THE
GRANDEST PLAYGROUND
IN THE WORLD

DELIVERED BEFORE THE ROCHESTER HISTORICAL
SOCIETY, APRIL 15, 1918

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL. D.

4^4^^

THE
GRANDEST PLAYGROUND
IN THE WORLD

DELIVERED BEFORE THE ROCHESTER HISTORICAL
SOCIETY, APRIL 15, 1918

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL. D.
1 • »

eso*

ROCHESTER, N. Y.
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
1918

THE TIMES PRESSES
Canandaigua, N. y.

FOREWORD.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven!
Few persons know how to be old. In a letter to Julia Ward
Howe on her seventieth birthday, May 27, 1889, Oliver Wendell
Holmes wrote : "To be seventy years young is sometimes far more
cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old." Another has
said : " To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom,
and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. ' '
Eossiter Johnson comes to us as the apostle of youth, tower
ing in the confidence of boyhood. The creator of Phaeton Rogers
can never grow old, no matter what the calendar says. With
Monkey Roe he still ties kites to the Baptist church steeple, clings
to the rope of Red Rover Three with Phaeton, and cheers with
delight when Cataract Eight is washed. Here he is, in "The
Grandest Playground in the World," filled with joys and bouy-
ancy. Here, with genuine heart interest, a genial, lovable person
ality reveals itself.
By his gentle enchantment this dreamer of dreams opens
magic casements, as did the wizard to the northern king, and
through the window we behold life at the Spring and forget the
drear December of our days.
Rossiter Johnson has done our entire city a service because
he has brushed aside the smoke and dust and given us a glimpse
of a very dear Rochester. Under his poetic touch the old town
becomes idealized, the city of heart's desire, guarded on every
hand, walled by the flowers.
When at last the war is over, when "the tumult and the
shouting dies, ' ' when our hearts come back with our boys, then we
shall have time to live again and learn to love our city all the

more. And in that happy day the soul of Rochester must be
sweetened by such rare spirits as Dr. Johnson, who can read
love into our very bricks and stones.
June comes with him, and again
Sweetly the breezes stir
Koses of Rochester,
Crooning a song for her,
Where river foams;
Throned o'er a region wide,
Regal in power and pride,
Never shall ill betide
City of homes!
Edward R. Foreman.

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND
IN THE WORLD
Our most eminent man of letters, now dean of the guild, in
his first published novel designated Rochester as "the Enchanted
City." Perhaps the enchantment was partly due, for him, to the
fact that on his wedding journey he stood with his bride in a
diminutive pagoda at Falls Field and by moonlight saw the his
toric Upper Falls of the Genesee.
But no Rochester boy of my day, who has spent much of his
life elsewhere, and has a good memory, needs to open that book
to be reminded of Rochester's peculiar charm. The city is rich
and prosperous now — may she ever continue so! — then she was
comparatively poor; but some of us think the English poet who
so longed for, but seldom caught, "the light that never was, on
sea or land, ' ' might have seen it frequently when the shadows of
the summer clouds were passing over our city or resting in
dreamy stillness on the face of Ontario.
One day when I sat in Central Park, my business harness
thrown aside, I looked at a group of children in the playground,
and my mind wandered back to the scenes and companions of
my boyhood. Then it seemed to me that in all the wide world
no boys could have quite so grand a playground as ours. The
idea so strongly impressed me that when I returned to my desk I
wrote the argument and the description. Let me have the privi
lege of reading it to you.
I know that in Central Park the small boys have their merry-
go-rounds, and their older brothers have a beautiful ball-ground
and tennis-courts, surrounded by everything lovely that the land
scape artist can produce, while music from the band-stand floats
across the lawns and through the trees. I know that the boys of
Switzerland have the Alps, "the palaces of Nature," always im
pressive in sunlight or in shadow, always inviting to adventurous
climbing and cultivation of manly courage. I know that the
boys of Lapland hear "the sledges with the bells, silver bells,"
half the year, and enjoy such coasting as we never dream of. I
know that the boys of the South-Sea islands disport themselves
in the warm surf, and can stand on an old barrel stave and slide
down the slope of the decuman ; or chase a monkey up a tree and

6 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
throw stones at him till he answers with a bombardment of cocoa-
nuts. I know that many of the boys of England play on historic
ground, amid inspiring memorials of heroism and romance — roll
their hoops and their marbles in the streets of Stratford, follow-
my-leader through the shadows of Stonehenge, climb the peaks of
Derbyshire, fight mimic battles and offer princely prizes for a
hypothetical horse on Bosworth Field, or hide behind the monu
ment that marks the spot where Harold was slain.
None of these privileges were ours — no mountains, no rolling
surf, no municipal music, no historic associations, no landscape
gardening (thank fortune!) — and only a comparatively short
winter. But we had such a variety of delights as was not known
to any of those boys. The city was small at that time, and bore
marks of arrested growth. But it spanned a beautiful river, and
in its centre there was a high, perpendicular cataract, while a
mile and a half below were two other falls; after which the
stream pursued its way, unruffled, between high banks, until it
was lost in Lake Ontario. Nobody knows what length of time
was required for the river to cut its gorge through the solid sand
stone and limestone. Geologists say from seventy to a hundred
centuries. Until it arrived within a few feet of its present chan
nel, it moved in a series of sigmoid curves from the upper to the
lower falls. Then it resolved on straightening its course, and
cut a channel that is like a bow-string to those curves. This left
on each side two flats or intervales in the shape of a half moon,
and opposite each the bank was steep — almost perpendicular.
Across the first of these flats the tail-races of a dozen flour
ing mills went bubbling and foaming and gurgling to "join the
brimming river, " as if the bright water were glad to escape from
the dark flumes and the toiling wheels and dance in the sunlight
once more. When I was a very little fellow I went there alone
one day to do my first fishing. As I looked at those lively
streams it seemed to me that the fish there must be much cleaner
than those in the deeper and darker waters of the river. There
I cast my line, but I caught nothing, and lost all the tackle. The
moral of that is, it is not always fortunate for one's lines to be
cast in pleasant places.
The next flat was on the east side of the river, and we con
sidered that it belonged to the Dublin boys— so did they, very

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD

emphatically. We did not care much about it, except that, as
young archaeologists, we wished we knew what prehistoric race
of Rochesterians constructed those quadrilateral excavations,
lined them with stone walls, and then did no more. Perhaps
they were frightened away by that man with a gun who, on the
spot where the Powers Building now stands, is shooting a bear in
O'Reilly's "Sketches of Rochester."
The third flat, the most beautiful of all, was ours, on the
west side. This bore several successive names, according to the
owner. Once Draper's; in our day, Lucas's. Down from some
undiscovered springs came a babbling brook, never dry, which
ran under State Street, turned the wheels of Cawthra's woolen
mill, and then in a pretty valley, parallel with the river, ran to the
flat, crossed it, and ended in the river. At the top of its eastern
bank was a sheer precipice of perhaps eighty feet — a wall of
limestone, which the river had shaved down as with a knife.
Here swallows were continually skimming past, and sometimes
a boy, not a member of the Audubon Society, stood perilously
near the edge and tried to strike them down with a switch or a
bush. Perhaps those boys were training unconsciously for fu
ture ball play ; but I never knew one that got on to the ' ' curves ' '
of those swallows.
Just south of this precipice the bank, though very steep,
could be scaled, and the boys liked to descend it, because there
was the best place for swimming. The clean rock bed of the river
there had a large rectangular hollow, as if meant for the bath
tub of the Cardiff giant, and across it the current ran with a
braided surface. Two paths led down to this, ever remembered
by all the boys, and described in rhyme by one of them. With
your permission, I will read those rhymes :

The Indian Trail
In days agone, where rocky cliffs
Rise far above the river's vale,
There was a path of doubts and ifs—
We called it then the Indian Trail.

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
In ragged line, from top to base,
O'er shelving crag and slippery shale,
By brush and brier and jumping-place,
Wound up and down the Indian Trail.
No girl, though nimble as a fawn,
No small-boy cautious as a snail,
No dog, no mule, no man of brawn,
Could safely tread that Indian Trail.
Beyond the age of childish toy,
Before the age of gun and sail,
The fearless and elastic boy
Alone could use the Indian Trail.
'Twas like a great commencement day,
Like change from little fish to whale,
From tearful March to smiling May,
When first you climbed the Indian Trail.
I've threaded many a devious maze,
And Alpine path without a rail,
Yet never felt such tipsy craze
As touched me on the Indian Trail.
'Twas easy by the White Man's Path
For all the lofty cliff to scale ;
But boys returned from river bath
Preferred to take the Indian Trail.
Our younger brothers, who'd insist
Upon their rights of taggle-tail,
Were shaken off and never missed
When once we reached the Indian Trail.
And those who plundered orchard crop
Regarded not the owner's hail,
But left him puzzled at the top,
While they went down the Indian Trail.

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 9
All this was years and years ago —
To count them now would not avail —
And every noble tree is low
That shadowed then the Indian Trail.
The beetling cliff — ah, what a sin! —
Is full of vaults for beer and ale ;
The rocks are stained like toper's chin,
Where flourished once our Indian Trail.
They've stripped off every bush and flower.
From Vincent to Deep Hollow dale;
The charm is sunk, the memory sour —
There is no more an Indian Trail.
Far driven from our hunting-ground
On breezy hill and billowy swale,
Some wander still, but some have found
The skyward end of Indian Trail.
Dear boys ! it takes away my breath,
To think how youth and genius fail.
Those grim pursuers, Time and Death,
Are baffled by no Indian Trail.
Life lends such comfort as it hath,
But labor wears and custom stales ;
I plod all day the White Man's Path,
And dream at night of Indian Trails.
The owner of the flat was inclined to be good-natured and
accommodating with the boys that played there; but he could
not have had unbounded confidence in us, for when he planted
an acre with choice peach trees he surrounded it with a high
fence of sharp-pointed pickets. It was amusing to see his great
watch-dog, whenever he spied us there, come tearing down from
the house, like a bull of Bashan, as if he would eat a few of us
and scatter the rest, and as soon as he arrived among the boys
fraternize with them, enjoying their company and their caresses.

10 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
The very high banks below the lower falls, where not of
precipitous rock, were covered with foliage. They were beau
tiful in their summer greenness, but to gaze down the long vista
when they had assumed the autumnal colors was like looking in
to an immense kaleidoscope. I have since shuddered as I looked
at some of the pathless points, in slight angles of the rocky walls
where a little comrade and I clambered up and down — just to
see whether we could.
There was another stream, larger than the brook I have
mentioned, which came from springs in a distant meadow, flowed
through a picturesque winding valley, and joined the river just
above the Lower Falls. This was the Deep Hollow, and it alone
would 'have furnished a most acceptable play-ground if we had
had no other. Sassafras, slippery elm, butternuts, berries, whis
tle-wood, birch bark, sweet acorns, shinny sticks — we knew how
to get them all from the fertile banks of the Deep Hollow. Small
boys could take small fish from its waters, and they knew where
to find safe swimming-pools that were shaded by overhanging
trees. A few yards beyond the Deep Hollow stood a small piece of
the original forest that once covered this region. The great trees
were very tall, and their first branches were far from the ground.
Up and down and around their trunks ran the nimble squirrels,
while many birds sang in the tops, and here and there an indus
trious woodpecker tapped the bark. When we lay on the leaf-
covered ground and gazed at the fleecy clouds that floated past
the openings, we could easily imagine ourselves in Fairyland.
To reach the Deep Hollow we crossed a great common. On
two of its edges were a few houses, and all the central part was
unoccupied. There we had free range. We could play ball, make
bonfires, pitch tents, fire cannon, and indulge in various games.
At one point there was a small stream, and on its banks were
some hawthorn bushes that had grown to the dignity of trees
and bore fruit almost as large as cherries and quite as palatable
to the ordinary boy out of doors. At another point a gentle
knoll was occupied by a grove of great chestnut trees. These
were free to everybody, and the boys met with occasional adven
tures among them. On one occasion two boys had climbed one
of the trees, when one of them, looking down, saw that a wan-

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 11
dering calf was chewing at his new jacket, which he had left on
the ground with nuts in the pocket. They hurried down and
chased the calf over half of the common before they recovered
the jacket. Then the owner was afraid to go home with the dam
aged garment, but the other, a valorous comrade, volunteered to
go with him and by his presence mitigate the anticipated reproof.
He gave such an amusing narrative of the adventure with the calf
that reproof was out of the question, and the mother of the un
fortunate boy said: "Never mind, Henry, I can cut off the other
corner to match, and make it look all right."
On another occasion a nutting-party was broken up by a
singular occurrence. It was Saturday afternoon when a water
spout came in from the lake and ran up the river till it broke
against the falls. It was a most ominous appearing affair, like
the wraith of a desolating storm. The boys in the trees, happy
with their harvest, saw it with amazement. They quickly came
down from the trees, abandoned everything, and ran for home.
One of them said it was "like a great sword coming down from
heaven." "Yes," exclaimed another, "and it means no good to
this city." We were wonderfully endowed with the fruits of the air.
Besides the chestnuts, there were hickory nuts, butternuts, hazel
nuts, raspberries, blackberries, and wild grapes in their season —
all within our reach in the limits of that noble playground. And
then the orchards — oh! the orchards of that fruitful region.
What are milk and honey in comparison with apples, pears,
peaches, plums, apricots and cherries?
Our playground had still another notable feature. This was
the Erie Canal, which bounded the common on the west. Our
school geography told us it was the longest canal in the world.
It was very pretty to see the packet, "Red Bird," with its gleam
ing white sides and its crimson window-blinds, go by every after
noon taking home to Brockport and other villages passengers
who had been visiting or transacting business in Rochester. It
was drawn by three horses tandem, always going at a round trot.
Boats that it met or overtook must drop their towlines to let it
pass over; and the ladies and gentlemen who sat on the deck,
reading, musing, gossiping, or dozing, were sometimes startled by
the cry "Low bridge!" — but never by "High towline!" — for at

12 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
her prow the packet carried a sharp iron, curved like a sickle,
and if any careless driver had not stopped his horses and dropped
his towline, it would have been cut in two. We boys always
hoped to witness that feat, looking upon the packet as the mod
ern representative of those scythe-armed chariots which we had
read about in Bloss's "Ancient History." But somehow no tow-
line ever was cut, and no dignified old gentlemen with their gold-
headed canes ever were swept from the deck. Youth has its dis
appointments, as well as its triumphs.
I think many of the boatmen had not forgotten that they
were once boys, for they were good-natured and sympathetic.
They did not care if we dropped from a bridge and lighted on the
deck, and rode a mile or two, talking to the helmsman and en
joying the scenery. Then we could drop from another bridge,
upon a boat going in the opposite direction, and so be taken home.
There was no Rialto spanning our canal, and no historic palaces
lined its banks; but there were pleasant corn-fields and grassy
meadows, orchards, farmsteads, shady groves and grazing cattle.
For architecture, we had to be content with Jones's boat-yard
(where once an iron boat was built, before the days of the "Mer-
rimac" and "Monitor"), Milliner's boat-yard and great stone
saw mill, the stave machine, Lindley Murray Moore's big cooper-
shop, Bauer's brewery, and the Four-Mile Grocery.
In winter, when the season of navigation was over, there was
always a breadth of ice-carpeting in the bottom of the canal ; and
as the banks shielded us from the wind, this made a delightful
road for a long excursion on skates.
In the summer twilight we frequently heard the strains that
some amateur violinist on a freight-boat sent across the land
scape; and to us this was quite as romantic as any that might
have come from a black-draped gondola.
Our noble playground, which I have tried to describe, in
cluded an area of about one square mile, and we improved our
opportunities to the utmost. It never occurred to us to reflect
that there were millions of boys who had not one-tenth of our
facilities for enjoyment ; but as I think of it now I believe there
is not another square mile on this earth that contains such a va
riety of things that contribute to a boy's happiness. Ours fur-

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 13
nished innocent revelry for youth and golden remembrance for
approaching age.
Rochester has recently extended a long arm and taken in the
village of Charlotte, with its harbor, its lighthouse, and its beach
and lake view ; and I hope it has not lost that quiet look of ele
gant contentment which rested upon it in the days of which I
have been speaking. This reminds me that we boys occasionally
went on skates in winter, or by rowboat in summer, fishing along
the way, reasonably happy whether the fish seconded our motion
or not, as we drifted down the enchanted river.
Shenstone, the English poet, nearly two centuries ago,
scratched these famous lines on the window of an inn :
"Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."
And Dr. Sam Johnson borrowed the idea and translated it
into his peculiar stately prose — thus: "There is nothing which
has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is
produced as by a good tavern or inn." In our day there was
something on the strand at Charlotte — the only structure on
those yellow sands — which was not exactly an inn, but had the
principal charms of one. It has been described very literally
and completely in certain verses, which, with your permission, I
will read to you. Mart M'Intyre's Kiosk
The Strand, Charlotte. Nineteenth Century.
Friends of my youth, roll back with me the burden of our years,
And far into the olden time our boyish steps shall fare.
Down by the margin of the lake a sandy beach appears—
Mart Mclntyre's kiosk we see, and Mart himself is there.
As Venus rose from out the foam, so did that temple rise
From out Ontario's rolling surf, one fragment at a time,
While Mart took in the driftwood and hailed each plank a prize —
The contributions of the wrecks from many a land and clime.

14 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
With his own hands he builded up a structure most unique,
The inspiration of the hour his only plan in mind.
Its style was neither Gothic nor Byzantine nor Greek —
To rank him first of Cubists I've lately been inclined.
With one plank nailed on upright, the next he spiked across ;
The third one slanted this way, the fourth one slanted that ;
And some were gaily painted, some were draped with fern and
moss;
The roof was partly very steep and partly very flat.
Four windows let the sunshine in, but kept out cold and rain ;
And one was round, of colored glass, and one of diamond shape ;
While two were square, but different in size of sash and pane ;
And over all a rusty pipe to let the smoke escape.
The door upon two hinges turned, one leather and one brass,
Amusingly mismated like the rest of that strange pile ;
But what cared we who thereby to the inner shrine did pass? —
Not Milton's golden-hinged doors our steps could more beguile.
For there were cakes, with harmless ale in heavy bottles held —
To cut the string and hear it pop was not the least of joys —
And eggs and pies and gingerbread the dainty menu swelled;
And there serene sat Mclntyre, our Mart, the friend of boys.
The counter was a cabin door ; the table was a hatch,
Whereon some idle sailor-boy had drawn a checker-board;
And there in dark and rainy days we played a friendly match
Beneath a wooden chandelier, and little triumphs scored.
When fish were scarce, or would not bite, or sun too hot would
shine,
Or sudden lightning, wind and rain would drive us to the shore,
All willingly we moored our barque, wound up the useless line,
Found welcome in the rough kiosk, and had content galore.

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 15

Nor mere material joys alone in that retreat we found;
For Mart was wise in many ways and could a tale unfold
Of sailors slain on bloody decks or swept away and drowned,
Of mermaids round the coral isles, of pirate's buried gold.
The stream still flows, the surf still beats along the sounding
shore ;
But that kiosk no longer stands upon the sandy plain,
While Mart, the host and architect, can welcome us no more,
And of those happy youngsters you and I alone remain.
Mart Mclntyre, Mart Mclntyre, how often in my dreams
I find again your old kiosk, just as it used to be ;
And through a rift in yonder cloud you sit in state, meseems,
Presiding o'er a new kiosk beside the Jasper Sea.
There were other playgrounds in Rochester, one of which, very
small in comparison with that which I have described, but large
enough for its purpose, interested me then because of its peculiar
ity, and has interested me in later years because I now know it
was used by a literary genius.
In those days the paper-mill at the Lower Falls was owned
by the firm of Stoddard & Freeman. Mr. Stoddard lived in Frank
Street, two blocks from my home in the same street. His was a
broad-fronted, white house, Number 26, and he had a large side-
yard. In this yard his son, Charles Warren Stoddard (about my
age), and his choicest young friends found their highest enjoy
ment. They had a tent and flags, with a drum and fife and a can
non, and in the shady corner a bucket of lemonade. They also
had what we called euphemistically, flying horses. You would
not have suspected them of being horses, but that was their
name — as the boarding-house keeper said of the apple pie.
Imagine two long planks, crossed at right angles and fastened
together, and at the center of the crossing a hole as large as your
thumb. Plant a strong post, about three feet out of the ground,
with an iron bolt projecting from its top. Balance your planks
on this, and your horses are ready for the riders. Four riders
sit astride the ends of horses — I mean the planks — facing the
center. One or two other boys enter the angles near the post,

16 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
and revolve the team — slowly at first, then with an accelerating
motion, while the riders cling more and more tenaciously to the
plank where they grasp its edges. If they are good riders they
smile at the vain expenditure of centrifugal force; if not, they
may be unhorsed.
With all this paraphernalia those happy boys disported them
selves every pleasant afternoon ; so that — as Magsman would ex
press it — a juvenile circus performed there unceasing.
The paper-mill firm became bankrupt, and Mr. Stoddard took
his family to California. Charles Warren Stoddard became a
reporter and writer for a San Francisco paper and was familiar
with that group of literary men of whom Bret Harte is the best
known. But the wanderlust was in his blood, and there before
him was the wide Pacific where to choose. He went in sailing
vessels to Hawaii, to Tahiti, to Samoa — loafing, dreaming, writ
ing, and making an acquaintance with that romantic world that
surpassed any knowledge of it that came to Herman Melville or
Robert Louis Stevenson. Some years later, as correspondent of
a San Francisco paper, he visited Egypt and the Levant. He
died in California in 1909.
Stoddard's finest work is a volume of prose essays entitled
"South-Sea Idyls." For the new edition — published by Scribner
— Mr. Howells wrote an introduction, in which he said: "One
does these things but once, if one ever does them, but you have
done them once for all ; no one need ever write of the South Seas
again.* * * Now I hope the whole English-reading world will
recognize in your work the classic it should have known before."
There is not time to read one of those delicious essays here ;
but the very titles almost take us to that far-off island world.
"Chumming with a Savage," "A Fete-day in Tahiti," "The
Night-Dancers of Waipio," "A Canoe-cruise in the Coral Sea,"
"The Chapel of the Palms," "Pearl-hunting in the Pomotous,"
"A Prodigal in Tahiti."
He wrote also a few poems, a collection of them was published
in New York last year. Let me read two short ones. The first
is entitled "The Cocoa Tree."

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 17
Cast on the water by a careless hand,
Day after day the winds persuaded me ;
Onward I drifted till a coral tree
Stayed me among its branches, where the sand
Gathered about me, and I slowly grew,
Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.
•
The sea-birds build their nests against my root,
And eye my slender body's horny case ;
Widowed within this solitary place,
Into the thankless sea I cast my fruit ;
Joyless I thrive, for no man may partake
Of all the store I bear and harvest for his sake.
No more I heed the kisses of the morn;
The harsh winds rob me of the life they gave;
I watch my tattered shadow in the wave,
And hourly droop and nod my crest forlorn,
While all my fibres stiffen and grow numb
Beck'ning the tardy ships, the ships that never come.
The other is entitled "A Rhyme of Life."
If life be as a flame that death doth kill,
Burn, little candle, lit for me,
With a pure flame, that I may rightly see
To word my song, and utterly
God's plan fulfill.
If life be as a flower that blooms and dies,
Forbid the cunning frost that slays
With Judas kiss and trusting love betrays;
Forever may my song of praise
Untainted rise.
If life be as a voyage, foul or fair,
Oh, bid me not my banners furl
For adverse gale or wave in angry whirl,
Till I have found the gates of pearl
And anchored there.

18 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
When you are making a list of your Rochester authors — as
some day you will — do not forget to add the name of Charles
Warren Stoddard. And if you arrive at the fashion — already
rife elsewhere — of putting up historic tablets, you may place one
for him on the building No. 96 State Street ; for he told me he
was born there. His father's firm had its office and storehouse
there, and the Stoddard family temporarily occupied an upper
floor, before they took the house in Frank Street. His name may
be worthily listed with those of Henry O'Reilly, Robert A. Wil
son and Breck Perkins, your historians; Lewis H. Morgan and
Karl Gilbert, your scientists; Jenny Marsh Parker and Harry
Keenan, your novelists; Lucy Ellen Guernsey, your writer for
the young; George H, Ellwanger and Charles Mulford Robinson,
your essayists; Joseph O'Connor, your poet; Aisahel C. Kendrick
and Augustus H. Strong, your religious authors — and others
whose names will readily occur to you.
That same Frank Street was well endowed with a variety of
talent. Among its residents when I lived there as a boy were two
skilled typographers, master printers, Ezra R. Andrews and Wil
liam H. Beach; two eminent physicians, Drs. Gilkeson and Whit-
beck ; a Mayor and Congressman, John Williams ; an enthusiastic
entomologist, Robert Bunker; a practical botanist, Joseph B,
Fuller; and a faultless painter, whose masterpiece was a silken
banner, to be carried in a gala-day procession by Public School
No. 5. The teachers who designed it wished it to bear a picture
of the Earth rolling in clouds, and for a model they lent the ar
tist the school globe. He painted it to the very life, with wonder
ful exactness — not only the globe, but the mahogany frame with
its four legs and the brass circle, standing upright in the clouds.
The banner was borne in the procession and then hung as a tro
phy on the wall of the school-room. When I called the princi
pal's attention to the queerness of it, he gave it a critical look
and then said. "Ye-e-s, perhaps it would look a little more airy
if the frame had been omitted."
Lewis Swift, the astronomer, who made his own telescope
and discovered so many comets that he glutted the market with
them, liver around the corner, just out of Frank Street. I felt
some pride when he let me look through his telescope, but more
when he told me that my father was the best teacher he ever had

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 19
I learned a little something from each of these gifted gen
tlemen, and I now think of them collectively as the Frank Street
faculty. Closely allied with writers are inventors, who are authors
writing on wood and metal, with steam, light and electricity for
ink. You know all about Mr. George Eastman and his brood of
kodaks that have wandered over the whole habitable globe. Per
haps you don't know much about Merritt Gaily, a Rochester boy,
who was a remarkable inventor and took out more than four
hundred patents. He was my elassmate in college. When the
University desired to announce its patriotism by displaying the
United States flag, he said to the students, "You furnish the ma
terial, and I will make the flag." And he did make it, a large
and beautiful one, on his sewing machine. He had learned the
printer's trade, and then became an engraver, first making his
own tools, and thus earned the money to get an education. His
first invention, which was made in Rochester, was a printing-press
that in some respects was superior to all others ; and subsidiary to
this he invented a considerable number of tools and mechanical
appliances. He made important improvements in the construc
tion of self-playing musical instruments, especially by applying
pneumatic devices. Minor improvements in electric and tele
graphic instruments were followed by his most remarkable
achievement, multiplex telegraphy. At the end of a year of close
study and careful experiment, he was able to send two messages
on one wire at the same time. When this was published, through
his patent, Mr. Edison took it up and doubled it, so that four mes
sages could be sent at once. Almost any one could balance an
ostrich egg after Columbus had shown how to do it with a hen's
egg. Dr. Gaily — he had received the degree of Doctor of Science
from his alma mater — died in Brooklyn two years ago. He was
the son of a Presbyterian minister.
If any of you ever have attended a ball game, you must have
observed that the most important element in the play was the
variable curved line in which the ball "traveled after it left the
hand of the pitcher. This, you may be proud to know, was a Ro
chester invention. When base ball was standardized and became
rife, it was an amateur game. Professional playing came later.
In Rochester there were several clubs that played once a week

20 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD
on pleasant afternoons. The three principal ones were the Flour
City, the Live Oak, and the Lone Star. The Live Oak had de
feated every thing until it played a match with the Lone Star.
Then the Lone Star pitcher, Richard Bradfield Willis, to the as
tonishment and disgust of the Live Oaks and their admirers, de
livered the ball, not in straight lines, but in varying curves.
Loud were the protests and most vociferously repeated, till the
fifth inning was reached, when the game was stopped and a de
cision on the fairness of such pitching was demanded. The um
pire was John W. Stebbins, a well known and able lawyer. As
the players gathered around him, all talking at once, and around
them a ring of their partisans, and around them a rapidly thick
ening mass of curious spectators, the crowd became a mob, the
shouting and howling were deafening, the umpire was bewildered,
either not knowing how to decide, or not daring to decide at all.
He looked about for the weakest place in the ring, broke through
it, leaped the fence, and was taken into the carriage of a friend,
which immediately drove away.
This was only one more instance of a revolutionary inven
tion encountering fierce opposition when first exploited.
I think this was also the first time that a base-ball umpire
was mobbed. So, if you choose, you can boast of that also as a
Rochester invention.
The battle-ground was at Caledonia avenue and Troup Street.
At the time of my boyhood, the popular entertainments in
cluded panoramas and dioramas. The panorama was a ribbon
of canvas six or eight feet wide and very long, painted either
with separate pictures or one continuous picture. It was mounted
on upright rollers, and passed slowly by an opening in the cur
tain, showing a square at a time. The most successful was John
Banvard's panorama of the Mississippi River, which was three
miles long and represented the whole length of that stream.
Some of the boys caught the fever and painted and mounted small
panoramas, which they exhibited, at popular prices.
But our great delight was the diorama— which might be
described as a magnified puppet-show— and the chief of these was
the Diorama of the Burning of Moscow. This came annually to
Rochester for several years. My chum, Teddy, and I, having
seen it from our seats in Corinthian Hall, were curious to get in-

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 21
side of it and learn its construction and working. The perform
ance required the services of the proprietor and his wife and thir
teen boys. One day Teddy came running into our yard and called
out to me, "The Burning of Moscow has come to town, and I've
got places for you and me!" At the proper hour that evening,
we, with eleven others, presented ourselves at the stage door of
Corinthian Hall. The only ones that I knew or now remember
among the others were George Adams (always called Teddy Ad
ams), afterward an eminent ball-player, and Robert Vaughan,
who was learned in all the wisdom of Frankfort. The diorama
was a complicated machine ; but that artistic couple, after briefly
instructing the boys, made it move like clockwork. Teddy, my
Teddy, was intrusted with a large Chinese gong, which he struck
at solemn intervals. That was the tolling of the great bell in the
Kremlin. Vaughan ground a hand organ. That was the mag
nificent instrument in the Cathedral, performing its own requiem.
In the midst of the city there was a high bridge of nearly a dozen
arches, and I was placed on a low seat behind one of the abut
ments, slowly and steadily turning a crank to make an intermi
nable army of artillery, infantry and cavalry cross the bridge.
As the successive units reached the farther side, Teddy Adams
carried them around to Mrs. Diorama (or whatever her name
was), and she placed them again on the moving belt that was hid
den by the parapet. At intervals the proprietor stepped to an
ingenious machine of his own invention, gave the crank a few
quick turns, and platoon firing by infantry was very perfectly
imitated. All the domes and spires had hinges in their backs,
and as the illumination increased, one after another they were
made to topple over into the flames. At the close, the proprietor
slid into the city, on the pavement of the main street, a long, nar
row board. In this, at intervals, were hollows, and in each hol
low some chemical which would burn with a colored flame.
When he touched fire at one end the flames shot up with a weird
and ghastly glare, exhibiting all the colors of the rainbow, and
then the curtain came down. Perhaps Moscow will be burned
again — who knows ?
One of the best known of our lawyers, in the early days, pub
lished a book entitled "The Mysteries of Rochester." I believe
they were all fictitious. But the story of the murder at the Long

22 THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD

White Bridge— as the wooden bridge at Andrews Street was
called — affected my nerves somewhat when, a very small boy, I
had to cross that bridge to get brewer's yeast. I used to cultivate
heroism by telling my mother I would as lief go for yeast as not
— and saying not a word about that hypothetical murder.
But there really was an interesting mystery that came to Ro
chester at intervals, and I had a startling encounter with it. One
evening I was sent on an errand to the extreme eastern section
of the city. When I had made about half of the journey the sky
suddenly was darkened and a great thunder-storm came up. As
I saw no use in turning back, I kept on. I was in East Avenue,
near Meigs Street, when I heard the sound of a horn blown vio
lently, alternated with loud and fierce utterances. It was ap
proaching me rapidly in the darkness. When it was but a few
steps from me, a flash of lightning revealed a man of medium
size, with a handsome face and long hair curled in ringlets. He
wore a soft hat with a broad brim, an open collar, and a short
frock coat. His horn was slung from his shoulder with a tas-
seled cord, and he walked very rapidly. As he passed me he blew
a terrific blast close to my ear, and then as be receded he was
loudly denouncing our city with something that sounded like
the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. That was the Angel Gabriel.
He always said so himself. His travels took him far afield, and
he was killed by a mob in Venezuela.
Before steam fire engines were invented, the performances of
the hand-engines furnished much entertainment for the boys.
When a fire broke out, all the church bells in the city were rung
wildly, because each sexton was paid a dollar for ringing. Every
body was excited, and almost everybody ran to the fire. There
were seven companies in the city. Each company, with a long,
double drag-rope, drew its machine to the fire, always on a keen
run. When the supply of water was distant from the fire, a line
was formed, and one engine sent the water through its hose to the
next, which in turn forced its way along. They all had numbers
and names. Red Rover Three could "wash" any other engine,
that is, could pour the water into its box faster than it could pass
the stream along. But Zack Weaver, foreman of Torrent Two,
could lick any other foreman. This will enable you to under
stand the interest that the boys took in the Fire Department and

THE GRANDEST PLAYGROUND IN THE WORLD 23
its powers. Celebration of the Fourth of July always began
with a trial of the engines before the court house. They endeav
ored to throw their streams over the head of the Goddess of Jus
tice, and sometimes they succeeded.
The first time that Teddy and I put on our best toggery in
honor of the day and went down to witness the great hydraulic
feat, we found the plaza filled with spectators, the pavement wet,
and on it coils of distended hose winding about among the crowd,
while shouts were going up with the great streams, like incense to
the serene Goddess. We had found a good place from which
to see our favorite engine surpass the others, when a section of
hose directly under us burst. We went home at once, and did the
remainder of our celebrating in every-day dress.
Rochester, in times past, was a variegated publication center.
Besides its daily papers, it had two agricultural journals, one
horticultural, an anti-slavery paper, and the official organ of the
Adventists, commonly called Millerites.
When the Advent Harbinger was established, my Teddy and
I, who had frequented printing-offices and picked up bits of the
trade, were asked to fold the first issue. It was handsomely
printed on good, clear paper, and the edition was two thousand.
We folded it beautifully, I assure you — corner exactly on corner,
and all seams smoothed down nicely. When the job was finished,
the proprietor expressed his satisfaction with it, but said he could
not pay us till Saturday. That day Teddy went to the office, and
came back saying, ' ' I got the pay, but I had to take it all in pen
nies." Then he showed more than a double handful of the old-
fashioned copper cents.
That was our first experience in the noble art of journalism.
In later practice I learned that, by universal rule, the compensa
tion of the journalist may be measured by small coins.
As I arrive at the close of this discursive talk, I am reminded
of Sculptor Greenough's signature. When he had finished the
statue of Washington, instead of putting the usual Latin word
fecit (has done it) after his name, he modestly used the imper
fect tense of the verb, with the conative signification : Horatio
Greenough faciebat — Horatio Greenough tried to do it. I fear I
have only imperfectly succeeded in picturing boy life as I knew it
in this enchanted city. But I have tried to do it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY FROM THE AUTHORS CLUB MANUAL
Rossiter Johnson.
Author of— Phaeton Rogers: A Novel of Boy Life (1881) ; A His
tory of the French War Ending in the Conquest of Canada
(1882) ; A History of the War between the United States and
Great Britain in 1812-15 (1882) ; Idler and Poet, poems
(1883) ; A History of the War of Secession (1888: extended
and illustrated as Campfire and Battlefield, 1894) ; The End
of a Rainbow (1892) ; Turning-Points of the Civil War
(1894) ; Three Decades, poems (1895) ; The Blank-Cartridge
Ballot (1895) ; A Short History of the War between the
United States and Spain (1899) ; The Hero of Manila (1899) ;
The Evolution of Literature, introductory essay to Classic
Tales (1899) ; Sketch of William MeKinley, in Great Men and
Famous Women (1901) ; Morning Lights and Evening Shad
ows, poems (1902) ; Alphabet of Rhetoric (1903) ; Story of
the Constitution of the United States (1906) ; Historical Vol
ume in Foundation Library (1911) ; The Clash of Nations
(1914) ; Biography of Captain John Smith (1915) ; A Simple
Record of a Noble Life (1916) ; The Fight for the Republic
(1916) ; Biography of Helen Kendrick Johnson (1917).
Editor of— Little Classics (18 vols., 1874-80) ; Works of the Brit
ish Poets, with biographical sketches (3 vols., 1876) ; Famous
Single and Fugitive Poems (1877) ; Play-Day Poems (1878) ;
Fifty Perfect Poems, with Charles A. Dana (1882) ; The An
nual Cyclopaedia (1883-1902) ; The Literary Querist, in The
Book Buyer (1888-1905) ; Authorized History of the World's
Columbian Exposition (4 vols., 1897) ; The World's Great
Books (40 vols., 1898-1901) ; The Universal Cyclopaedia (12
vols., 1902-06) ; Cyclopaedia of Notable Americans (10 vols.,
1903-4) ; Great Events, by Famous Historians (20 vols., 1905) ;
The Literature of Italy, with Dora Knowlton Ranous (16
vols., 1906-07) ; Authors Digest : The World's Great Stories in
Brief, with Dora Knowlton Ranous (20 vols., 1908).
Associate Editor of — The American Cyclopaedia (1873-77) ;
The Standard Dictionary (1892-94).
Managing Editor — Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1886-88).
Co-editor of— Liber Scriptorum (1893); editor (1917).
Contributing Editor to — The American Leader (1912-13).

Z.1 89 23900 2006 £

-