The Rochester I Know; 116; Bill Davis

[static] [beeps] [theme music] WXXI presents the "Rochester I Know". The series of interviews with notable residents of Monroe County and contributors to this area's rich history. Your host is William Pierce. [Pierce] Hello and welcome to the "Rochester I Know". I'm Bill Pierce. Our guest today is Bill Davis. Mr. Davis is the man responsible for the campaign to let Rochester residents rediscover the Genesee River, their river. He organized the annual

Rediscover the River Day program in 1979 and also gives more than 40 talks a year on the Genesee to receptive audiences throughout Monroe County. Bill, welcome to the "Rochester I Know", although you most certainly know more about the river than anyone I know, maybe anyone. You're not a historian by profession, so how did you come about this this fascination with the Genesee River and multitude of facts that you now possess about it? [Davis] Well [Pierce] now possess about it [Davis] I guess I-I got started, my basic training is engineering and I worked at Kodak Park for a good number of years. Then about 1972 we had a rather lively discussion about the advisability of putting oil tanks in the Genesee River and it got me interested in-- [Pierce] Where were they going to put oil tanks? [Davis] This was at what is now Turning Point Park, [Pierce] Which is where? [Davis] About two miles up the river from the lake. And this would have kind of changed the character of the gorge for the future and at this point I became interested. And since that time I

guess I've ah, particularly in retirement, I got caught up with the history along the river and have had a lot of fun doing hiking in history, enjoying the river myself and inviting other people to share it with me. [Pierce] So the so the possibility of putting oil tanks a couple miles up the river to engage in some commerce off the lake? [Davis] Well, it was to bring- yes, at that time there, it would change the character of the river as ah, oil shipping terminal. [Pierce] uh huh [Davis] And that area is now been designated as a park by the city and we have a 100 acre park now in what would have been an industrial oil tank terminal. We didn't really feel there was a need for oil, and I think subsequent action has borne that out that this was the best- recreation was the best use for the river. [Pierce] That's now Turning Point Park. [Davis] Right. [Pierce] So you've got you've got a little upset they were going to do this. What in, was that your neighborhood? [Davis] Well, we started in our own neighborhood and then we enlisted friends around the county and formed the Action to Save the Genesee, which is kind of a mom and pop environmental group with my wife and I

and with a lot of help from people, legislators, we were able to turn the tide and it became a good experience for me. I had no knowledge of the political process up to that point. Now I'm a little bit more familiar with it. [Pierce] And you're basically not a native Rochesterian, [Davis] No. [Pierce] so you had no grass roots here. [Davis] No I came to work for Kodak about 1939, so I'm about a 40 year resident. [Pierce] From where? [Davis] From Pennsylvania, northeastern. [Pierce] Well, 39, that makes you but almost, almost accepted here. [Davis] Right. [Pierce] Bill, that history of the river that you later developed, it just fascinated all of us and we've had a chance to work with you because you've put your exhibit up here at 280 State Street where WXXI is and conducted some of your tours I guess right from our parking lot. [Davis] That's true . [Pierce] So we've all been fascinated by your work and your hopes for the future of this gorge. But, it all had to begin I guess in '72 with the oil tanks, then you began investigating what, more about the river?

[Davis] I started really with a neighborhood history in Charlotte, which is where I live. And we found out in working this that really a lot of things were going on the river that some of the settlements along the river were here many years before Rochester really got started. Hamlet Scrantom is the first settler, came in 1812. But the Hincher Family, as what I call, the first settlers in Rochester and current Rochester were here in 1792. They came in as, he came in as a Revolutionary War veteran and settled to the spot where the lighthouse now stands so- [Pierce] that was the Charlotte lighthouse? [Davis] Right. Now they are- before that time Indians had camped there the Hinchers settled there, and then the lighthouse would be built there so that's a national landmark and I think a very interesting part of the history along the river. [Pierce] This is the lighthouse here [Davis] Right [Pierce] And I guess folks lined up waiting to what, take a tour? [Davis] Right. That's now, we have a Lighthouse Historical Society and we're doing an archaeological dig at the site. So we're trying to make it into a small scale museum to remind people of the vital role that Charlotte played in the

development of Rochester. [Pierce] Tell us a little more about that vital development. [Davis] Well, a lot of it started with the idea of trade with Canada. There was a rather considerable trade with Canada out of the Charlotte area. They were bringing in timbers over from Canada, eventually they were shipping ashes, [Pierce] Before we go any further, we want to take, I guess take a look at- this is the Charlotte Port. [Davis] Right. This is sketched by Captain James Van Cleve in 1826, and actually you see the port is quite different there than it was at the current day. It looks more like Irondequoit Bay, Bay or Braddock's Bay. [Pierce]So we're out in the lake looking in- [Davis] We're out in the lake looking in. The lighthouse is just beyond that tree, and the tree was originally called the "pilot tree" and they hung a lamp up there before the days of the lighthouse. But the ships are nestled in the harbor there, and they had to pull themselves in by the lamp, of the light of the pilot tree before the lighthouse was built. The lighthouse is just a little to the right of that tree. So that- the whole character changed when the piers were built in 1829.

But even in the early days, it was an important shipping point for Rochester and for the Genesee Country. [Pierce] The War of 1812 touched the beach at Charlotte briefly. Could you tell us about that? [Davis] That was an interesting- the British stopped there three or four times, and in the last time, they demanded the stores be surrendered and they gathered all the available people in the settlement from Rochester, all the settlements along the river, it numbered 33. And they marched in and out of the woods to give the impression of a much larger force. The British said, "turn over our- your goods". They said, "blood knee-deep first", and so they were able to pull off this ruse and the British withdrew. So this is one of the case where the whole Rochester community pulled together. And it was happening at Charlotte. [Pierce] That's amazing. King's Landing is, as you go up the river, is the next a major development on the river, on your river, Bill. [Davis] Yeah. [Pierce] on your river, Bill. [Davis] Where I call the Hinters "the first settlers", I call the King's Landing the "first settlement" because Gideon King and Zadock Granger came in

from Suffield, brought five families with them, and had the first American schooners on the Great Lakes, were built right there at Kings Landing. [Pierce] And this is a picture of one of the schooner's being built and [Davis] Right. [Pierce] on Kings Landing. [Davis] Kings Landing.[Pierce] We don't think of the river's being a ship building area. [Davis] And yet there was, the water was 20 to 30 feet deep at this point at the landing, so very large ships came up that point eventually even steamships stopped at Kings Landing. But they did encounter Genesee Fever and that almost wiped out the full settlement. [Pierce] What was Genesee fever? [Davis] It was probably a form of malaria that attacked the settlements and sometimes all the members of a family might be wiped out by it and it was a few years after that that the Hanford brothers came and revitalized the settlement. The built a hotel called the Steamboat Hotel and when DeWitt Clinton was serving for the Erie Canal, he stopped at that hotel. [Pierce] When was this picture of the hotel taken? [Davis] Well that was probably late in the 1800s. But the hotel was built back about 18-, probably about

1810 when the seven brothers came in and worked very hard at revitalizing that settlement. So each settlement had its own dream, and its own problems with bringing that dream off. [Pierce] That's amazing. The next the next settlement up the river is Carthage and that is one of the most fascinating settlements to me-- [Davis] Yes [Pierce] of all the developments around Carthage. [Davis] Well, Elisha Strong came in as a young kind of whippersnapper from Canandaigua. And he got the idea that there was [Pierce] What year is this Bill? [Davis] This is back around 1815- 1816. He got the idea that the intersection of the Ridge Road and the river would be a very important traffic intersection, and travelers were building up now the going from Oswego to Lewiston and they had to, in Rochester, they had to come down to the downtown area or Rochesterville and come back along the river and then go on the Ridge. He thought that they could really change the dynamics of that situation by building a big bridge at Carthage and they would intersect then with both the lake

traffic and the Ridge Road traffic and Carthage would be the principal city, Rochester would be the suburbs. [Pierce] This is the Carthage port. [Davis] Yeah, this is the port of Carthage as sketched by O'Reilly and it shows an incline elevator to bring the goods from the lower level up to the top level. And Strong hired Elijah Johnson to lay out the town and Elijah would later become Rochester's fifth mayor. He was kind of an engineer mayor and even designed a horse drawn railroad to connect Carthage with the canal. But the big dream of Carthage was this bridge which was actually one of the largest single arch bridges in the world. It was guaranteed for 12 months, and lasted about 15 but it was- [Pierce] Why would you build a bridge that would only last 12 months? [Davis] Well it was guaranteed for 12. They hoped it would last a lot longer, but actually the the forces of the bridge were not calculated right and it broke the arch, and then the bridge collapsed and with it some of the dreams of Carthage. Eventually Carthage joined the Rochester family when Rochester became a city in 1834.

So it was another settlement, the third settlement along the city that - along the river that really became a part of the City of Rochester. [Pierce] In the next village or town or settlement up the river is McCrackenville. [Davis] Yeah there were really three McCrackenville's. They seem to be coming in trios or sixes or sevens. There were three McCrackenville brothers. David McCracken settled about where the Maplewood Y is, and he had the dream of building a settlement at the bluff overlooking the Lower Falls. And he laid out, using the power of the Middle Falls, he laid out a settlement that had a sawmill, eventually it had a grist mill. They made gram flour there, they made furniture- there was a furniture factory, there some of the finest furniture in the world was made at that point, there was a trunk factory there, and you can see that some of the sites of McCrackenville that that was a very busy place. Now earlier in McCrackenville, this is a- just before even David McCracken appeared on the scene, they had built the first Rochester bridge. Most people think the bridge was across the river, but the first bridge was built across a deep hollow. And that

deep hollow was a ravine right by Driving Park. And they couldn't get their wagons up and down that hollow, so they had to build this bridge. [Pierce] Is this where the Driving Park Bridge is today? [Davis] Just out - a little bit- this is where Lake Avenue is right now. And it was called the The DePaulo Bridge and there's a little fort there. In the War of 1812 they left a left-handed fiddle player in charge of that fort. If they got by Charlotte, they were going to be held off at the DePaulo Bridge. But Gideon King and Zadock Granger built that. Now this is when the settlement really flourished at McCrackenville and you can see now how mills are crowding that overlook. But they're discharging into the falls. [Pierce] We're looking at the Lower Falls. [Davis] We're looking at the Lower Falls, and McCrackenville is a settlement up on the bank there, and they're drawing their power, you can see the discharges into the river because the power is being drawn from the Middle Falls. [Pierce] That looks like quite a prosperous community, Bill. Was at the largest of all these settlements along the river? [Davis] This combined with the probably Brown's Race or Frankfurt was the busiest place and we could take a look at what Frankfurt might have looked like, that

was a really busy settlement. There are two broad- well, first of all Charles Harford came in. [Pierce] This is Brown's Race that we're looking at. [Davis] This is Brown's Race. [Pierce] That's just one block from us right here. [Davis] Right, you're now in channel 21 country. [Pierce] We're home, now I feel a little comfortable. [Davis] Charles Harford was an Englishman who came into the Rochester area to settle, and he got land, several hundred acres, in the area where Kodak office and Channel 21 is now. He built a saw mill and a grist mill and of - his house. But he didn't have any customers, he was a man with great vision, but no customers. And so a young fellow named Francis Brown got blown in, he was canoeing on the lake. He came in and explored the area and Harford offered him the sawmill, the gristmill, the cabin and two hundred acres, including the area from about the railroad- the underpass down to Lyell Avenue for $3000. [Pierce] Oh my god.

[Davis] Now- [Pierce] I hate to tell you, the city has reassessed his property recently. I hate to tell you what the reassessment of this property is in this area. [Davis] quite differently. [Pierce] Yeah, quite a bit. [Davis] But in those days, the big thing to do was to build a race. And Francis Brown built the race that we saw there. And the mills are literally lined, they're shoulder to shoulder. There were sawmills, cotton mills, the ax and scythe factory, they got the Cobb brothers, Gideon and William Cobb, to join with them and they brought in a scythe factory to make scythe to cut the grain and make axes to clear the forest. And that's really the start of the metalworking industry in Rochester is Brown's Race. As a matter of fact, if you look at almost all the industries, you find that Brown's Race was the cradle - Gleason got started here, ah many of the machine tool businesses were started here. [Pierce] Bill, across the street from us is an abandoned factory called, and it still has, you can still read the sign. It says Willsee Works on it. [Davis] Right.

That was probably a pattern works at one time and there were foundries in Browns Race. There were, not only they had metal manufacturing, but they had machine tools. They built machine tools, so that they needed patterns for the foundry. And Willsee Works, I think was a pattern works. There were- one outfit made pins and other outfit made steam engines, and you name it there was there were furniture manufacturers, shoe manufacturers, box manufacturers. You can hardly believe the diversity. [Pierce] Now all this due to the Upper Falls? [Davis] That's right because the Brown brothers had built this race which is really a way of channeling the water from the top of the falls and they channeled it down through the race, [Pierce] As a matter of fact, it came down the street that we just saw a couple minutes ago in the old photograph of Browns Race. [Davis] Right and that race is still there and today water comes down through the raised part of it is diverted to RG&E to run the hydro plant. And part of it comes over to help in cooling at the BB station. So the race is still there and the

water is still being used. But in those days, it was before the days of the steam engine and the only way to really capture the power of the river was to move close to the river, that's why the mills are so close together. [Pierce] A couple of years ago we had a fire in one of the buildings just a block away that burned down and I guess that was this, this was one of the discoveries. [Davis] Yes, as far as we can trace it out, this is actually the axe and scythe factory built by Francis and Matthew Brown. This was probably built about 1817 or 1818. We've gone back and traced the deeds there. They would have used this power to run a giant trip hammer, which would be used to forge the metal and the power from this wheel, the wheel is actually about eight feet wide and probably about 20 or 25 feet in diameter, a tremendously powerful wheel. And even could transfer the power across the street, to what was originally the scythe factory. You're talking about fires, that was also the fire engine factory and one time the fire engine factory burned down.

The - Selye, who was the blacksmith, had a fire engine factory there and had a fire at the fire engine factory and had to rebuild, rebuild it. But it shows the diversity of things that were going on. [Pierce] The fires remind me of the appropriateness of the street name, right alongside the building its Furnace Street. [Davis] Right, and they needed furnaces of course for the foundries and probably to form the cast iron and steel that would be used in the metalworking establishment. But that building is really the first metalworking establishment in Rochester. So you have woodworking, there was a sawmill there, a flour mill, cotton mill, even making fabrics a cotton mill, a carpet mill, a woolen mill. [Pierce] Which brings us into the next street. There's one street between us and Browns Race, which is next to the river and that's Mill Street, which is right next door. We had to close, in order to get some parking here, we asked the city to close Furnance Street, that runs between Mill and State, and in the course of closing that street we did dig it up and put some

solid stuff down there so we could park and we saw, found all sorts of artifacts. And with the stuff left over from the apparently the factories on Mill and Furnace Street. [Davis] Right. Well the two Brown brothers were very active in the life of Rochester. They eventually became presidents of the village before it became a city so Francis and Matthew Brown, we had Brown's race. They too had their dream of a town, and the town was- [Pierce] Frankfurt. [Davis] Frankfurt that was named after Francis Brown. [Pierce] The title for this land, if I could go on just one second, because I want to hear more about the river, was apparently housed in the in the in the vault for the files in Batavia, which I guess was the county seat. [Davis] Yes. [Pierce]for Frankfurt which is where we are now, so when we had to do a title search for this property we had to go to Batavia and look it up. [Davis] Before Macau- Monroe County was formed, this area was in two counties. What was on the east side of the river was in Ontario County, but was on the west side of the river was in Genesee County. So when they, when Monroe County was formed they took part of it from Ontario part of it from

Genesee and formed a new county about 1821. [Pierce] That accounts for Batavia being the- [Davis] at the seat of that particular record. Where people on the east side would have to go to Canandaigua to get that same information. [Pierce] Tell us a little bit about Castleton or Castletown? [Davis] Castletown is is interesting because James Wadsworth, a very early settler in the area, came in a little later, came in too late to get in on the key milling sites, but he saw the need for a transportation center at Castle Town because goods- [Pierce] Now where was Castle-? [Davis] Castletown is about where Brooks Avenue is now, near Genesee Valley Park and- [Pierce] Near the university? [Davis] Right. The river kind of wound down through rather snake-like course until it reached Rochester. Then there was a series of rapids, very fast moving rapids that you couldn't get boats down. So what they did, they would have a transfer point at Castletown. All the goods would be taken off the boats and that would be the key purpose of Castletown would be to transfer to land transportation

to come down to Rochester. So they actually had Durham boats and pulled the boats down from Mount Morris and Genesee to bring wheat and lumber down to Rochester. [Pierce] They pulled from Mount Morris all the way to Castletown? [Davis] Right. [Pierce] Incredible. [Davis] And Castletown was named after Isaac Castle. [Pierce] Those are big boats to pull. [Davis] Right. This is a Durham boat and that was typical of the way the goods would travel because there were no steam engines and of course the the current of the river was pretty slow and you had to get the boat back upstream as well. So this is the the boats like this that brought the goods of the Genesee country, they needed the wheat for the mills, they needed the lumber for it to make barrels and boats for the booming canal business, and the dream of Castletown of course was to be a transportation center. But what happened, after the Erie Canal was built, they built a feeder canal. [Pierce] And that canal crossed the river very close to Castletown. [Davis] Right. The feeder canal came along the river just about at Castletown and that was

to provide the water to run the Erie Canal. So what happened is, in effect it became a detour. So the boats coming down now did not have to disembark. They could simply take the detour route down the feeder canal, come right in the main stream of traffic in downtown Rochester. So in effect the dream of Castletown was set aside, so each of these six settlements, many of which were started before Rochester, for example when the Scrantom family came in they took a ferry across at Castletown, stopped at a hotel called Isaac Castle's Tavern before they came to Rochester which at that time was swamps and rattlesnakes and bears and wolves. In the same way when Abelard Reynolds came through. He had his choice of two hotels and two ferry boats before he settled in Rochester because Charlotte had a hotel and a boat building works going at that point in time. So that each of the settlements had their dream and yet they finally joined the whole Rochester family so

that the river really is the story of Rochester unfolding and the story of these early settlements that eventually come in to join the Rochester family as their dream disappears in the horizons. [Pierce] They really- they came together in the final analysis. Bill, it's a fascinating story of the river and it's the first time I heard such a beautiful description of all these things. What what's left to do on the river? In your view, because you're the prime mover it appears. [Davis] Right. The role of the river is changing and I think right now there's some of the best salmon fishing in the country is right in the Genesee River. We saw last Fall 30, 35, 40, and 45 pound salmon taken at the Lower Falls right near the site of Carthage, for example. That was a traditional fishing place for a long time. I think the recreation is coming back in the Castletown area - the U of R has a crew now. The boating and canoeing which at one time was quite a bit.

There were probably over a thousand canoes in Genesee Valley at one time and I think the water as a recreational opportunity for the citizens, the water as - the fishing possibilities. The Lower Gorge is very beautiful in terms of a scenic point, I think it's a great spot for tourism. But more than that, for the people in Rochester to get this sense of history because the history of Rochester is really best unfolded in the river. You can see geology going back 400 million years ago, you can see a lot of things going on here and the river is the place where the action is. [Pierce] The rivers seemed so inaccessible to an awful lot of folks, Bill, and this sesquicentennial year I'm sure you're going to be leading, if you haven't already, many tours into the river and into the gorge, but how do you access it? And is it accessible for its entire length-- [Davis] That's a key problem [Pierce] through the City of Rochester? [Davis] and I think we're doing things about that now. We'll have another Rediscover the River Day, a couple of them this year and that gives people a chance to get out and

see the access points. The city is working on better signage, maps, and I think we have to make people feel warm and comfortable about getting out to see the river. There's a new Overlook Park with a new parking lot at the Upper Falls, there's a proposal to have an overlook at the Lower Falls. The city is working on an urban cultural park proposal. We have the lightouse being restored, Ontario Beach is being renovated. The work is being done in terms of walking and hiking trails in the U of R area. So I think all along the river there really is a lot better opportunity for public access and it seems to me that's the future. A river we can all enjoy, not only from recreation but from a historic standpoint. [Pierce] We read somewhere along the way about some kind of an industrial park along the canal. I don't know if it's a such- [Davis] The Urban Culture Park would stretch from the Lower Falls, you might say it would stretch from McCrackenville to Frankfurt. It would stretch from the Lower Falls, the Middle Falls and the downtown

area around the Upper Falls and this the city and the state are working together now in terms of how this might be developed as a place where you can tell the story of Rochester's industry and how it developed, because not only did the industries develop but power development can be seen along the river, the Hydro, the mechanical, the water wheels, they were all really linked to the river. So the Rochester-- [Pierce] We need a river museum, Bill. Is that going to be your next project? [Davis] Well I'm not sure what the next project is. [Pierce] Some how we ought to put all of this it together into a musuem. [Davis] It would make an interesting thing for visitors to see. [Pierce] I think that most of us who are kind of Johnny-come-latelys, although I've been here I think almost 20 years now I've lost track, but there's so much about the river that I don't know that you've explained to us today and I'm sure that there are thousands of people who've never seen the river from any, any point. [Davis] You know Fairchild once said, "Without the river, there is no Rochester" and without that we might have been Rochesterport, halfway between Fairport and and

Brockport, might just been another port on the canal, so the river made the difference. [Pierce] Well in this sesquicentennial year for Rochester I hope more people discover the river and discover it with you so they get the benefit of the-- [Davis] there will be several river festivals, the Canal Festival will focus on the river intersection there, the downtown will focus on the river, they'll be a Tall Ships Festival that will focus on Charlotte and mouth of the river. So I think the river will be a focus for this sesquicentennial. [Pierce] Bill Davis. It has been great having you here today as our guest. Guest today has been Bill Davis who is as far as I can see the world's greatest authority on the Genesee River in Rochester. [Davis] oh, okay. [Pierce] qualified. He is too modest about what you know, but I don't think there's anyone else that knows as much about this river as you do. I'm Bill Pierce, see you next on "the Rochester I Know." So long. [Davis] Thank you very much. [music] [music]

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