of those who saw the fatal leap agree in their description of the event. The authority for the following account is chiefly that of Joseph Cochrane, who was a clear-headed lad in 1829, and knew Sam Patch better than anybody in these parts. Sam and Joe were right good friends. Joe's brother, William Cochrane, and Orson Weed, a brother of Thurlow, kept the Recess on A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 85 Exchange Street, where Sam and his bear and fox found entertainment. Joe had charge of the animals, and once, when a man struck at him in the presence of Bruin, his shaggy pet fell upon the assailant, teeth and claws. Mr. Cochrane's kindly remembrance of his whilom comrade led him not many years ago to attempt writing the biography of Sam Patch, and it is upon the facts then collected we rely for all we know of his antecedents. Samuel Patch was born in Rhode Island, somewhere about 1807, and his name was Patch, not Patchin, as has been supposed. The date of his arrival at Paterson, N. J., is unknown, but it is said he came in company with an Englishman by the name of Ent whistle ; that he had once been a sailor, and became a respectable cotton spinner at the Hamilton Mills, where he was a good workman and a popular fellow, "probably not averse to taking a glass of toddy occasionally." His mother was a widow of good rep- utation and much attached to Sam, who was her main stay and support. It was about 1827 that he was seized with the jumping mania, or manifested the same to the public. A bridge had been built at Paterson, — a "Chasm Bridge" across the Passaic, — a great piece of engineering. Sam declared so stoutly that he would jump therefrom he was put under arrest ; but, nothing discouraged, he kept his word, and made his iirst wonderful leap from the rocks at the foot of the bridge on the southwestern side of the chasm. After that he jumped the second time from the bridge, some eighty or ninety feet, and arose from the waters of the Pas- saic the hero of the day. He went about the country jump- ing from yard-arms and bowsprits, diving from the dizzy heights of topmasts, until attracted to Niagara Falls in 1829, with the crowd who went thither to see the con- demned brig Michigan, and its crew of living animals, go over the cataract. He jumped from a shelving rock mid- way between the highest point of Goat Island and the water, more than half the height of the Falls ; and his name rang through the land with plaudits that made Rochester very glad, even triumphant ; for was he not going to make his 1 86 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. second jump from her Genesee Falls the week following, his first, on his way to Niagara, having failed to thrill the whole universe, as his second could not fail to do ? Mr. Cochrane made Sam's acquaintance when he was on his way to Niagara, and when his jumping the Falls was but a small part of the entertainment afforded his boy ad- mirer. Sam gave mine hosts of the Rochester Recess a genuine fright early one morning by jumping from Fitz- hugh Street Bridge, and then swimming under the water to a hiding-place. They had given him up as drowned, when he called out merrily to them, bobbing up from behind a boat. At early daybreak of another morning he called the boy he had such a marked liking for, asking him to bring hammer and nails, and they would go down the river. Off they trudged, and, once below the Falls, Sam made a kind of raft, and pushed out with a pole to measure the depth where he was to land from above. He seemed perfectly satisfied with his soundings, and the next morning early Joe was called again for another trip to the Falls, long be- fore the town was astir. This time Sam led him to the point from which the jump was to be made, and began tak- ing off his clothing in the most unconcerned manner, hand- ing his bull's-eye watch to the boy for safe-keeping. He was going to practice a bit, that was all. " Wait until I get where I can see you," begged the boy, making off as fast as possible. He had barely time to get a good position when Sam shot down the height and disappeared. The boy stood paralyzed with fear, believing himself to be the solitary spectator of a day-dawn suicide. When he could use his legs, he was doing so to some purpose, but Sam's voice sang out with the roar of the Falls, " Say, boy, where are you going with my watch .? " and there he was, frolicking like a dolphin. If his first public leap brought thousands to the banks of the Genesee, his second tripled the number. His leaping the first time had been thought nothing in comparison to seeing him emerge from the water, when the crowd re- ceived him with open arms, and almost carried him up the A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 8/ bank. Some say they actually did. Others remember, or think they do, that after Sam jumped, he took his poor whining, begging bear and threw him far out over the Cata- ract, and that the bear swam round and round in the river below, and seeming likely to drown, Sam leaped the sec- ond time and rescued him. Had there been a humane so- ciety in those days what had they done in such case ? Upon his return from Niagara the following notice ap- peared in the Rochester papers : — HIGHER YET! SAM'S LAST JUMP! " SOME THINGS CAN BE DONE AS WELL AS OTHERS." THERE IS NO MISTAKE IN OF THE TRUTH OF THIS HE WILL ENDEAVOR to convince the good people of Rochester, and its vicinity, next l-'RIDAY, Nov. 13, at 2 o'clock, P. M. Be- ing determined to "astonish the natives'" of the West before he returns to the Jarsey's, he will have a scaffold Twenty-Five Feet in height erected on the brink of the Genesee Falls, in this village, from which he will fearless- ly leap into the abyss below — a distance of One Hundred and Tiventy-Five Feet. SAM'S BEAR, (at 3 o'clock precisely) will make the same jump and follow his master, thus showing, conclu- sively, that " Some Things can be done as Well as Oth- ers." Moreover, Sam hopes that all the good people who attend this astonishing exhibition, will contribute some- thing towards remunerating him for the seemingly haz- ardous experiment. novi2 No country road was too muddy for travel that Novem- ber day if it led to the banks of the Genesee, and few over- worked farmers were too busy to forego the wonderful spectacle, or to suffer their households so to do. Special schooners ran from Canada and Oswego. All Buffalo, Can- andaigua, and Batavia, were in our streets. It was a raw November day, and by noon a shivering crowd filled every available place along the river bank To the boy Cochrane it was given to watch Sam closely that day, and see he did not get the drop too much. Mr. Cochrane resents the com- 1 88 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. mon Story that Sam was a sot. There were few strictly temperate men in those days, and total abstinence was hardly to be looked for in a strolling jumper, but that he was a hard drinker, or even drunk upon the day of his fatal leap, Mr. Cochrane stoutly denies. Because of the cold, Sam's friends decided that a glass of brandy was quite in order before he went to the river, and Joe offered the same, which Sam thanked him for and tossed off in his easygoing way. William Cochrane thereupon brought out his white trousers, a part of his band uniform, and prevailed upon Sam to draw them over his woolen pair for extra warmth. John O'Donohue contributed the black silk handkerchief which Sam tied around his waist. A light woolen jacket and skull-cap completed his costume. " I was close by his side," says Mr. Cochrane, "all the way to the Falls, and if he had been drunk should have known it. He said little, but that in a light-hearted fashion. He climbed up the pole to his platform hand over hand." The memory of his boy comrade enables me to give the first report of Sam's address to the breathless multitude, who, for shivering in the cold spray of the Falls, caught very little of it. They were all undergoing a nervous strain, which developed it- self in various ways when the leap was made : one well- known citizen biting off the end of his thumb ; an old lady calling out in a shrill, querulous voice, " If there 's any- thing in dreams, that man is dead ! " Sam's declamation was as follows : — " Napoleon was a great man and a great general. He conquered armies and he conquered nations. But he could n't jump the Genesee Falls. Wellington was a great man and a great soldier. He conquered armies and he conquered nations, and he conquered Napoleon, but he could n't jump the Genesee Falls. That was left for me to do, and I can do it and will ! " His descent was so unUke that of the previous occasion, when he shot like an arrow from a bow, that almost every one in the great concourse of horrified spectators was posi- tive from the moment of his disappearance that he was A DECADE RFEMORABLE. 1 89 dead. There was a look on the faces of those who turned away from the bank not easily forgotten. " Such a pros- tration of feeling took effect on the spectators," wrote Lyman B. Langvvorthy, " that in less than five minutes almost every one had fled from the locality, silent, sober, and melancholy." Search was at once made for the missing man, whose bear, could he have spoken, might have expressed joy at release from his part of the exhibition. The torches of Joab Brittain's yawl boat lit up the river all night, and there was a new voice in the Cataract for the hundreds of sleep- less, self-accusing souls, who for weeks did not give up the hope that the man was in hiding, and would yet restore their peace by his appearance. A rumor gained credence that he had been seen on the street. One man testified positively that he had met the veritable Sam in a neighbor- ing village, and that he would make an address from the balcony of the Eagle Tavern on a specified day. Credulous and incredulous turned out, but nothing more was seen of him until the next St. Patrick's Day, when his body was found in a cake of ice near the mouth of the river, identi- fied by Cochrane's pantaloons and O'Donohue's handker- chief. The remains were buried in the graveyard at Charlotte. Not long after a sad-faced little woman arrived in the city, looking for the boy comrade of her son, Sam Patch. She visited Sam's grave, wept over it, and John Allen gave her free passage home on one of his line boats. The considerable sum of money collected before the leap it is harder to account for than the bear. The fate of Bruin was undoubtedly a contribution to the manufacture of " Sears' Genuine Bear's Grease," famous at the time, Mr. Sears dealing largely in bears, having frequently as many as six in his pen on State Street. It was Sam's ambition to jump from London Bridge. He had just signed an agreement with the captain of a fast sailing packet to Liverpool to make a voyage with him in the spring, and jump from the yard-arm every fair day, — an original attraction for securing passengers. Mr. Coch- I go ROCHESTER: A STORY ITISTORTCAL. rane is firm in the conviction that Sam attempted to swim back under the Cataract, and so became entangled in the great tree which was there for many years after, and is said to be to-day. Sam Patch filled the newspapers for months after his fatal leap, and the dreams of not a few of his spectators as well. Betting on his reappearance ran high at the Corners for weeks afterwards. Poems were written ascribing to him as heroism what we of to-day call by a different name ; but that it was an honest jump, and the only thing of the kind on record, we cannot deny. Monuments have been erected for far less deserving contributors to a city's fame than Samuel Patch was to ours. We have had acrobats performing wonderful feats above our Falls since then, but Sam Patch has a niche of fame to himself that no other daring aspirant can share. Sam Scott must have been stimulated by him to leave the humble calling of a bar-tender, which he followed in this city in the Recess under Starr's music store about 1837, for Sam Scott became a famous jumper in London, diving from the top of Waterloo Bridge, adding to the sensational features of the same an appearance of having hanged himself, which spec- tacle the Londoners enjoyed until one winter's day in 1841, when the Rochester jumper hanged himself for a British crowd in good earnest. Among the many tributes in the leading journals of the day to the memory of Sam Patch, and they were not all in a complimentary vein, the following, from the " United States Gazette," is a fair specimen : — "Go then, say we to the sacristan of the temple of Fame, clear the niche, and place the pedestal for Patch, and let the priest who ministers to immortality make it the pane- gyric of Sam that his ambition was without bloodshed, and his patriotism was pure, for he fell in his country's Falls." None of the many poetical tributes called forth by Sam's tragical death have found place in permanent literature. The following extracts from a contribution to the "Crafts- man," December i, 1829, is a fair sample of the style of A DECADE MEMORABLE. I91 writing much admired in the days of L. E. L., the Annuals, and Mrs. Sigourney : — " November's chill north wind blew piercing and keenly ; In foam fell the torrent that broke on the cliff ; And down the deep ravine gazed thousands serenely, Who crowned its high banks with beauty and life. ******* " Some ready tongue ever the tale shall deliver, And point to the spot where he gasped his last breath; And the cataract pouring a winding sheet o'er him, For ages shall tell how it wrapped him in death." THE CHOLERA. 1832. The summer of 1831 was gloomy enough with the reports of the terrible ravages of Asiatic cholera in Europe. That it was marching steadily upon our shores no one could doubt ; and the announcement in June, 1832, that it had broken out in Quebec, speedily followed by news of its ap- pearance in Montreal, New York, and Albany, was hardly in advance of the first case in Rochester, June 22, in a house on South St. Paul Street, near the canal. The plague was indeed in our midst. During the months of July and Au- gust business and travel was almost entirely suspended. The seemingly vigorous in the morning were carried to their graves before night. Our physicians were heroically contending with a disease of which they had little knowl- edge, and the experience of European physicians, if availa- ble, was discouraging. Camphor was the great remedy, the price advancing from thirty cents a pound to several dol- lars. Brandy and calomel were freely administered. Nat- urally, the poor were the greatest sufferers, and many died who might have been saved with proper care. One man there was, still living among us, whose blessed work that summer in the wretched homes of the poor lights up the scene of misery and death. There was no spot too loathsome for the ministry of Ashbel W. Riley, — no corpse too repulsive for his lifting into the coffin and aiding in bearing to the dead cart, dismally familiar on the streets. 192 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. He was the solitary watcher by many a dying bed in that terrible summer of 1832, when his tall form might be seen seeking out the otherwise pitifully lost from human assistance and consolation. It was truly a calamitous sea- son when, in a population of between ten and twelve thou- sand, nearly five hundred died within two months of the Asiatic cholera. A reminiscence of Mrs. King is of inter- est here : " When the disease commenced its ravages we thought the dead must be carefully dressed for the grave. The second person who died was a woman on our street. No one of her acquaintance was willing to lay her out. Mrs. Frederick Starr, my mother, and I carefully dressed her long hair, washed her and robed her for the grave. Before we finished, her countenance became dark from de- composition. I think this was the last person during the whole of our season of cholera who was so particularly pre- pared for burial. The husband of this woman, who was ap- parently well at the time, was a corpse in six hours after." A temporary hospital was built on the bank of the Erie Canal in the western part of the city for the accommoda- tion of those stricken with cholera while traveling. It was often full to overflowing, the dead and the dying lying ujDon the straw pallets, and even upon the ground. There were outbreaks of cholera in the city for several summers after, but not until 1849 ^^"^^ ^^ scourge anything like that of 1832. That summer, when we were fortunate in having the Hon. Levi A. Ward for our mayor, will be long remembered. In the summer of 1852 there was an alarming prevalence of cholera between the months of July and September, our German population suffering severely, and certain localities of the city, particularly State Street in Frankford, and Chestnut Street on the east side. Dr. Treat and Moses B. Seward were among the victims. The cholera had hardly disappeared in 1832 when there was an outbreak of the small-pox, which spread rapidly over the city, causing the wildest excitement. It had been brought to the city by a resident of a neighboring village, who had been suffered to lie in his chamber on South So- A DECADE MEMORABLE. 1 93 phia Street with the whidovvs open, the neglect of the authorities, who had been notified of the case, being ex- cused on the plea that they were completely worn out with the demands of the cholera. Then followed the evils attendant upon vaccination with impure vaccine and suffer- ing from lack of nurses. Truly, the year 1832 was as dis- mal as any in our history. The deaths from cholera in New York city between the 4th of July and the ist of October were over three thou- sand. A paper by Dr. John Francis, written upon the scourge, is still considered a valuable contribution to med- ical science. THE CITY OF ROCHESTER. 1834. " The earliest beginnings," says Heine, " explain the lat- est phenomena." The beginnings of Rochester, even in the depressing days before 1818, explain how, in less than fifty years after the building of Allan's mill, and a little more than twenty after the sale of Colonel Rochester's lots, Rochester was enrolled among the important cities of the Empire State, "with the officers, powers, and duties thereof." The original act, whereby the city of Rochester was incorporated April 28, 1834, may be interesting read- ing to many among us, but in the " statisticks " of the Directory, proudly proclaiming for the first time its new title of " The City of Rochester," we find much of general interest. If the fact, important to us, of Rochester's birth- year as a city had been thought worthy of record in the chronological tables of the principal events of the world's history, we should find it contemporaneous with the death of La Fayette, the emancipation of slaves in the British Colonies, the first issue of the Oxford "Tracts for the Times," and the first volume of Bancroft's " History of the United States." Andrew Jackson was President, and Mar- tin Van Buren the heir-apparent. William L. Marcy was governor, and the uppermost topic was the riots in New 13 194 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. York in opposition to the Anti-Slavery movement. It was in the summer of 1834 that the houses of Arthur and Lewis Tappan were sacked by a mob, and the parsonage of Dr. Cox, the father of the present Bishop of Western New York, was attacked, while the troops called out to suppress the disturbance were assailed with stones and offensive missiles. William Lloyd Garrison was, perhaps, the most universally detested man in the country ; and the colored churches and schools in many of our leading cities were nearly, if not quite, destroyed by the lawlessness of the element bound to eradicate Abolitionists and Abolitionism. So much for the political atmosphere of the country when Rochester became one of the cities of the Empire State. Now for a few statistics, etc., from the Directory of 1834: Population, 12,252. Capital invested in mills and flouring machinery, $290,000. Amount paid for wheat, barrels, etc., $1,413,000. Barrels of flour manufactured during the year, 300,000. Amount of merchandise sold during 1833, $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. Value of lumber manufactured and purchased for ship- ment and home consumption during 1833, $51,740. Value of provisions and ashes, $183,097. The citizens of Rochester own stock in the transporta- tion lines on the Erie Canal, to the amount of $74,000; expending during the last year in the prosecution of their business $750,033.48, and requiring a capital of $136,000 to prosecute the same. There has been exported from the port of Genesee within the last year, to Canada and coast-wise, produce, manufac- tured articles, merchandise, and stock, to the amount of $807,510. About one sixth of all the canal tolls which the State receives is paid at Rochester. Amount of flour manufactured during the year 1826, 150,169 barrels, there being an increase since that time of nearly one half. Rochester contains 1,300 houses, besides public buildings. THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. Main Street, between St. Paul and Stone Streets. Built about 1835. Burned 1858. FIRST METHODIST CHAPEL. Corner Buffalo and Fitzhugh Streets Built, 1835-6. Taken down, 1S5-. From O'Reilly, iSj8. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 195 Churches : Four Presbyterian, one German Lutheran, two Episcopal, one Methodist, two Roman CathoHck, two Baptist, one Friends and one Orthodox Friends' meeting-houses. A court-house, jail, market, two banks, and a museum. The post-office was established in 181 2. The receipts of the first quarter amounted to $3.42, of the last quarter of 1826 were $1,718.44, and of the quarter ending April, 1834, ;^3,ooo.2i. There were nine " Principal Publick Houses," of which the Clinton Hotel alone remaineth unto this day. There were ten newspapers published in the city, viz. : — The Rochester Republican, weekly. The Rochester Daily Advertiser, daily. The Rochester Daily Democrat, daily. Monroe Democrat, weekly. Rochester Gem, semi-monthly. The Genesee Farmer, weekly. Goodsell's Genesee Farmer, weekly. The Rights of Man, semi-monthly. The Botanist, semi-monthly. The Liberal Advocate, semi-monthly. Two banks had we : — The Bank of Rochester. The Bank of Monroe. The Bank of Rochester was incorporated in 1824. Capi- tal, $250,000. F. Bushnell, President; James Seymour, Cashier ; A. H. McKinstry, Teller ; F. D. Bowman, Dis- count Clerk; D. Scoville, Book-keeper. Directors: L. Ward, Jr., J. Seymour, T. H. Rochester, J. Child, J. Graves, L. Brooks, F. Bushnell, E. Peck, Wm. Pitkin, S. O. Smith, J. Wadsworth, C. M. Lee, G. H. Mumford. The Bank of Monroe. Incorporated, 1829. Capital, $300,- 000. A. M. Schermerhorn, President; J. T. Talman, Cash- ier ; J. C. Frink, Teller ; J. Andrews, Discount Clerk ; M. Brown, Jr., Book-keeper. Directors: H. Dwight, J. Greig, H. B. Gibson, A. Duncan, J. K. Guernsey, F. M. Haight, A, M. Schermerhorn, J. Gould, J. K. Livingston, E. Ely, E. Clark, E. F. Smith, Wm. Brewster. 196 ROCHESTER. A STORY HISTORICAL. The traveling facilities were superior. Stages left Roch- ester for Albany by two routes ; one daily, the other twice a day. The same for Buffalo, one by the Ridge Road and Niagara Falls. There were stages for the Genesee Valley, and a new river steamboat as well ; while the packet boats left Rochester every morning and evening for Schenectady, and for Buffalo every morning. There were five steamboats on the lake, touching ten times a week at the port of Gene- see, and the Rochester railroad cars left for Carthage nearly every hour of the day. The comments of the old Rochesterian, when he runs his finger slowly down the names in this directory, are an epit- ome of biography and history, — a volume by itself. Some of the names puzzle us a little. There is Ira Armour, bota- nist. Tow Path. We commend that mystery to the students of our Society of Natural Sciences. W. C. Bloss, agent for "The Rights of Man," may be found at 143 Main Street; Silas Boyden, soldier, is at the Rendezvous, Fitzhugh Street; and Lewis Brooks, Alderman, First Ward, boards at the Arcade House, etc. Moses Hall, pensioner, is at 171 Main Street ; Dr. Orrin E. Gibbs lives on " Main Street contin- ued ; " Alexander Hamilton, fisherman, may be found on Shaw's Island ; and Paul Hammond, invalid, on the Tow Path. Not a few names have " Pittsford State Road " appended, and Jesse Hawley, "farmer," lives on Sophia Street ; Lindley M. Moore, farmer, is at 1 19 State Street ; and Lyman Munger, another farmer, " on the river. South St. Paul." Nehemiah Osburn, carpenter, h. ji6 Main Street ; Darius Perrin, hatter, h. Ford Street ; Mortimer Y. Reynolds, clerk, Washington Line Ofnce ; and Delos Wentworth, law student, are among the interesting entries. The government of the village was conducted by five trustees, and among the police ordinances of said trustees we find the following : — " Householders must sweep and clean the sidewalks, op- posite their dwellings, every Saturday, from the first day of April to the first day of November. Fine for each neg- lect, ^i.oo. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 197 " It is the duty of the president, trustees, or firewardens, to remove idle and disobedient persons from fires. Fine for disobedience to their orders, ^5.00. Such persons may also be put into custody till after the extinguishment of the fire. " No nine-pin alley to be kept. Fine per day, $5.00. "Masters of Canal boats, for suffering any horn or buo-le to be blown within the village on the Sabbath. Fine, Rochester, in 1834, had two Fire Companies and one Hook and Ladder Company, but fire-buckets were kept in each house, to be produced at fires, when the owners were to obey the orders of the chief engineer. " Fine for diso- bedience, $5.00." Now let us take a look at the old newspaper file preserved in the Athenaeum, for in no other way can we get so clear an insight into the life of Rochester in the year when it was incorporated as a city. In the issue of the " Daily Demo- crat " for January i, 1834, we find a long address to the Fraternity of Masons in the State of New York, signed by the leading members of the order here, stating their rea- son for returning their charters, disposing of their funds on hand, and for letting the institution "expire in the arms of its members." Signed by Erasmus F. Smith, William B. Knox, Jonathan Kingsley, Richard Gorsline, Jared N. Stebbins, Elijah F. Smith, William Neafus, Michael Loder, J. L. Munroe, E. R. Everest, W. P. Stanton, Wm. Billing- hurst, Jehiel Barnard, Henry Scrantom, Robert Wilson, E. W. Scrantom, Hamlet Scrantom, Ezra Strong, Ephraim Strong, Eleazer Bush, Jacob Graves, Thomas Kempshall, L. B. Langworthy, Jesse Hawley, Daniel Graves, Naaman Goodsell, Jonathan Child, William Atkinson, Elisha Ely, Azel Ensworth, Joseph Strong, Hiram Wright, Benjamin Campbell, Thomas Jennings, Willis Kempshall, Bill Colby, John Colby, Mortimer Strong. The " Democrat " is the Whig organ, and is boiling over with indignation at the crimes of the Albany Regency, the arrogance of the Emperor Jackson, and the danger to the IqS ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. public of " that great moneyed monster, the United States Bank." " The Canal must be rebuilt," is one of its key- notes. Among the local matters interesting to us of to-day, who have read the testimony of the Old Boys concerning Mr. Josiah Perry, are the letters congratulating the citizens of Rochester upon having gained his services at the Insti- tute. " I am sure his presence among us will be felt," writes the Rev. J. A. Bolles. " He has solid talent," says the Rev. B. H. Hickox, little dreaming how gray-headed men in 1884 and after would smile at those certificates. As early as April we read in the " Democrat " that it is to be hoped the Regency will postpone their selection of a Mayor for Rochester " until we get a City Charter. We think they will find the people of Rochester less willing to be ridden by eastern despots than the citizens of Buffalo are," etc. April 21, 1834, brings the following: "By the Albany 'Evening Journal,' received this morning, on the 17th inst. the Senate passed the Bill from the Assembly to incorpo- rate the City of Rochester, with the odious amendment re- quiring the Justices to be appointed by the Aldermen. It will now be seen whether the Assembly men from this county will consent to a charter on no better conditions than it might have been had two years ago. Whether they will sanction the Van Buren doctrine, — the further this power can be removed from the people the better." All true citizens are called upon to attend the Meeting at the Court-House that evening. " The First City Election will be held the first Monday in June." Whigs are notified of the schemes of the Tories. "Whiskey runs like water in Dublin." It is devoutly hoped by the Whigs, that after this important election Rochester can truthfully say, "We have no pestilence, al- though we once had Jacksonianism and Cholera." Many of us who never read a modern Election Notice will be interested in the first one of the City of Roches- ter :— A DECADE MEMORABLE. CITY ELECTION NOTICE. 199 Notice is hereby given, that the First Annual Election of the City of Rochester will be held on the first Monday of June next, to commence at nine o'clock of the forenoon of that day, at the places in the several wards of the city hereinafter respectively designated ; that the officers to be chosen at the said election are three supervisors for the said city, to be elected by the electors of the several wards, and one alderman, one assistant alderman, one assessor, one constable, for each ward, to be elected by the electors of said ward respectively. That the persons hereinafter named as inspectors of elec- tion for their respective wards are duly appointed such in- spectors, and the person first named in the order of appoint- ment is to be the chairman of the Board thereof. First Ward. Election to be held at the Mansion House, on State Street. Lyman B. Langworthy, Robert McCul- lum, Harmon Taylor, Inspectors. Second Ward. Election to be held at the Tavern now kept by G. Allen, corner State and Brown Streets. Harvey Tryon, Ephraim Gilbert, Sylvester H. Packard, Inspec- tors. Third Ward. Election to be held at the Rochester House, corner Exchange and Spring Streets. Isaac Hill, Daniel Loomis, Henry E. Rochester, Inspectors. Fourth Ward. Election to be held at the Genesee House, corner St. Paul and Court Streets. George A. Tiffany, Anson House, William Atkinson, Inspectors. Fifth Ward. Election to be held at Mrs. Blossom's Tav- ern, on Main Street. Jacob Graves, W. H. Ward, E. Smith Lee, Inspectors. By order of the Board of Trustees of the village of Roch- ester. May 20, 1834. E. F. Marshall, President. Isaac R. Elwood, Clerk. Of course there is an abundance of ward meetings follow- • 200 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. inij; this notice. " The Tories must not get a foothold in the new city of Rochester," cry the Whigs, The press contains extracts from the city charter. The Whigs gain the victory, and the aldermen and assistant aldermen meet June 9th at the Court-House and elect our first Mayor, Jonathan Child. The Board of City Officers was as follows : — Jonathan Child, Mayor. Isaac Hills, Recorder. Aldermen. Assistant Aldermen. First Ward. Lewis Brooks. John Jones. Second " Thomas Kempshall. Elijah F. Smith. Third " Frederick F. Backus Jacob Thorn. Fourth " Ashbel W. Riley. Lansing B Swan. Fifth " Jacob Graves. Henry Kennedy. John C. Nash, Clerk. Vincent Mathews, Attorney & Counselor. Ephraim Gilbert, Marshal. Elihu Marshall, Treasurer. Samuel Works, Superintendent. Fire Depai'tment. William H. Ward, CJiief Engineer. Theodore Chapin, K. H. Van Rensselaer, Assistants. Fire Wardens. First Ward. John Haywood, Abelard Reynolds. Second " John Jones, Willis Kempshall. Third " Erasmus D. Smith, Thomas H. Rochester. Fourth " Nehemiah Osburn, Obadiah N. Bush. Fifth " Daniel Graves, Bill Colby. Snpei"visors. Erasmus D. Smith, Abraham M. Schermerhorn, Horace Hooker. A DECADE MEMORABLE. 201 Assessors. First Ward. John Haywood. Second " Ephraim Gilbert. Third " Daniel Loomis. Fourth " Horatio N. Curtis. Fifth " Orrin E. Gibbs. Justices of the Peace. Second Ward. Thomas H. Dunning. Third " Samuel Miller. Fifth " Nathaniel Draper. Street Inspectors. First Ward. Harmon Taylor. Second " Silas Ball. Third " Eleazer Tillotson. Fourth " John Coutler. Fifth " John Gifford. School Inspectors. G. H. Mumford, E. S. Marsh, Moses Chapin, Joseph Edgell, Samuel Tuttle. Constables. Cornelius Fielding, Joseph Putnam, Isaac Weston, Sluman W. Harris, Philander Davis. Overseers of the Poor. William G. Russell, William C. Smith. E. A. Miller, Sealer of Weights & Measures. Z. Norton, Sexton West Biirying Grojind. This signal victory of the Whig party was duly cele- brated upon Brown's Island.^ A national salute of thirteen guns at sunrise, and twentv-four at noon. A collation was spread "in the bower," and some three thousand people ^ Between Brown's Race and the river. 202 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. made merry and listened to no end of speech-making. Judge Strong presided, and among the many toasts drank were the following : — Matthew Brown, Jr. "The City of Rochester. The people have erected their banner sacred to the Constitu- tion and laws. Patriots will sacrifice every minor consider- ation and prejudice to their support." Daniel Marsh. "The Charter Election of the City of Rochester. A signal triumph of democratic principles over arrogant oppression and Jacksonian misrule." We find in the same and close following issues of the " Democrat " a call for a Whig Young Men's Meeting, headed by Henry E. Rochester. There is a long report of the " Rochester Western Infant School Society," Sarah H. Ford, Secretary, and Chicago is one of the missions thereof. There is an outbreak of cholera on the Mississippi. A. Champion has lost from his office one volume of his Hen- ry's Commentary, and wishes it returned. John O'Dono- hue is going to Montreal on business in eight or ten days, and will attend to any matters intrusted to him while there. The display of brute force in the government of Canada is severely commented upon. The editor thanks our repre- sentative in Congress, the Hon. Frederic Whittlesey, for valuable public documents. First meeting of Common Council. June lo, 1834, this body holds its first meeting in the Court-House, and the Mayor, after taking his oath of office, delivers a most admir- able address of which the following is an extract : — "The rapid progress which our place has made from a wilderness to an incorporated city authorizes each of our citizens proudly to reflect upon the agency he has had in bringing about this great and interesting change. Rochester has had little aid in its permanent improvement from foreign capital. It has been settled and built for the most part by mechanics and merchants, whose capital was economy, industry, and perseverance. It is their labor and skill which has converted a wilderness into a city, and to A DECADE MEMORABLE. 20$ them, surely, this must be a day of pride and joy. They have founded and reared a city before they had passed the meridian of Hfe. . . . The men who felled the forests which grew on the spot where we are assembled are to-day sitting at the council board of our city . . . Together we have struo-o-led through the hardships of our infant settlement, and the embarrassment of straitened circumstances ; to- gether let us rejoice and be happy in the glorious reward that has crowned our labors," Jonathan Child, our first mayor, was a representative man of whom we may be justly proud, a gentleman of the old school, a liberal conservative, the friend of the working man, and, above all, the conscientious politician. That he should have been chosen for our first mayor is testimony in honor of those who made him their choice. Jonathan Child was a New Englander of Puritan ancestry, with the blood of revolutionary heroes in his veins. He came to this part of the country in 1810, from Lyme, New Hamp- shire, taught school in Utica, settled in Charlotte, where he was merchant and postmaster. In 18 18 he married a daughter of Colonel Rochester. To his enterprise and sterling integrity our city owes much of her present pros- perity, and not a few of the successful business men now passing away were indebted to Jonathan Child for their first start in life, their mastery of adverse fortune. " Hon- est John Allen" was among the laborers on the canal, when Jonathan Child discerned the possibihties of the Irish boy, his exceptional honesty and industry, and took him into his warehouse, and subsequently into his office. The history of Masonry in Rochester and the name of Jon- athan Child are inseparable. In the stormy times of the Morgan abduction his wisdom and impartial judgment were the guide of the order. The unselfishness of the man made him a safe public leader, — an unselfishness which left him comparatively poor in his declining years, considerable as had been his fortune in the days of his extensive commer- cial enterprise. He resigned the office of mayor the year following his 204 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. election. He could not sign licenses for selling liquors. His sturdy honesty and high principle would not admit such compromise. It was in perfect harmony with the character of the man. He could give up anything but his allegiance to duty. That nothing could take from him. "As he was closing his eyes in death in October, i860," writes his masonic biographer, " he heard of the successful election in Pennsylvania which gave assurance of the elec- tion of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, and then, as if spir- itual prescience was illuminating his last moments, he thanked God that slavery should die." The name of Jonathan Child is all worthy of place be- side that of Nathaniel Rochester, — names upon our fairest corner-stones of which we shall never be ashamed. The Decade Memorable was prolific in germs, or rather the development of germs, of contentions concerning boun- daries and limitations, which, although making the legal fra- ternity to rejoice and prosper, was a severe tax upon many an otherwise fair fortune, if not its annihilation. One of the causes of these interminable lawsuits, dragging on into the forties and fifties, or, if supposed to be ended, breaking out again in some unexpected quarter, was strangely enough in Colonel Rochester's generosity to his lot buyers. To be sure of giving good measure, he would occasionally allow a foot of land over, — in other words, throw in the trifle that soon ceased to be a trifle, and the very opposite. That surplus foot or two was the bone of many a hot contention. The mill yard, or immediate surroundings of the old Allan Mill, was the source of much litigation. A part of this mill yard became Child's Basin, lying back of the lots on Exchange Street, and extending northerly to Graves Street, wide enough for three or four boats to lie side by side and leave passage. There was no end of lawsuits concerning the rights of way in this basin, and the closing of it natur- ally brought about as many more. The bed of the river has been fruitful soil for our lawyers ; and if the river itself could assert its rights by any other voice than that of a flood, the story of its wrongs and its trespassers would de- mand a hcarins: and an advocate. THE OLD FILES. 20$ XV. THE OLD FILES. I 820-1 829. The old files of our first newspapers give a wonderful insight into the pioneer times of Rochesterville. The " Union and Advertiser," the early evolution of our very first newspaper, has a venerable file, and so has the Rochester Athenceum. Unfortunately, neither of these files are com- plete, and perhaps it is now impossible, even with this sug- gestion, meant for those who are hoarding old newspapers unavailable to the public, to make it so. The collection at the Athenseum dates back no further than the Rochester "Gazette " for May 30, 1820. The " Gazette " was our first newspaper, a weekly, and the enterprise of Dauby & Shel- don, beginning in 1816. It was afterwards merged in the " Republican," and Frederic Whittlesey and Edwin Scran- tom were at one time its publishers. The Rochester "Telegraph" was our second weekly newspaper. This was established by Everard Peck in 1818, and it was upon this paper that Thurlow Weed, in 1822, was glad to find work at four hundred dollars a year, writing the popular editorials, which soon called out for him the " Republican's " epithet of " Peck's hired man." Thurlow Weed's tribute to Everard Peck in his late Autobiography is a grateful acknowledg- ment of indebtedness to one of our most honored citizens, whose kindly impulses, rather than prophetic vision, laid the foundations of Thurlow Weed's subsequent success. In 1827 the "Republican" assumed the name of the "Daily Advertiser." It was the first daily paper west of New York city, and the business enterprise of Luther 206 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. Tucker and Henry A. Slade, of Jamaica, Long Island. Henry O'Reilly was its first editor, a name associated with our local movements for years, and with those of the coun- try as well. We open the file of yellow folio newspapers, twelve inches by nineteen, and learn that the terms of the " Gazette " were two dollars a year, " Any person may be at liberty to discontinue, on paying what may be due on his paper." * * * Haywood the Hatter and I3ingham the Tailor head the advertisements, the latter announcing that " Military Dresses" and "Ladies' Habits" are made by him in the most fashionable style. * * * " One Cent Reward " is of- fered for a runaway apprentice ; and Dr. Vought, who, by the by, took out the first patent in Rochesterville, and that for a patent medicine, informs the citizens that he has gen- uine vaccine matter, and emphasizes the great necessity of their using the same. * * * There is a column and a half of selected poetry, the most of it from Lord Byron, and what we should call a very prosy inventory of the Bona- parte family. * * * Much space is given to Foreign News. The subject of internal navigation is uppermost. Among Home Topics, Clinton has been elected, and there is re- joicing in his party ; and A. Reynolds, the Postmaster, gives notice that the western mail will close on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at lo o'clock, a. m., and the east- ern mail will close on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at 10 o'clock, A. M. We must pass more rapidly over these interesting files, noting only the most notable things. July 4, 1820, was celebrated "with hilarity." A proces- sion was formed at Dr. Ensworth's tavern, corner Buffalo and Carroll, now State, Street. To the church it marched, the band playing its best. There A. Sampson was the orator. Then back to Dr. Ensworth's to a good dinner, Colonel Rochester presiding, assisted by Dr. Matthew Brown. Among the many toasts was the following: '^ TJie Erie Canal, opening an intercourse between the interior and the extreme parts of the United States, it will assimi- THE OLD FILES. 20/ late conflicting interests, impart energy and give durability to the national compact." * * * Jacob Gould offers " i,ooo pair Coarse Shoes ivarrantcd to be of the first quality." * * * George the Fourth is making splendid preparations for his coronation, the ceremony to cost the people five millions of dollars. * * * August 20, 1820. A notice of the celebration of the four Sunday-schools of the village, some two hundred scholars, " whose neat attire and smiling faces bespoke the noble workings of young ambition in their ductile minds." The "Gazette" is anti-Clintonian, and growls menacingly at the Clintonians, "a party which has been seeking by Machiavelian cunning to destroy its merited popularity," but Queen Caroline is given more space than home politics, furious as the storm is growing. "This No. ends the quarter," is the heading of S. B. Bartlett's unique advertisement, for he is the post-rider of Rochesterville, and publicly addresses his "good custom- ers " as follows : — "Though slow of speech, Yet quick to find The balance due — Which is behind." OLD ACCOUNTS AND NOTES. " To all concerned this timely note I send, Bring in your pay and help a needy friend ; Bring what you have, a little cash will do, He who pays I '11 discharge, who fails, / 7/ sueP There must have been an appetite for anything con- cerning Bonaparte and Queen Caroline in those days, so laden is the "Gazette" with what concerns them. We dis- cover that the people of Rochesterville were by no means to be satisfied with news limited to Genesee County, or even the State of New York. We may be pardoned for regretting that the " Locals " were so sparse, the " Person- als "a thing of the gossiping future. The spice of these old papers is not in their weighty foreign clippings, nor 208 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. their editorial wars, but in the advertisements, the seeming inadvertences of the news purveyor. " A Girl " is wanted to do the work of a small family in the village, and there is significance in the repetition of the advertisement for several weeks. * * * Tickets are for sale in " Literature Lottery No. 4," at the post-office, A. Reynolds, P. M. * * * The Duke of Wellington is pelted with mud and oyster shells by the populace on the side of Queen Caro- line. * * * W. Cobb, President, calls a meeting of the Rochester Mechanics' Society. * * * Clinton is called by the Federalists "a crack-brained political wanderer," and William Atkinson wants 1,000 Flour Barrels. * * * Mercy Hill's name, in the " List of Letters uncalled for," interests us, as four are waiting for her, week after week. How ac- count for our desire to know who she was, and what those four postponed letters could have been about ? * * * Epi. grams called out by Queen Caroline's Trial are afloat : — " How sadly her radical friends it would shock, To hear that the Queen would be brought to the block ! But when Alderman Wood at her levees is seen, They smile at the block being brought to the Queen." * * * Mr. Adams gives a Concert of Sacred Music "at the Meeting-House " on a Sunday evening. " The evening- was selected to accommodate the citizens." Here is the notice. "CONCERT. "A Concert of Vocal Music will be given at the Meeting- House in this village, on Sunday Evening the 29th inst., consisting of Anthems, Solos. Duetts, Choruses, etc., etc. The Piano Forte is expected to accompany the music. Performance to commence at 6 o'clock. Doors closed at half past 7. gg^ Tickets 25 cts., to be had at the Book- store of E. Peck & Co." The assurance respecting the piano-forte, and the closing of the doors at the beginning of the concert, contains a suggestion for musical directors of a later day. * * * "Judges, Lawyers, and Divines," holds forth an adver- tisement of Backus, the Druggist, " when laboring in their THE OLD FILES. 209 vocation, have acknowledged the refreshing quaUties both to the mind and body " of an Aromatic Snuff, a " Stimulus for the Nose," — a Cordial for the Olfactory Nerves, — a Sternatory fashionable and fragrant, which may be had at said Backus' Druggist Store, together with a Superior Corn Salve, and Toothache Drop. The post-rider is out with another notice, this time in plain prose. He must be paid, " or my occupation is gone. All who have taken the ' Gazette,' and are indebted, must pay at once." We begin to comment upon the prevalent disposition of the cows of the country to stray or suffer themselves to be stolen, thus insuring to every issue of the paper one notice at least of bovine itineracy. * * * Stephen Charles opens " A New Store," and his catalogue of tempting wares reaches from Cogniac and Spanish Brandy to " Fifty Boxes assorted Window Glass." * * * Jacob Gould receives 200 prs. cowhide boots. * * * William Pitkin has Crockery and Glass Ware as well as Drugs. * * * Charles Lalliet and Madam Lalliet open a School for Dancing and the French Language. * * * Under the head of married, we find " Jonathan Jacket, youngest son of the celebrated chief Red Jacket, to Yee-hah-wee, at the Buffalo Reserva- tion." * * * There is an editorial leader devoted to the celebration of Christmas at St. Luke's. * * * A Republi- can meeting is called of those " friendly to the administra- tion of the General Government, and opposed to most of the measures of Governor Clinton." Signed N. Rochester, S. Melanchton Smith, Joel Wheeler, Jonathan Parish, Jr. * * * And here comes the first advertisement of the old Museum. " Stowell and Bishop ... at the Eagle Tavern. Museum ... 34 Wax Figures as large as life. Two ele- gant organs, one playing a variety of music and accompa- nied by a chime of bells ; the other a new patent organ accompanied with a drum and a triangle. . . . Grand me- chanical Panorama, — 36 moving figures, — 20 Elegant Views. N. B. They have just added to their Museum a representation of the late Duel between Commodore Barron 2IO ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. and Decatur, and their seconds. Admission, 25 cents. Children, half price." * * * A responsible person is wanted to carry the Oswego mail on horseback. * * * Burrell Reed, " Tonsor and Frisseur," has unlocked his barbcr-ows instruments . . . and will seize " the fair occasion to at- tend the commands of the ladies at their respective resi- dences." * * * At Silas O. Smith's Cash Store, the highest price is paid for Pot and Pearl Ashes. * * * Among the new school-books "just published " is "The Brief Remarker on the Ways of Man," dissipating our faith in the brevity of its remarks by the length of its explanatory title-page. " The Brief Remarker " had a score of valuable recommen- dations, and was for sale by J. D. Bemis & Co. * * * H. Hooker will exchange Salt for Flax Seed. * * * " Hard Times in Missouri, Dull Sale of Negroes." * * * " Mr. Henry Bullard of this village has been out Fox Hunting, and has received a dangerous wound from the accidental dis- charge of his gun." * * * "Fire! The Cooper Shop of Mr. James is burned I " but the citizens furnish material for the new shop that the joiners put up the very next day. How much there is in that item accounting for the marvelous prosperity of Rochesterville. And here is a wide gap in the Athenaeum files. From the "Gazette" of February, 1821, we joass to the Roches- ter "Telegraph," No. 38, Vol. 5, Tuesday, March 18, 1823, missing the newspaper record of a little more than two years. We see at the first glance that Rochesterville has been making great strides of progress, and that a fierce competition is going on between the rival stage lines, the North and the South Roads, the Opposition and the Old Line. These North Road stages promise to leave Auburn at five in the morning, and reach Rochester at six in the """ afternoon. * * * Mar- shall has published a New Spelling Book whose 'intrinsick worth will promote the interest of education." * * * Bart- THE OLD FILES. 211 lett, the post-rider, has at last sacrificed rhyme for terse- ness : " Those who have not paid me or Messrs. E. Peck & Co. and taken a receipt, are earnestly requested to pay me when I call ; and those who live off the route will please to leave the money where the papers are left." * * * Appren- tices and cows are still, in increasing numbers, straying about the country. The catalogue of " Books at Peck's " reads like the inventory of a country parson's library. * * * The price of Ashes has fallen ten pounds per ton in Liverpool. Advices so received in Albany. And here is a House for sale about three miles from the village, its desirability chiefly consisting in the fact that it is situated on the Erie Canal. Among the new Books at Marshall's we find " Memoirs of the Military and Political Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his origin to his death on the Rock of St. Helena." * * * D. D. & J. Swift offer everything in their wares from Mull and Book mushns to Connecticut Mess Shad. * * * A sick man in a delirium escapes to " the woods adjoining the village." * * * R. & H. L. Hall com- bine the attractions of a Porter House and a Reading Room. * * * Anna Knapp keeps '^ Plain Bonnets for Friends and Methodists." * * * July 4th, 1823, gave testimony to the patriotism of Roches- terville. The good people turned out and marched again in brave procession to the Court-House Square. " The Rev. Mr. Cumming opened with prayer ; " F. Whittlesey read the Declaration of Independence ; D. D. Barnard made an eloquent oration ; and the Rev. Mr. Penney pronounced the benediction. A good dinner was next in order, and Dr. L. Ward, Jr., was the President of the same, assisted by Jesse Hawley, Elisha B. Strong, Elisha Ely, and A. Samp- son. Colonel Rochester regretted he might not be present, "on account of age and infirmities," but he contributed the following toast : — 212 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. " The Grand Canal — wonderful work ; ages to come will be grateful to the statesmen and patriots who planned and made provision for it, and to the agents who superintended and executed this stupendous monument of their and our glory." * * * New York city has 130,000 inhabitants. * * * Ira West's Potash Kettles are warranted to endure sixty days' actual use. * * * The Rev. Mr. Thomson, of the Uni~ versalist Faith, is expected to preach in the Charity School Room, Sunday, August ist, 1823. * * * J. Robinson, the Hair Cutter, whose pranks and stories did much for the promotion of good times at the Four Corners, illuminates the " Telegraph " with the accompanying cut, which, no doubt, resembles the distinguished wag as closely as crude wood-cuts usually do their subjects. * * * September 9th gives us the following news item : " The Aqueduct over the Genesee River will be completed at nine o'clock to- morrow morning, at which time the workmen employed on it will celebrate the event. An address will be delivered by one of the workmen. All persons who have been in any manner employed upon the Aqueduct are invited to attend." How eagerly we search the next week's issue for a report of that speech and the name of the orator, but the event is unnoted, crowded out by political harangues — the laudation of Adams and the bitter denunciation of Van Buren. * * * September 30. " It is expected that the water will be let in, and the first boat arrive next week " — a modest item at the foot of the editorial column. lUit the Aqueduct celebration came in good time, October, 1823, and among the toasts drank were the following : — " By Colonel Rochester. The Aqueduct across the Gen- esee River — the most stupendous and strongest work in America, and an imperishable monument of the skill and industry of the agents who planned and superintended, and the mechanics who constructed it. " By Myron Holley. The Village of Rochester. Great THE OLD FILES. 215 in her natural advantages, may the towing-rope enable her to draw them out in all the forms of public and private prosperity." And now the " Telegraph " breaks out with the advertis- ing of the Packet Boat Companies, each rival line proclaim- ing its advantages over all others. The U. S. Mail Line assures its patrons that its captains are " all experienced and responsible men," reminding us of what we do not re- quire to-day of the captains of ocean steamers. "The teams are perfectly broken to the Canal. The Boats leave Rochester every day at 7 a. m., and passengers will arrive at Albany the third day in time to take the steamboats for New York. When the Canal is navigable to Brockport, the route of the Erie Line will be extended to that place. All baggage at the risk of the owner." * * * « ^^ hours from Utica ! The shortest trip that has been made be- tween Rochester and Utica." We perceive the ville is dropping off. * * * There is an Anti-Slavery trend in pub- lic sentiment. * * * « Mr. Weed (Thurlow) having deter- mined to continue a short time in the village, has offered his services to assist in the editorial department of the ' Telegraph.' " " THE GREEK ! THE GREEK ! " As the year 1823 draws to its close, Rochester, with the rest of the civilized world, is enlisted in the Emancipation of Greece from the Turk. The subject crowds out almost every other from the little weekly newspaper. There are sermons by all the leading clergy " in behalf of the Greeks," rousing orations, and fiery outbursts from the Press. A large meeting is held at Christopher's Mansion House, "for the purpose of adopting measures to afford aid to the Greeks," — James K. Guernsey in the Chair, Dr. Levi Ward, Secretary, — whereat it is resolved unanimously, with other strong resolutions, that subscriptions be received in aid of the Greeks, * * * that a Committee be appointed to col- lect and receive subscriptions, etc., and that N. Roches- ter, Daniel Penfield, James K. Guernsey, Matthew Brown, Jr., Timothy Barnard, Elisha B. Strong, Ashley Sampson, 214 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. E. S. Beach, John Mastick, Enos Pomeroy, Abclard Rey- nolds, and Levi Ward, be that Committee. A Ball is given for the Greeks, Gen. A. W. Riley, Treasurer fur the same. General Riley, and his partner Colonel Bissell, sell a lot on the corner of what we now call New Main and Scio Streets, for $200, and give the proceeds to the inhabitants of the island of Scio, and the street is named in memory of the event. The township of Greece is also named at this time, as was Chili at another, to commemorate the Chilian strike for freedom. $1,500 was soon raised in Monroe County alone ; and among the many devices for raising money at a time when Ereeholders were calling for two or more fire engines, and for "c?/ least two more lamps on Main Street Bridge," was the clever one of Daniel Penfield, Esq. He gave a very fine, fat ox to the Greek Fund. Said ox, it was proclaimed, would be slain for Freedom and sold by the pound. Garlanded with evergreens and decorated with rib- bons, he was led through the streets, preceded by a band of music. Unfortunately for the reader of the old files to- day, the Reporter of that did not think it worth while to record what everybody knew by the gossip at Christopher's or John Robinson's, and so the interesting incidents per- taining to the carving of the illustrious ox, the quality of the meat, and just who paid twenty-seven cents a pound for the choicest portions, may not go down to posterit3^ I have even failed utterly in establishing the slightest rela- tion between the Ox that died for Greece and the incarna- tion of defiance that used to grace our old Market House. A STEPPING mill! We have heard of many kinds of mills in the city of mills, but what is the stepping mill pray tell.-' Is it run by the stones whereby " men rise from their dead selves to higher things?" February, 1824, a meeting was held "in this village, and a committee api)()inted to draft a petition to the Legislature for the passage of a law to erect a Step- ping Mill in this County. Probably no place in the Union, of the size of Rochester, is so much infested with the THE OLD FILES. 21$ dregs and outcasts of society," — the editor going on to make plain this assertion, and the necessity of a change. " It is believed a stepping or tread-mill (ah, now we under- stand) will fully answer the purpose . . . offenders are seldom found a second time in a tread-mill. . . . Machinery can be attached to the wheel so that the occupants could be made to earn nearly all their expenses." The same paper contains the call of The Rochester Vigilant Society "for the suppression of crimes and misdemeanors." Not long after an advertisement of the society appears of the reclaimed stolen property in its possession, but we find no record of the carrying out of the Stepping Mill Project. * * * Proposals will be received for the building of a school- house for the Female Charitable Society. * * * A new Waverley Novel is out ! " St. Ronan's Well." Peck has it. The first theatre bill found in the old files is that of March i6, 1824 : — * * * A P\ill Company . . . from the New York and Al- bany Theatres ... at Mr. Christopher's. . . . The fash- ionable Comedy, " How to die for Love." With a great variety of comic songs. " The Exile of Buonaparte " be- sides. The whole to conclude with the farce, "The Village Lawyer." "Tickets fifty cents, to be had at the Bar. Doors open at six . . . front seats reserved for Ladies. Two tickets will admit one gentleman and two ladies." Who shall say that the histrionic profession of Rochester has not done its best to encourage a chivalrous attention to the fair sex ? * * * " Have potash kettles," cries out some vexed villager, "a standing license to occupy the most conspicuous situations in this village .'' " Which, with the notice that cattle are roaming over the burying-ground, and the succession of advertisements of runaway boys, tempts the reader to surmise that there were possibly some disa- greeable things to be met with in Rochester in those days as well as now. But what are the annoyances of potash ket- tles on the sidewalk, or even the growing lack of fire buck- ets and ladders, cows in the graveyard, or runaway boys, when it has been officially announced that La Fayette 2l6 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. is coming to America, and will sail over the grand canal, and so, of course will stop in Rochester. ICxcry issue of the press is full of La Fayette and his doings, subdued by the particulars of the death of Lord Byron, and quotations from his writings and letters. * * * The basins and wharves of the canal are bustling with trade. " Last week a boat arrived here from Vermont, loaded with emigrants destined to the western forests, having navigated Lake Champlain and the Northern Canal, and entered the West- ern at Waterford. * * * The immense benefits resulting from this internal river are beginning to be realized." * * * *'■ The fare from this place to Albany, either by the packet boats or in good post coaches, does not exceed $12, board and lodging included; making only ^14 to New York. The whole expense from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls is less than twenty dollars." * * * Green-House plants from the Linnrean Garden, Long Island, can be had of S. M. & J. S. Smith, the head of our line of Florists, — including such names as Ellwanger & Barry, and James Vick. New Spelling Books are rife, each boasting its supe- riority. * * * The value of the canal to Rochester is em- phasized by the statement that a Rochester merchant has a contract in New York to furnish 250,000 feet of ship plank, and two others have contracts for staves for $25,000. Who dreamed of such things ten years before.'' Three apple-trees are supposed to represent to all who see them above the adver- tisement of The Summer Garden in Carroll Street, three doors below Chris- topher's, the bosky shade --■ "^ '~ a summer garden is nat- urally supposed to furnish. The attractions held out by the proprietor no doubt insured him eminent success. " The garden will be lighted up in the best style when the weather is fair, with frequently a band of music. . . . No lady will be permitted to visit the garden except accompa- nied by a gentleman, or where there is a family of chil- THE OLD FILES. 2.1 J dren." ... At the approach of cold weather the garden offered to its Patrons Mush, Samp and Milk, and " other relishes of all kinds." The " Telegraph " flings out its flag for John Ouincy Adams for President, and Andrew Jackson for Vice Presi- dent, early in the fall of 1824. For Governor, De Witt Clinton. " The prospect of a complete political triumph is certain. * * * Van Buren is already convicted. ... He must suffer what the people in justice shall inflict." * * * La Fayette's receptions are fully reported. * * * Thurlow Weed is on the Adams Ticket for Member of Assembly. * * * "The Albany Regency" is much talked about. " Our SjDlendid Museum " adds to its extensive collection a figure of General La Fayette. "Those who have seen the General will instantly discern a strong resemblance ; and those who have not seen him are assured that they see in this figure all but life." Lord Byron and Lady have increased the enrichments of the Museum ; also " Mrs. Smith, who was drowned in December (we are not told where), crossing the ferry holding her beautiful twin babes ; " also Blue Beard vnvLrdQxmg his wife (never telling us which one); also a scripture group representing King Saul and the Witch of Endor raising Samuel from the tomb ; also an Indian Chief, Black Streak, in the act of scalping, and Gen- eral Jackson in the act of shooting Black Streak." All this the children of Rochester could enjoy from 9 a. m. to 9 p. M. for an admittance fee of twelve and a half cents, and yet those advertisements of runaway apprentices — "one cent reward " — do not diminish. The descriptions of the Runaways are interesting. One is spoken of as " naturally a great talker and very active." That of course cost him his freedom.* * * "The venerable Mr. Monroe resigns the Presidential Chair to Mr. Adams." * * * The subject of " the formation of a canal along the valley of the Genesee and Caneseraga" is agitated. * * * June 7, 1825. The community is thrilled by the intelligence that La Fayette is approaching Rochester. "It is expected he will arrive at King's Basin, in Greece, at 9 o'clock this morning. * * * 2 1 8. ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. A number of boats will convey a party of ladies and gentle- men to the Basin, where they expect to meet the General and give him wclconiey . . . He will probably leave the village this afternoon. . . . Every one, therefore, man, woman, child, or anybody else who wishes to set eyes upon the benefactor of his country will be on the alert this morn- ing in good season." * * * Lottery advertisements are sig- nificantly numerous. * * * Haywood has the La Fayette Hat. * * * The Pilot Mail Coach travels by daylight only, crossing the canal between Rochester and Albany 13 times." What more could the lover of the picturesque de- mand ? * * * The lecturers on Phrenology are becoming processional. * * * We find the l^rigade Orders for Train- ing Day, Brig. Gen. Lewis Swift commanding, but never a report of the doings of those old Training Days. * * * Here is an interesting item, Aug. 30, 1825: "Addison Gardner, Esq., of this village, was admitted to the degree of Coun- selor at Law, a* the late term of the Supreme Court at Utica." THE MONROE REPUBLICAN, August 2, 1825, Edwin Scrantom, editor, comes next of the old files, with a decided resemblance to the " Tele- graph." La Fayette is preparing to leave the country, and too much space cannot be given to the order of his go- ing, even if he does not go at once. *' * * " Stray Sheep," seven in number, and one-eared sheep at that, wander into an inclosure on the farm of the late Rev. Comfort Wil- liams. * * * The Thompsonians, with their lobelia and " sweats," are troubling the waters. * * * The Prize List of a Grand Lottery is conspicuous, with the name of A. Rey- nolds affixed. It is followed by a Post-office Notice signed A. Reynolds, P. M. " Letters to be forwarded in the de- pending mail must be delivered into the post-office at least half an hour before the time fixed for closing it, or they will lie over till the closing of the next mail." THE OLD FILES. 219 THE RIVAL THEATRES. In May, 1826, we discover symptoms that end in a fever- ish strife between the two theatres. Side by side their ad- vertisements stand in the "RepubHcan," and what with the flourish of capitals, and the unique attractions of both es- tablishments, the Rochestrian of that day must have found deciding which to patronize a hard matter. Happily, they did not open the same evenings. One was on Exchange Street, the other opposite the Old Mansion House. If one brought out " The Bold Buccaneers," the other followed with " The Orphan of Geneva," or something as attractive. If one gave the Sailor's Horn Pipe, the other followed with a Highland FHng. If one offered a prize for the best ode to be spoken before the rising of the curtain, and our best poets competed for the same, Frederic Whittlesey carrying off the honors, the rival bill would soon announce some- thing like this, found among the attractions for June, 1826: " ' The Vale of the Genesee ; or, the Big Chief,' with an orig- inal song, all written in this village." This, of course, made unparalleled demand upon the resources of the rival com- pany, but they are equal to the emergency. " On Tuesday evening will be presented the play, never performed here before, of : ' La Fayette ; or. The Castle of Olmutz,' and after it any number of frolicsome songs, and an Indian War Dance, and a broad-sword horn pipe, and the comedy of ' Sweethearts and Wives.' " Now, as this same issue of the " Republican " contains no less than four flaming lottery advertisements, and as we know that the hand-organ of the Museum may be heard at all hours on the Four Corners beguiling our forefathers and foremothers into prolonged contemplation of its fas- cinating collection, and that the racing packets are run- ning on Sundays and the racing stage-coaches as well, and a circulating library for novels and tales is in full blast, we are prepared to discover, following close in the wake of the theatre advertisement, the " Proposals by George G. Sill for publishing, in the village of Rochester, once in two weeks, 220 ROCHESTER : A STORY HISTORICAL. a Religious Paper, the publication of said paper to begin as soon as it has subscribers enough to insure the undertak- ing." July 4, 1826, was a patriotic jubilee indeed in Rochester- ville. Levi A. Ward and Geo. H. Mumford were the Com- mittee of Arrangements, and Harvey Humphrey the Orator of the day. Here is the programme : — " I. A gun at daybreak. 2. Federal salute at sunrise, and the bells to ring during the firing. 3. Religious ser- vices from 8 till 9 o'clock a. m. 4. Procession will form at 10 o'clock in front of the Mansion House, under Colonel Darrow, assisted by Adjutants Parsons and Meech, in the following order : — "5. Martial musick. 6. Captain Everest's company of artillery. 7. Captain Smith's company of infantry. 8. Military officers in uniform. 9. Rochester Band. 10. Or- ator and Reader of the Declaration of Independence. 11. Reverend Clergy. 12. Revolutionary Patriots. 13. Village corporation. 14. Officers of the County Court. 15. Com- mittee of Arrangements. 16. Fire companies. 17. Mechan- icks' Society. 18. Citizens and strangers. 1|@^ The citizens of the County are invited to join in the celebration. 1§@^ Tickets for the dinner, with badges, can be had at Mr. Ens- worth's : price 50 cents. 1|@* Soldiers of the Revolution are invited to dine as guests. Jg@^ MiUtary officers are in- vited to appear in uniform. *^* Seats are reserved in the Meeting-House for ladies." Volumes might be written on these Old Files. In May, 1827, there was "a great revival in all the churches, even the Episcopal." In October, 1S27, there was a great stir at the Four Corners. A negress, a slave, was retaken by her master, a Southerner, who had brought her North for a short stay. June 28, 1828, the "Daily Telegraph" makes its appearance, Henry O'Reilly, editor, calling out the fol- lowing from the New York " Evening Post " : — " We have received the first number of a daily paper, printed at Rochester, in this State, entitled the * Rochester Daily Advertiser.' The editor speaks with confidence of THE OLD FILES. 221 his success, and adverts to the unexpected extent of his advertising patronage. Nothing can show, in a more strik- ing point of view, the rapid increase of our population and internal commerce, than the fact that this place, which, within a few years was a wilderness, is now enabled, by the number of its inhabitants and the activity of its trade, to support a daily paper." Morgan has disappeared. No one knows how or where, but every one has a settled conviction. It is a stormy time on the sea of politics. Many a ship goes down. Men ride into position and office on the high tide of anti-masonry. Columns are given to the subject, and we, by accident, find the item telling how a woman was tried in Baltimore that year for witchcraft, and discharged for want of evidence. * * * We close the Old Files reluctantly. The glimpse of a call for an Anti-Slavery meeting December i, 1828, makes us linger a moment longer. It is signed by Frederic Whit- tlesey, M. Chapin, E. Pomeroy, and E. F. Smith, and is addressed to those opposed to slavery, particularly in the District of Columbia. Here is a glimpse of the costume of the young men of that period, and we smile, pathetic as were the circum- stances that brought these two young men into the full light of the Monday morning's paper. They had gone out Sun- day morning, ostensibly to go to church. They had not re- turned. It was feared they had fallen from the old " north bridge" just above the Falls. One wore a green cloak, the other a cloak of red plaid. Suffice it to say they came home all right Tuesday morning. * * * Red Jacket is lecturing with an interpreter. * * * Mrs. Hemans is indisposed. * * * Such persons as want a Unitarian church in Rochester are requested to meet at the Clinton Hotel. The New Year's editorial for 1829 tells us that in the year 1828 the Mumford Block, on S. St. Paul Street, was built — also the Arcade, five churches, Ely's mill, and the Bull's Head Tavern, not to mention other large enterprises. " Thirteen flour mills are going, each run producing 6,000 bbls. a year. There has 222 KOC/IESTF.K: A STORY HISTORICAL. not been a single failure in Rochester for more than two years." And here we close the Old Files. To turn over another page would be to find fresh topics of historical interest, each demanding more space than I have been permitted to give any preceding one. ^u J-=»-S XVI. MOUNT HOPE. The changes the Uving have seen in their habitations since a row of shanties converted a Seneca trail nito a vil- lao-e street are fully equaled by what has taken place in the burial places of our dead since that first white man s grave was dug near the river's edge, just below the high ^ Our earliest settlers, before a common graveyard had been selected, would lay their dead in the woods near their thresholds, where they could guard them — /^-:-;:;^^- The increase of the settlement naturally led to the selec- tion of a common burying-ground. Schuyler Moses tells how one of the first burial grounds on the east side was located, -that on our present East Avenue, nearly opposite Gibbs Street. One of the men engaged in drawing away the stone thrown out of John- son's race-way, and dumping it over the east bank in o the river, in the neighborhood of our present South Water Street went over with his wagon and team, and was m- stanti; killed. " Like him," says Mr. Moses, " we were all strangers away from home. Before sundown we had made his coffin and a bier of poles, and falling into line we bore the body out to Enos Stone's woods, all on foot and in our working clothes of course." This graveyard was never 224 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. deeded to the village by Enos Stone. About 1820, Chester Bixby set apart two acres of his farm on the State Road, now Monroe Avenue, for a village burial ground. The deed was not executed until 1827, and recited a considera- tion of $100. The first lease found for a lot therein bears date 1 8th December, 1820, and is for a term of five hun- dred years. It is signed by Elisha Johnson, President of the Board of Trustees, and R. Beach, Clerk. The Rev. Comfort Williams was buried in this burying-ground. That on Enos Stone's land was given up soon after the dedica- tion of the new ground, and the dead there buried were taken up and placed in a common pit in the new grave- yard. In 1872, when the Monroe Street cemetery was ap- propriated for public school No. 15, the contents of the old pit were removed to Mount Hope, where it is to be hoped they may rest in peace. Mrs. William I. Hanford's remi- niscence of the old Monroe Street burying-ground is as fol- lows, and she has lived in its near neighborhood from the making of the first grave on Cobb's Hill to the present day. " When they first began burying there, wolves howled in the woods to the southward, and w'ild foxes were plenty. The hill had not been cut through. That w^as done in 1835. Funerals did not cost much then. A neighbor would dig the grave, and possibly preach the sermon. Daddy Haskins dug many of the graves. Pine or cherry coffins were good enough for anybody, and many a time I have seen a purse made up by the new grave to pay the doctor's bill and other expenses. During the cholera times of 1832 we could hear them working in that old burying-ground at all times of night, and the graves were not very deep, as you can believe." It was always a well behaved graveyard. Never a ghost prowled among its headstones, nor was a hanged man ever buried therein. It had a grave or two divided in the middle, telling the story of suicide, but in time it became a general playground for children, particularly in kite-flying time. Its complete removal, with that of several other old burying-grounds, makes even the permanency of Mount MOUNT HOPE. 2^5 Hope to be questioned. Railroad monopoly fifty years "om now, or some monopoly that will have supplanted rad- oads new statutes, new codes, and new bursal customs may lone before .984 have made our perpetual leases m Znt fiope null and void. Names that to-day have a po- L influence even on a gravestone may then be as mean Ingless as those on the old marbles we transferred to the "ttf: S "rtutom tells a story of the Uttle burying-grom^d opposite Mount Hope south of t,,e r . ence of;^^ a G. Warner. He says tt --■V^^J'^^^rlrst^couclude villao-e was hopelessly ill witti lever. \ ^ ^^n^ Ihatl^er burial at public expense was anticipated so a com- mittee was appointed to select a burying-ground at once. Tohn Russell Ely Miller, and Chauncey Crittenden were h's committ e, and in their lack of time, for the poor girl dild, they selected the site far to the southward, and where the three commissioners were in time buried. The first graveyard on the west side was on our present Plymouth Avenue, a little south of Spring Street, one half acre, lots 103, 104, the gift of Rochester, Carroll anc Htz- hugi, for burial purposes, with right to sell and devo e pro- ceeds to the purchase of other grounds, or to exchange. The city kept this ground but a short time. In 1 821 it was exchanged for three and a half acres belonging to Roswel Hart on Buffalo Street. The tenants of the Sophia Street ground were transferred to the new site, and when, in 1851, the city appropriated that for its hospital, they were agam disinterred and borne to Mount Hope. The first burial m the Sophia Street ground was the young and beautiful wife of Dr. Gibbs, whose lonely grave was guarded for weeks against the wolves. against the woives. , The old Frankford burying-ground on the corner of Frank and Smith streets gave up its dead long ago to give place to one of Aristarchus Champion's mission churches. 1 he pinnacle graveyard of the Roman Catholics has been nearly deserted for their beautiful cemetery on the boulevard. 226 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. What prayer more seemingly fruitless than that the dust of the departed may rest in peace ? A superfluity of burying-grounds, and those in thickly settled localities, was wisely considered an e\dl by our fore- fathers, who, in selecting the new cemetery, used care- ful thought for the future. The new grounds must be permanent and available, yet not too near the city, and with possibilities of superior imi)rovement. It was no easy matter to select a site that would not be considered objec- tionable by many. Meetings were held, and the expression of citizens generally called out. A committee was ap- pointed to choose a location for the approval of the Com- mon Council. Some of our leading citizens advocated buy- ing the grounds north of the city on the river bank, some presenting the claim of the west side, others the east. Timid folk objected to both ; there was danger of the banks falling in, etc. Wm. A. Reynolds was an enthusi- astic supporter of the proposed purchase of the land lying between the Float Bridge and the lake, with the bay for an eastern boundary. The defeat of his wishes was his sore disappointment, in which he was not alone. August 24, 1836, David Scoville, Alderman, offered a resolution in the Common Council that a committee be ap- pointed to inquire into the expediency of purchasing Silas Andrews' lot on the east side of the river (a part of the present Mount Hope), or some other lot for a burial ground. David Scoville, Manly G. Woodbury, and Wareham Whit- ney were appointed as said committee, and December 27, 1836, the city of Rochester paid five thousand three hundred and eighty-six dollars for about fifty-four acres of land, the nucleus of our present cemetery, and loud was the outcry against municipal extravagance and folly from many now sleeping where they declared the dead could never have decent burial. Our late venerated citizen, Jacob Gould, was very tard\' in giving his approval of the measure, and out- spoken in his condemnation of paying one hundred dollars an acre for such acres as those, "all up hill and down dale," and a gully at their entrance at that. "That committee MOUNT HOPE. 227 deserve execration," broke out the good General to his friend Henry O'Reilly. " Why that ground is n't fit for pasturing rabbits ? " " But we are not going to pasture rab- bits," was the cheery response from one enthusiastic over the selection, because of its natural beauty, and who gladly spent time and money in making the cemetery what it is to-day, and in defending the old trees and natural slopes. The General's family vault, one of the most conspicuous features of the entrance, was selected even when he was unreconciled to the purchase. The story is told of Mrs. Joseph Strong, who, when she drove out to the woods where the new cemetery was to be, was ready to shed tears of dis- appointment. She had hoped it would be a place she could visit occasionally. No ! she was decidedly opposed to the choice of the committee. The deep, almost unbroken woods, and what seemed inaccessible hill-tops and gullies, might do for a picnic, but never for a graveyard. The beauty of the wild-flowers, particularly the honeysuckles, still to be found in hidden nooks, the squirrels, the pigeons, and other game were, some declared, the attractions that would make the place the resort of pleasure-seekers and hunters. Confident of the wisdom of their choice, the committee having the im- provements in hand worked zealously in making roads and grading, and soon all Rochester was eloquent with praises of beautiful Mount Hope. In 1838, in accordance with the plans of John McConnell, approved by a committee composed of Elias Pond, Joseph Strong, Isaac F. Mack, the Mayor, Elisha Johnson, and the City Surveyor, Silas Cornell, the grounds were laid out and dedicated with appropriate services, October, 1838: Dr. Whitehouse, of St. Luke's, reading a consecration service; the choir of his church, Henry E. Rochester, leader, and Miss Jane Childs (Mrs. D. M. Dewey), soprano, singing the " Gloria in Excelsis " and appropriate anthems. The Rev. Pharcellus Church, of the First Baptist Church, made an address. The first burial was that of William Carter, Au- gust 18, 1838, aged 65 years, upon whose headstone it is recorded : " He was for more than 32 years an esteemed 228 ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL. member of the l^aptist Church, and with great consistency of deportment fulfilled the duties of this relation. He died in hopes of a glorious immortality." The first city sexton was John Thompson. That was the day of the common hearse, without plumes for the rich and seedy hangings for the poor. The church sextons after- wards became independent assistants, digging the graves even of the members of the congregations to which they were attached. This of course brought in confusion, and the appropriation of lots without payment. The undertak- ers, or, to use our new term, the Funeral Directors, came in time, and order was evolved. David W. Allen was the first regular undertaker and dealer in ready-made coffins. When he started his "Coffin Factory" in the dilapidated two- story wooden building upon the ledge of rocks that used to be where our High School building now is, there were good people who thought he was making them too familiar with coffins, and that passing the sign of his wares after night- fall was undesirable. I wish we might know who gave our cemetery its appro- priate name. The old Common Coimcil records convey the impression that one William Wilson, who persisted in send- ing in his bills "for labor at Mount Hope," and that when a blank filled the place of a name on the official records, de- serves the honor. December 12, 1837, ^ resolution to call the new cemetery was laid on the table. March 27, 1838, the City Treasurer was directed to give city notes as follows : " William Wilson for labor at Mount Hope Ceme- tery in full to 26 March, 1838, $29.63. To be charged to the Burial Fund. May 22, 1838: By Alderman Warner, Resolved, that the Committee on City Property be requested to report such ordinances as may be necessary to prohibit shooting game, and to prevent persons from committing trespass in Mount Hope Cemetery." The matter seems settled by that entry, and these un- satisfactory records are the only history I have been able to find explaining the adoption of the name. The sale of the lots soon reimbursed the city for the MOUNT HOPE. 229 original purchase, and from that day to this, Mount Hope has not cost the city a dollar. From fifty acres in 1838, it has grown to about one hundred and eighty-seven in 1884. It is a city of some thirty-six thousand inhabitants, and in- creases at the rate of from twenty to twenty-five per week. Over three thousand have been buried in its public grounds, which include some of the most valuable sections. Since 1865 a register of all interments has been carefully kept. The era of improvement came in with the late George D. StilJson, who from December, 1865, to the time of his death in 1 88 1, performed the many and difficult duties of the office of Superintendent with rare success. He gave to Mount Hope the benefit of his eminent skill as a civil engi- neer and his experience in landscape gardening. Mr. Still- son was the engineer of the famous Portage Bridge. He declined a far more lucrative situation than that of Super- intendent of Mount Hope, from love of the work he was so fitted to do. His memory will be associated with the grounds forever, not only in what he accomplished for the public at large, but in the kindly acts he was never slow to render for the lowliest mourner. The demands upon the genuine heroism of the keeper of Mount Hope are not in- frequent, and there are few places where nerve, decision, and a clear eye are more indispensable, whether in hunting down the alleged ghost that occasionally terrifies the work- men, ejecting a troublesome trespasser, anticipating grave robbers, or in doing what Mr. Stillson is known to have done for those fearing their dead might be buried alive, visiting the coffin during the night in the warm chapel where it was permitted to remain. He was equal to any and every emer- gency, even that of the unexpected arrival at the gate of a picnic, some two hundred strong, from one of the neighbor- ing townships not many years ago, headed by the good par- son, and flanked by generous hampers. They had come, to be sure, to spend the day among our graves in prayer and praise, and the attractions of the lake and bay were as noth- ing in comparison. Mr. Stillson did not say them nay, as we might have justified his doing, but conducted them to an 230 ROCHESTER: A STORY IHSTORICAL. unoccupied and unfrequented part of the grounds, reminding them of the regulations of the place, where they realized all the enjoyment they had anticipated, and much profit, it is to be hoped, from their reverential reading of gravestones. Mount Hope has been fortunate of late years in its manage- ment. Its Commissioners, as a rule, have been trusty men, with wide knowledge of public affairs, seeking, even with self - sacrifice, the permanent improvement of their trust. The available unoccupied grounds at present amount to about thirty-five acres, but it is a city whose increase of population keeps pace with that of the babel to the north- ward. It is believed that no more ground will be needed for some twenty years. Hemlock Water has been introduced, a long needed convenience for lot owners seeking to beau- tify their grounds by cultivating flowers. Few if any cem- eteries in the country can compare with ours in natural beauty, picturesqueness, and correct taste in improvements. Its defect, if defect can be admitted, is the outcome of let- ting each lot owner carry out individual views of landscape gardening. That gives us the ugly fences and high hedges, trees planted in defiance of good taste, the narrow grav- elly walks between the lots, the crowding together of what look like paddocks for the imprisonment of the graves, the fast-locked gates strengthening the impression. The over- grown old evergreens are slowly disappearing, and there is a marked tendency in lot owners to favor sunshine, and raise grass and flowers, rather than hide their dead in dense thickets of shade. If our marbles may not, on the whole, compare with the more ostentatious and costly display of other cities, they are as a rule characterized by solidity, cor- rect taste, and pure ideal. Among the choicest specimens of true art may be mentioned the monuments of Aaron Erickson, Isaac Butts, John Allen, George Ellwanger, George H. Mumford, Freeman Clark, Dr. Carver, Freder- ick Goodrich, Wm. A. Reynolds, and that upon the Fire- men's ground. There are many more as beautiful and costly as those here named. Some exquisite memorials are among the slabs and tablets. The headstone of Mrs. ^^J^ ^2y^^ ^c/' 'L^