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University Library 1993.ROCHESTER;
Its Founders and its Founding,
BY
HOWARD L. OSGOOD.
Read before the Rochester Historical Society, April 13th, 1894.
A distinction must be made between
the first settlers within the present lim-
its our city and those who actually es-
tablished it as a settlement. The first
white settler on the site of Rochester
was undoubtedly Ebenezer Allan, a man
whose repute appears to have been whol-
ly disrepute, and therefore is best when
unknown. Before 1812, a few settlers
lived near the Genesee Falls, but they
certainly made no effort to establish a
village, and had no influence upon the
events here chronicled.
The persons who first planned a vil-
lage here and induced settlers to immi-
grate to it,were Nathaniel Rochester, Wil-
liam Fitzhugh and Charles Carroll. The
story of the manner in which these men
became interested in the site of Roches-
ter has been told many times, but, until
now, was never, so far as the writer is
aware, compiled from contemporary
documents, independent of human mem-
ory.
The three gentlemen just mentioned
were men of high character, accustomed
to large business transactions.
Nathaniel Rochester was born in West-
moreland county, Virginia, on February
21, 1752. At the age of 16, his father hav-
ing died and his mother having re-
married, he was employed by a mer-
chant at Hillsborough, Orange county,
North Carolina, and from that time until
his death was constantly and actively en-
gaged in commercial affairs. During
the Revolutionary war he was a resident
of Hillsborough and was highly honored
by his fellow citizens. In 1775, being then
23 years of age, he was a member of the
committee of safety of Orange county, a
member of the first provincial convention
of North Carolina, a justice of the
peace, a major of militia (commissioned
September 9, 1775), and pay master of the
battalion of minute men in that district
(commissioned October 20,1775.) In April,
1776, he was made lieutenant colonel
of militia and in May of the same year
was elected a member of the convention
which formulated and adopted the con-
stitution of his state. In the same year
(May 11th,) he was appointed deputy
commissary general of military and
other stores in North Carolina for the use
of the Continental army with the rank and
pay of colonel. A severe illness then
compelled him to retire from further ser-
vice in the field. But he was not allowed
to cast off public duties, for he was elec-
ted member of assembly, clerk of the
court of Orange county and was
appointed	a	commissioner to	es-
tablish and superintend a manufactory
of arms at Hillsborough	for the
Continental army. In 1778 he became a
business partner of Colonel Thomas Hart,
whose daughter afterward married Henry
Clay. For the following five years he
was engaged in trade in Hillsborough
and in Philadelphia, and at the close of
the war he removed to Hagerstown,
Maryland, where Colonel Hart then re-
sided, and there established a consider-
able mercantile business and built and
operated manufactories of nails and of
rope, besides a flour mill. His partners
were, Colonel Hart in the rope and nail
business, and in the flour mill, Captain
Daniel Stull. His business operations were
extended even into Kentucky and West
Tennessee. In 1788 he married Sophia
Beatty of Hagerstown. In 1790 he was
elected a member of the Maryland legis-
lature. In the succeeding year he was
appointed postmaster at Hagerstown and
in 1797 became one of the three judges
of the Washington county court. He
held the postmastership until 1804, when
he resigned to accept his election as
sheriff of Washington county, and held
that office until 1807, when he became
the first president of the Hagerstown
bank, with all the affluence which came
from a salary of one thousand dollars a
year when applied to the support of a
large family. This position he retained
as long as he lived in Maryland. In 1808
he was appointed an elector of President
and Vice-President of the United States
from Maryland. Dansville, then in Steu-
ben, but now in Livingston, county, N.
Y., became his home in May, 1810. In
January, 1814, he sold his property at
Dansville, comprising a grist mill, a saw
mill, seven hundred acres of land, an
interest in a wool carding shop, and the
first paper mill in Western New York, for$24,000, and moved in April, 1815, to a
farm in East Bloomfield, Ontario county.
In 1816 he was again appointed a presi-
dential elector. In April, 1818, he came
to Rochester. In 1821 he succeeded in pro-
curing the erection of the county of
Monroe and was immediately appointed
county clerk. In 1822 he sat in the New
York legislature and two years later he
became the president of the Bank of
Rochester, the first bank in this city. He
died May 17, 1831, honored and lamented,
having lived a life of great service to his
fellow men.
Colonel William Fitzhugh was born in
Calvert county, Maryland, October 6,
1761. He was an officer in the Continental
army under General Nathaniel Green in
his southern campaigns; and, for a time,
he, and his brother Peregrine, were em-
ployed as aides on Washington’s personal
staff. He afterwards drew a pension for
his services. His father’s estate was on
the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, near
the mouth of the Patuxent river and
was much exposed to the incursions of
the enemy during the war. After the
war, Colonel Fitzhugh, having inherited
a considerable property, settled upon a
large estate near Hagerstown, Maryland,
and was elected to the legislature of
that state. He moved to the town of
Groveland, Livingston county, in May,
1816, the emigrant party consisting of
forty persons and Conestoga wagons
drawn by twenty-seven horses. He died
at his home, “Hampton,” on December
29, 1839. He was a hospitable, elegant,
courtly, dignified, Christian gentleman.
Charles Carroll was born upon his
father's estate at Carrollsburg, Maryland
(now the site of the national capital) on
November 7, 1767. He became a large
land holder and a man of extended activ-
ity in commercial matters. His home
was Bellevue, on Georgetown Heights,
Maryland. He was known as Charles
Carroll of Bellevue to distinguish him
from his cousin Charles, of Carrollton.
He came to the town of Groveland, Liv-
ingston county, in the spring of 1815, and
made a new home at Williamsburg. In
1818 he was appointed United States reg-
ister of deeds for the territory of Mis-
souri, with an office at Franklin, and re-
sided there for some years. The wanton
murder of his son at that place caused*
him to return with his family to Wil-
liamsburg*, where he lived for the re-
mainder of his life, and died October
28, 1823. He was distinguished in family,
honorable at all times, cultivated and a
host whose house was always open to his
friends. , The family home after his death
was at the “ Hermitage,” about three
miles south of Williamsburg.
Messrs. Carroll and Fitzhugh never
lived in Rochester,
In the year 1799, Charles Carroll, of
Bellevue, and his brother, Daniel Carroll,
of Duddington, made a trip of observa-
tion through the Genesee country, but
made no purchase of land. In this year
Colonel Peregrine Fitzhugh moved to
Geneva and a few years later made a
home at Sodus.
In the month of September,1800, Charles
Carroll, William Fitzhugh, and Nathaniel
Rochester came to Western New York,
leaving Hagerstown on horse back, fol-
lowed by a mounted negro servant lead-
ing a pack horse to carry their baggage.
They started for the purpose of finding a
suitable country in which to settle. Col-
onel Rochester had already invested in
lands in Tennessee and Kentucky and, in
the summer previous to the journey just
mentioned, he had been into Ohio looking
for a free country where his family could
be reared away from the influences of
slavery.
The three friends crossed the Mary-
land line into Pennsylvania, passed
through Shippensburg and Carlisle,thence
along the road on the west bank of the
Susquehanna to its juncture with Lycom-
ing creek, at Williamsport, and
there took the Charles William-
son road to the Genesee. They
climbedt he mountains to Blossburg (then
Bloss’s), then passed down the Tioga
river to Painted Post,then up the Conhoc-
ton, through Bath, crossed over to Judge
Hcrnell’s(now Hornellsville),th.en through
Dansville to Williamsburg. At Williams-
burg there was a small settlement, com-
posed of a tavern and a few houses, the
remnants of Charles Williamson’s pro-
jected great city. Of Williamsburg not a
trace now remains; even its ruins are no
more.
In passing through Dansville (named
after Captain Dan Faulkner), Colonel
Rochester was struck with the advan-
tages of the water power and purchased
one hundred and twenty acres at that
place, including the most desirable mill
seats on both sides of the Canaseraga.
At Williamsburg our travelers looked
across that beautiful valley over the
famous Genesee flats and were delighted
with the beauty of the situation and the
fertility of the soil. Colonel Fitzhugh and
Major Carroll bought of Charles William-
son, at $2 per acre, twelve thousand acres,
lying partly on the eastern slope of the
valley and partly upon the flats on both
sides of Canaseraga creek. Colonel Roch-
ester also purchased a small farm of four
hundred acres near the lands bought by
his friends.
The friends returned to Maryland and
reached Hagerstown about the 12th of
October. In 1801 Carroll and Fitzhugh
again came to the Genesee country and
made further purchases; Colonel Roches-
ter set out with them, but illness com-
pelled him to turn back. This trip was
taken between October 7th and November12th. In August and September, 1802,
Colonel Fitzhugh and Colonel Rochester
again visited their purchases, but with-
out Major Carroll.
It has been the universal statement
that these three friends purchased the
One hundred Acre Tract, (the nucleus
of our city), in this year, 1802, but such is
not the fact. In this year Major Carroll
did not visit this region, and his own
signature appears on the contract of
sale, dated November 8, 1803.
The circumstances of the purchase were
as follows: About the 7th of October,
Rochester, Carroll and Fitzhugh left Ha-
gerstown for the Genesee, visited their
former purchases, went to Geneva to
make payments at the land office, and
turned their faces homeward. But Mr.
Johnston, the land agent at Geneva,
learning that they were interested in
water powers in Maryland, called their
attention to the fine power at the Gen-
esee falls. They then agreed with him
that they would go to the upper falls and
examine the property, and would meet
Mr. Johnston at Bath to give their
answer.
Rochester, Carroll and Fitzhugh, com-
ing by the rough woods road from Can-
andaigua, crossed the river on horse
back, not without trepidation, at the slip-
pery ford a little north of the present mill
dam.
The upper falls (or rather an extended
cascade) stretched across the river about
where the aqueduct is now situated,
and were of a total vertical height of
about fourteen feet. They were blasted
away to make room for the aqueducts
and a water passage under them and
there is now only a continuous rapids.
On the west side of the river, extend-
ing up stream from the top of the falls,
was a small island separated from the
west bank by a narrow channel, thus pro-
viding a natural race-way. From this
channel the water was led in a rude flume
to the old Allan mill on the flats below.
Ebenezer Allan, in the fall of 1789, had
built two mills, first a saw mill and sec-
ond a grist mill. The spring freshet of
1803 had carried away the saw mill and
had seriously undermined the grist mill.
Our travelers rode through the forest
along the portage leading to King’s land-
ing, below the lower falls, until they
looked down upon the old mill, now
almost in ruins, and, descending the
sloping bank, entered the little log house
under the present site of E. R. Andrews’s
printing house. The mill was inhabited
then only by the ubiquitous rattlesnake,
whose meditations were seldom inter-
rupted except by some settler whose
family had become tired of the contin-
uous succession of pork and mush, hom-
iny and bacon, and had demanded a
feast of real wheat bread.
No more than one-half an acre was
cleared of the trees; the stumps still
remained; and the tangle of briars, grape
vines and saplings in the clearing, was
broken only by the narrow and thorny
path to the mill. What a scene of deso-
lation ! An abandoned log house, the
roof broken in, the door awry, wild
raspberry shoots obstructing the en-
trance, and a rattlesnake to greet the
traveler. Inside the building were the
little mill stones, and the primitive, dilap-
idated machinery; the floor was broken
and decayed; and the porcupines had
gnawed the bunks, window ' sills and
benches. Under the mill was a little
tub wheel, patched almost beyond
repair; and the flume from the fall no
longer held water.
Oliver Phelps bought 184,320 acres from
the Indians for a mill lot; of this amount
Allan obtained 100 acres to build the mill
upon; and one half an acre was more
than enough to clear, both for the foun-
dation and for the timber to build the
mill.
But these travelers had not come to
examine the aesthetics of the place.
They found a fall capable of producing
great power and easy to adapt to com-
mercial purposes. The land near the
river was elevated above the ordinary
stages of water, there were two great
falls lower down the river, settlements
were advancing to the neighborhood, and
there seemed to be evidence that the
water power and the one hundred acres
of land would be worth the $1,750 atwhich they were offered. They decided to
purchase the mill lot; and then and there
began the germ of Rochester.
The friends left the mill and, return-
ing to the portage, traveled along the
west side of the river to King’s (now
Hanford’s) landing and arranged with
Gideon King to care for the mill in con-
sideration of having its use. They then
turned back and traveled through New
Hartford, Big Tree, Wiliamsburg and
Dansville, to Bath. At Bath they met
Mr. Johnston and, on November 8, 1803,
an agreement was there executed, be-
tween Mr. Johnston, as the agent (under
Robert Troup) for Sir William Pulte-
ney, on the one part, and Carroll, Fitz-
hugh and Rochester, on the other part.
That agreement is as follows:
A CONTRACT, Made the eighth day of No-
vember, in the year one thousand eight hun-
dred and	three—Between	Charles Car-
roll, William Fitzhugh, and Nathaniel Roches-
ter, of the county of Washington, and state of
Maryland, esquires, of the first part—and Sir
William Pulteney, of the county of Middlesex,
in the united kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, baronet, by John Johnston, his attor-
ney, by virtue of a Letter of Substitution
bearing date the first day of February, in
the year one Thousand eight hundred and two,
from Robert Troup, esquire, the attorney of
the said Sir William Pulteney, by virtue of a
letter of attorney, bearing date the 29th day
of July, in the year one thousand eight hun-
dred and one, and recorded in the secretary’s
office of the state of New York, in lib. deeds
endorsed M. R. N., page 409, etc., of the
second part, as follows, (to wit) First—The said
Sir William Pulteney agrees to sell to the said
Charles Carroll, William Fitzhugh,and Nathaniel
Rochester all that certain tract of land in
township number one in the short range on the
west side of the Genesee river in the county
of Genesee (late Ontario) and state of New
York, being the tract commonly known and
designated as the Genesee fall mill lot and
containing one hundred acres together with all
the privileges and advantages of the waters
thereon and the mills thereon erected.
Secondly—The said Charles Carroll, William
Fitzhugh and Nathaniel Rochester agree to pay
for the said tract of land and mills the sum of
one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars
in manner following, (that is to say) the sum
of three hundred and fifty dollars on the first
of May next and the remainder in four equal
annual payments thereafter with interest from
the first day of May next.
Thirdly—The said William Pulteney agrees
that immediately after the full payment of the
said purchase money, in manner above particu-
larly appointed, he the said Sir William Pul-
teney will execute, and cause to be delivered
to the said Charles Carroll, William Fitzhugh
and Nathaniel Rochester a good and sufficient
warranty deed for the said tract of land and
mills, with the appurtenances.
In witness whereof, the said party of the
first part, and the said Sir William Pulteney, I
by his said attorney John Johnston by virtue’
of the letter of substitution aforesaid, have
hereunto set their hands and'seals, on the day
and in the year first above written.
Sealed and delivered in the presence of John
Taylor.
It is agreed by the parties to the within con-
tract that in case the within mentioned mills
are destroyed by fire or any other casuality
the loss arising therefrom shall be
borne wholly by the said Charles Carroll, Wil-
liam Fitzhugh and Nathaniel Rochester and in
no degree by Sir William Pulteney.
N. Rochester,
Ch. Carroll,,
Wm. Fitzhugh.
Having- concluded these arrangements,
they travelled homeward, reaching Ha-
gerstown about November 20th. On this
trip were accompanied by a young Mary-
lander named Thomas Begole, who, in
the following spring, was sent back to
the Genesee country by Colonel Rochester
to take charge of property there. He was
instructed to go to the Falls in order to
see that the mill was properly cared for
by Mr. King, but finding that King had
died, he put Salmon Fuller in charge.
Fuller made sufficient repairs upon the
mill to be able to operate it and occupied
it in 1805. In 1806 the mill was destroyed,
either by a fire or a freshet, and Mr. Ful-
ler incontinently took the mill stones
and machinery to his own new mill on
Irondequoit creek. The mill is gone;
even its site is buried; the rattlesnake has
departed; but the mill stones came back
and are still with us.
The three proprietors of the One Hun-
dred Acre Tract remained in Maryland
for several years without visiting their
Genesee property. In the spring of 1809,
however, Colonel Rochester came to
Dansville to make arrangements for re-
moving his family to that place, and
brought with him his sons, William
B. and John C. Rochester. His saw mill
and grist mill were to be repaired and put
in condition for active operation, a paper
mill was to be furnished and his farm
needed care. The father soon returned toMaryland, but left his sons in charge of
his property until autumn.
On March 30th, in this year, the legis-
lature of New York passed an act pro-
viding for the “ building of a bridge
across the Genesee river between the
towns of Boyle and Northampton at the
place where the north state road crosses
the said Genesee river,” and authorizing
the supervisors of Ontario and Genesee
counties to raise the sum of two thousand
dollars ($2,000,) for that purpose; one
half to be raised in 1809 and one-half in
1810.
In May, 1810, Colonel Rochester brought
his family to Dansville. Mrs. Carroll and
Mrs. Fitzhugh up to this time had de-
clined to live on the wild frontier of
Western New York, and did not give
their consent to leave Maryland until
four years later.
The road from Hagerstown to Dans-
ville was about two hundred and seventy-
five miles in length and the family were
over three weeks in reaching their desti-
nation. The train was composed of two
carriages, six or seven riding horses
for the father and his sons, and two or
three large baggage wagons hauled by
four horses each. With them came two
or three young men from Hagerstown,
and a half dozen negroes. The journey
was arduous, not to say dangerous. A trav-
eler who had passed over this road across
the mountains only a few years before,
had recorded that it was so poorly cut
out that it looked as if the trees had
been gnawed off by beavers and that he
was often in danger of being mired.
Probably at the time when Colonel Roch-
ester was making this journey the road
had been somewhat improved, but those
of you who have traveled through a
back woods country and over corduroy
bridges, have seen the propriety of pro-
viding the horses with means of aquatic,
arborial, and terrestrial locomotion.
The caravan finally reached Dansville
in safety, except that one teamster was
thrown from his wagon in crossing the
mountains and was killed. The surviv-
ors reached Dansville on June 10th, 1810,
and the family put up at Stout’s tavern
until their home should be prepared.
After Colonel Rochester’s arrival in
Dansville, the settlement of his family
and the details of conducting his busi-
ness took his time to the exclusion of
attention to the Falls property, and dur-
ing the remainder of this year his saw-
mill, grist mill, paper mill and wool-
carding shop made such heavy drafts
upon his purse and his time that he be-
came discouraged about his ability to
retain his interest in the Falls lot and
offered to sell it to his friend Carroll;
but Major Carroll magnanimously de-
clined to buy, saying: “ Hold on and it’s
an estate for any man.”
Colonel Rochester in reply wrote to
V c
r* i-
O Cr
FIRST MAP OF ROCHESTER.
Charles Carroll. “ Dansville, January 13,
1811..............I return you my
sincere thanks for your advice to keep
my Genesee Falls estate. I am aware of
the growing value of that property and
although I am not so sanguine as you are
about its future value, yet I believe the
time is not distant when it will be worth
$15,000 or $5,000 a share. I have been ap-
plied to for building lots there and there
is no doubt of there soon being a village
there and much business done if lots
could be had. It must become a town of
great business at some future period.”
The commencement of the bridge, where
the present Main street bridge stands,
settled the importance of property at the
falls. The nearest bridge was at Avon,
and the country west and northwest of
the falls was being placed on the mar-
ket. The progress of the bridge and the
rapid immigration of settlers forced Col-
onel Rochester, in the summer of 1811,
to take steps to lay out a village on the
mill lot. He had a knowledge of survey-
ing and in July began to stake out some
lots among the trees and in the bogs on
the property.
Enos Stone, in the previous year, had
brought his family to the falls and had
begun housekeeping in a little shanty on
the bank of the river near the east end
of the ford. Colonel Rochester appointed
Mr. Stone his local agent and promised
him a good lot in the prospective village
for his services. The first lots surveyed
were those about the corners made by the
new state road which followed substan-
tially the present lines of Main and Statestreets, and led to the Big Ridge road to
Niagara and Buffalo. The Power’s block
lot was the first one laid out. The lines
of Buffalo (now West Main street) and of
Mill street (now Exchange), were deter-
mined and at first a large lot on the ©or-
ner now occupied by Smith’s Arcade, was
sent apart for a public square. Some
fifty lots in all. of one-quarter of an acre
each, were staked out, and Mr. Stone was
directed to offer them for sale. Advertise-
ments were soon inserted in the Canan-
daigua and Geneva newspapers and ap-
plicants began to appear.
William Scott, then of Dansville, gave
this account of Colonel Rochester at this
period:
About this time (1811) Colonel Rochester was
making a visit every few weeks to the “Falls,”
as Rochester was yet called, to superintend
the laying out of village lots. On his way home
from a collecting tour I met him returning
from one of these trips, at Begole’s Tavern,
a little log house standing about fifty rods
northeast of the residence of the late Judge
Carroll. I see him now, riding up to the door,
seated firmly on a small bay pacing mare,
and carrying his surveyor’s chain and compass
strapped to the saddle. After a well cooked
supper to which our sharp appetites did full
justice, we were shown to a room in the gar-
ret containing one bed. .	. . We occupied
it together, though it was long before sleep
visited us, for Colonel Rochester was full of
the flattering prospects at the Falls. “ The
place must become an important business
point,” said he, and he expressed regret that
he had spent so much time and means in Dans-
ville, instead of going to the Falls at once,
adding, “If I had just made over to you
by gift a deed of all my property at Dansville,
and gone direct to the Falls, I should have been
the gainer. Dansville will be a fine village,
but the Falls, sir, is capable of great things.”
I reminded him that he had established a
paper mill and other machinery at Dansville
and had otherwise aided in giving an impetus
to the business of that already thrifty town.
“ Yes,” said he, “ but I am past the age of
building up two towns.” During the conver-
sation I remarked that the name the “ Falls,”
was good enough then, but added, “ of course
you will find a more fitting one as the place in-
creases.” “ Ah,” said he, “ I have already
thought of that, and have decided to give it
my family name,” and that was the first time
I ever heard the word “ Rochester ” applied
to the present prosperous city.
Colonel Rochester was a fine type of the
true Southern gentleman. His manner was
commanding. He was then venerable in years,
though his step was firm. He was tall, per-
haps quite six feet high, stooped a little and
always walked with a cane. He was dignified
and affable in ordinary intercourse, though
somewhat austere to strangers.
The name “ Rochester ” was given to
the village by request of Messrs. Carroll
and Fitzhugh.
On October 30, 1811, Rochester writes to
his partners: “ Great quantities of wheat
are now going from Bloomfield, Charles
Town, Hartford, Boyle, etc, etc., to the
mouth of the Genesee river for want of
mills to flour it and most of it goes
through our village and more will as soon
as the bridge is finished which will be by
the middle of December unless winter
sets in earlier than usual. ... I have
sold a few lots on Mill, Carroll and Buf-
falo streets at $50. . . .and have no
doubt but that a dozen houses will be
erected next season.............I have
raised all the unsold lots on Carroll and
Mill streets to $50 and sell the back lots
at $30. After next season when a mill
and several houses are erected we can
raise the price of the lots. . . . . The
lots sold and bespoken are Nos. 1, 2, 19,
20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36,
37, 45, 59, 60. ”
The last payment for the mill lot was
made on June 22, 1808; the lot was sur-
veyed and its boundaries determined No-
vember 7, 1811; and a deed was given No-
vember 18th following.
To his brother-in-law, Elie Beatty, he
writes under date November 19, 1811: “ I
have been to the falls of Genesee lately
and laid out and sold some more lots say
about twenty-five in all, and, for want of
funds to build a good merchant mill
there, I have leased a mill seat for ten
years which will contribute very much
to the improvement of the town and
neighborhood. . . . Could I sell one of
my mill seats there I would soon be set-
tled at the falls myself. My business is
very good here, but would be much more
productive at the falls or village of Roch-
ester. ”
The first lot sold was No. 26, to Enos
Stone on November 20, 1811,for $50. George
L. Whitmore and Daniel Tinker, of Pitts-
ford, on December 29, 1811, bought lots
37 and 38 for $100; and on February 19,
1812, the third sale was made to Henry
Skinner, of Geneseo, who bought lot No. 1
(the Powers block corner) for $200, and
he was required to “ build and erect a
dwelling house on the said lot not less
than thirty by twenty feet, with brick or
stone chimney, said house to be raised
and enclosed on or before the first day of
January next (1813) and finished within
six months thereafter. ”
This requirement was inserted in all
the early contracts in order to secure
the immigration of the purchasers and to
prevent, as far as possible, mere land
speculation. One can imagine the trepi-
dation of Mr. Skinner when he agreed
to erect so palatial a structure in the
back woods, at a place where, only two
years before, a member of assembly
had said in debate that, if a bridge were
placed at the falls, only the muskrats
would use it. But the bridge was com-
pleted early in 1812 and results soon fol-
lowed.
Mr. Skinner in 1812 built a residence“ with a brick or stone chimney ” on the
tract, and his friend Hamlet Scrantom
was its first occupant.In this year Fran-
cis Brown, Matthew Brown, jr., and
Thomas Mumford laid out the village of
Frankfort adjoining the one hundred
acres on the north and soon had a grist
mill in operation, but settlers preferred
the neighborhood of the bridge and
Frankfort did not begin to grow till
after 1820.
In 1812, thirteen lots, in all, were sold
by Colonel Rochester; in 1813, twenty-
seven lots; in 1814: only one lot, largely
on account of the pendency of the war
of 1812 and the activity of British opera-
tions against the lake frontiers. (You
will remember that on May 14, 1814, the
village and its “ suburbs ” could furnish
only thirty-three men to repel the Brit-
ish, and that there were then only twen-
ty houses at the place). In 1815, thirty-
two lots were sold; after which time
sales became much more rapid.
In 1813 Elisha Ely had applied to Enos
Stone for water privileges and Mr. Stone
wrote to Mr. Rochester on June 13th.
“ Dear Sir: At the request of Mr. Ely,
the bearer of this letter, I would inform
you that his wishes are to erect water
works on your land at this village by
a lease, if you think proper to encourage
him. I think it would be an advantage
to the settlement of the place if a dam
from the west side of the race to the
river was made, that mills might be built
and not injure your prinicipal mill seat.
The wishes of Mr. Ely are such that
he thought proper to call on you and, if
you think proper, contract with him
as Mr. Reynolds is acquainted with him.
I think Mr. Ely would be a suitable man
to engage and would help the settlement
of the place.”
An arrangement was made with Mr.
Ely, the terms of which do not appear,
and he immediately dug a race way, the
first artificial one upon the tract, and
built a saw mill which began running on
December 14, 1813, though no actual busi-
ness was done in it until April first,
following. In 1814 and 1815, Mr. Ely
built a grist mill on the tract and Colonel
Rochester writes in a characteristic man-
ner to Mr. Fitzhugh from Dansville,
June 18th, 1814: . . .	“ I have been to
the Falls since you left us and given Mr.
Ely a lease conformably to your and
Major Carroll’s proposition to him. He
will proceed to erect a good merchant
mill. I did not mention, at the time
you made the offer to Mr. Ely, that his
erecting mills there would prevent me
from doing it for some time, as his and
Captain Brown’s mills will be enough for
that place for some time. ... I knew
you and Major Carroll did not suppose
it would have the effect of frustrating
my plans, because I have every reason
to believe you would have preferred my
building the mills to his doing it, from
your uniform friendship to me for more
than twenty years and because my re-
moval to that place and laying out six
or eight thousand dollars there would
have contributed fully as much to the ad-
vantage of the place as his laying it out,
who is already an inhabitant. Should
peace take place before next spring I
shall probably settle in our village at
that time.”
And to Mr. Carroll he writes: “I went
to the falls about three weeks after you
left us and gave Captain Ely a lease for
a mill seat agreeably to your anl
Colonel Fitzhugh’s proposition to him.
. . . The same sense of delicacy pre-
vented my saying anything to you about
it until the lease was executed to Ely,
but it frustrates my plan of erecting a
mill and removing to the Falls until a
peace takes place, as Brown’s and Ely s
mills will be sufficient for that place un-
til we have peace. Then I believe half
a dozen mills will not be too many. I
saw Captain Ely at the Falls on Thurs-
day last; he had just returned from Mas-
sachusets where he had been for car-
penters, millwrights, etc. He intended
commencing this day with about fifteen
workmen and said he would have his
mill at work by the 1st of December
next. There is very little improvement
going on at the Falls, not more than
three or four houses building. If the
war continues longer than next spring
my present intention is to purchase or
rent a mill in Ontario or Genesee counties
in order to have something to do until
the end of the war when I shall most
certainly settle at the Falls if I live so
long.”
In 1814, Carroll and Fitzhugh made
their first visit to the Genesee country
since the purchase of the mill lot and
then agreed with Colonel Rochester con-
cerning an ultimate division of that
property among the partners. In 1815,
Mr. Carroll moved his family to Wil-
liamsburgh and in 1816 Mr. Fitzhugh fol-
lowed him. But the labor of marketing
the joint property had fallen entirely on
Colonel Rochester, and to him belongs
the greater part of the credit of found-
ing this city.
He reported to his friends on July 28,
1816: “ Our books show that I have been
to the Falls and to Geneva twenty-three
times on our joint business and most
of those times wrhen I resided in Dans-
ville. I have done all the surveying ex-
cept part of a day last summer when I
had a surveyor. I have frequently been
detained two and three days at a time
.... and had to entertain many
people (particularly when I resided at
Dansville) who called on me to purchase
lots, make enquiry about the village, etc.,
It is five years this month since I laid out
about fifty lots.”In August, 1817, a partitition of the One
Hundred Acre tract was made and the
different lots were distributed among the
proprietors in severalty.
Some years later Colonel Rochester told
the story of the founding of this city in
a letter to his half brother, John G. Crit-
cher:
“ Rochester, State of New York, August 15,
1825.	.	.	. In the spring of 1800 having
six children then living. ... I conclud-
ed that it would be best for them that I should
remove to the west where more could be done
for them, than in an old settled country. . . .
I therefore visited the northwestern territory
(now Ohio), Kentucky and Tennessee with a
view to purchasing an eligible situation for my
family. I returned in August with a deter-
mination to remove to Kentucky, but on my
return home two of my neighbors and most
intimate friends were about to visit this part
of the state of New York which had been but
recently settled. They prevailed on me to
come with them. I then saw the great ad-
vantages this country had over the South-
western states and we all purchased with a de-
termination to remove here as soon as we
could close our business in Maryland. They
were very wealthy men and purchased 12,000
acres of the best land in the country and I
purchased about 500 acres on which were
several good mill seats. On our return home,
the families of my two friends were very much
opposed to removing to this country and I did
not like to come within them. .	.	. until
May, 1810, when I removed to this country and
built a grist mill, paper mill and saw mill
at Dansville, about forty miles from this
place, where I resided five years, when I sold
there and purchased a very valuable farm
about twenty miles from hence where I resid-
ed during the late war and until seven years
ago, when I removed to this place and rented
out my farm. Two years after my first visit
and purchase in this country, say in 1802, my
two neighbors and friends and I visited this
country again to see our first purchases, when
we purchased 100 acres of land at the falls of
Genesee river for which we gave seven hun-
dred pounds. The whole of this 100 acres has
been laid out in streets, allies, and quarter
acre lots and pretty much covered with build-
ings, together with as much more adjoining,
which is included in the village (what is called
a town in the south). In 1811, the year after
my removal to this country I laid out a village
here and in 1812 several small houses were
built,but the war commencing and being rather
exposed to the incursions of the enemy very
few improvements were made until the close of
the war in 1815.
Since then the village has had the most rapid
growth perhaps of any place in the United
States and now contains 5,000 inhabitants and
is now improving more rapidly than at any
former period. Not only the site of the vil-
lage, but the country about it was all a wil-
derness in 1811, but is now a thickly settled
country that turned out from ten to twelve
thousand persons who met General Lafayette
here on the 10th of June last. There can be
no doubt but that Rochester will be one of the
greatest manufacturing places in the United
States. It embraces more local advantages
than any place I have ever seen and I have
visited almost all the states. The land for 100
miles in every direction is of the finest quality.
The grand canal from Albany to Lake Erie
runs through the center of the village. All
the land carriage to the whole shores of Lake
Ontario is but two miles. The Genesee river,
which runs through the center of the village
north and south is navigable forty miles to
the south and the canal opens a water com-
munication to all the shores of Lakes Erie,
Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and their nav-
igable streams; and within two miles of where
I now write there are at least 500 seats for
water works, a great number of which are
now occupied for merchant mills, saw mills,
fulling mills, paper mills, oil mills, cotton and
woolen factories, nail factories, furnaces, etc.,
etc. All strangers are astonished at the rapid
growth of the village and the quantity of busi-
ness done in it. It is a thoroughfare for an
immense number of travelers from all quar-
ters, east, west, north, and south, and many
from Europe, to see the canal, the aqueduct
across the Genesee river and the Falls of
Niagara and it is on the route from the New En-
gland states to the west and southwestern
states.	.	. My third of the 100 acres
of land purchased at this place is now worth
one hundred thousand dollars exclusive of the
houses thereon, but in order to get it settled
I sold the lots very low.”
Much honor is due to all those other
sturdy men who developed the village
of Rochester; but their history is not per-
tinent to the founding of the village or
city, in the exact meaning of that word.
The village of Rochesterville was in-
corporated April 21, 1817, by an act of
the legislature; and the founding of
Rochester was accomplished.