wheels much more distant from each other. In almost all two horses were driven abreast, and many had four horses in two pairs, but few being driven in a single line or team. The use of the buffalo skin, with its thick, shaggy brown fur, as the covering for the seat occupied by the riders, was universal, and contributed very much to give the whole scene a wild Indian air, when seen in association with dense masses of thick and impenetrable forests, small patches of recently cleared land, log-huts, and stumps of trees on fire, with their trunks lying along and still encumbering the ground. At Batavia we found an extremely pretty town, with an arsenal and powder magazine at its entrance, and a number of beautiful villas surrounded by gardens in the neighbourhood. Here, as everywhere else throughout the inland towns of America, the streets are of ample width, never less than 100 feet and often 150, with excellent sidewalks shaded by rows of full-foliaged trees. Several good hotels are found at Batavia; the one at which we dined being as clean, airy, and well-furnished as any we had seen on the road, and the spacious piazza or balcony running in front of the house adding comfort to beauty. The signs of the hotels and inns are not so varied as in England or France; the greater number are designated chiefly by the names of the persons keeping them. The signs are rarely affixed to the houses, or embellished with any pictorial representation. They are mostly circular or oval pieces of wood, placed on a high and strong wooden pillar at some distance in front of the house, like a large target, visible from a considerable distance on the road, uniting great simplicity, strength, and distinct

ness.

At Batavia-which, from its appearance, may be regarded as a very prosperous town, and contains at present about six thousand inhabitants-we took the railroad to Rochester, the distance being thirty-two miles, the time occupied two hours, and the fare one dollar and a quarter, or five shillings sterling each.

We reached Rochester about eight o'clock in the evening on Saturday, the 25th of August; and, at the place of the railroad cars stopping, the crowd of persons attending on behalf of the hotels, canal-packets, stages, and railroads, was immense; at least fifty voices were heard at the same time vociferating, "Eagle Tavern," "Rochester House," "splendid rooms," "excellent table," "persons and baggage conveyed free of charge," and similar temptations. The competition is intense, and each hotel sends its own coach for passengers, and cart and porters for baggage, though sometimes, in the confusion, the passenger is taken to one house and his trunks to another, when he is sure to displease one party at least. We were speedily transferred to the Eagle, where we found comfortable quarters and obliging attendants; and here, therefore, we took up our abode.

SETTLEMENT OF ROCHESTER.

189

CHAPTER XIX.

First Settlement of Rochester.-Contest with wild Bears.-Purchase of Indian Land. -Death and Character of the original Founder.-Last Pagan Sacrifice of the Indians. Striking Resemblance to the Scapegoat of the Jews. First Christian Church. Incorporation as a City.-Education, Sunday-schools.-Temperance Soci eties.-Plan of Rochester.-Streets and Buildings.-Staple Trade, Wheat and Flour. -Extent of Water-power.-Genesee, or the Pleasant Valley.-Poetical Beauty of Indian Names.-Falls of the Genesee.-West and Catlin.-Fatal Leap from the Falls by an American.-Great Flood.-Carpet Manufactory, Paper-mills, Pianos.-Edgetools, Iron-works, and Machinery.--Cabinet-making, Cooperage.-Impolicy and Effect of the British Corn-laws.-Recent Introduction of Silk.-Soil and Productions of the Genesee Valley.-Institutions of Religion, Benevolence, and Literature.-Comparison with Towns of the same Size in Britain.-Erie Canal.-Difficulties attending this Work.-Prospective Views of General Washington.-Opinions of Gouverneur Morris.-Ceremony of opening the Canal at Rochester.-Love of Display in Public Celebrations in America.-Extent of Inland Navigation.

WE remained in Rochester for ten days, comfortably accommodated at the Eagle Hotel; and my course of Lectures on Egypt having been very numerously attended in the Bethel Free Church, in which they were delivered, I was soon brought in communication with the principal residents of the city, and our stay was rendered agreeable by their personal kindness and attention. Among these individuals were several of the first settlers in the city, its first mayor, Mr. Child, and its best historian, Mr. Henry O'Reilly, the present postmaster of Rochester, who has produced, from the most authentic sources, chiefly living witnesses, an excellent volume, published in the present year, 1838, entitled "Settlement in the West, or Sketches of Rochester, with Incidental Notices of the State of New-York."

In the various excursions which we made in the vicinity of the city, as well as in the examination of all that was curious or interesting within the city itself, I was greatly assisted by the courtesy and experience of the individuals named; and from the oral information thus obtained, the documentary evidence in the production named above, and my own personal observation, I was enabled to prepare the following account of the history and statistics of Rochester, as well as a description of its present appearance and condition, under circumstances the most favourable that could be desired for ensuring fulness and fidelity combined.

The spot where Rochester now stands was in 1808 a completely uncleared and untrodden forest, and in its neighbourhood were two small settlements, called Pittsford and Perrinton, each containing only a few pioneer families, who had penetrated thus far, and literally cut their way through the wilderness. The River Genesee, at the point on which the present bridge of Rochester is built, appearing to these settlers to offer a favourable spot for the

erection of a bridge-the nearest bridge then across the stream being at Avon, a distance of twenty miles to the south-the settlers in these two hamlets joined in petitioning the State Legislature of New-York, then sitting at Albany, for an act to authorize its construction. This measure was, however, strongly opposed by several members of the Legislature, one of whom used the following language as descriptive of the spot: "It is," said he, "a Godforsaken place, inhabited by muskrats, visited only by straggling trappers, through which neither man nor beast could gallop without fear of starvation or fever and ague ;" and, although the act was ultimately passed, it continued to be reprobated by many as an extravagant waste of the public money to erect a bridge in such an "outlandish and unfrequented spot."

In 1812 there were two wooden frame buildings only on the spot, each consisting of a single room, the one occupied by Mr. Isaac Stone, and the other by his relative, Mr. Enos Stone, one of which is still existing, in its original state, in the heart of the present town. At this period but a small patch of land was cleared around each of these humble dwellings; and a few acres of Indian corn, planted among the stumps of the recently-felled trees, was all the crop they could yet command. This was, however, so exposed to the depredations of the wild bears, that the utmost vigilance on the part of the planters was necessary to save their corn; and a furious contest took place between Enos Stone and one of the largest she-bears that had ever been seen in this part of the country, which, after innumerable difficulties of burning out and smoking from tree to tree, he at length succeeded in shooting; and her shaggy skin was for a long while preserved as the trophy of his victory.

The first allotment of land for building a village was made in

SETTLEMENT OF ROCHESTER.-INDIAN FESTIVALS. 191

1812, on the tract which was purchased by Phelps and Gorham for a "timber yard"? to supply the saw-mill they proposed to erect on the river here; and for this purpose they persuaded the Indians to assign them a territory 24 miles long by 12 broad along the banks of the Genesee, from this spot to the Lake Ontario! This “millyard,” as it was also called, had passed from the original purchasers into the possession of Sir William Pulteney, an English baronet, from whom it was purchased in 1802 at 17 dls. 50 cts., or about 31. 10s., per acre for the fee simple, by three individuals, Nathaniel Rochester, Charles H. Carroll, and William Fitzhugh. These were the founders of the hamlet of Rochester; and the first of these purchasers, after whom the place was named, lived to see it grow to a large and flourishing city, as his death occurred only seven years ago, on the 17th of May, 1831, when, such was the veneration and respect entertained for his character, and such the regret felt for his loss, that all the public bodies of Rochester united in demonstrations of esteem and sorrow. The courts of law suspended their sittings to attend his funeral; the city corporation followed their example; and the clergy, the army, and the citizens at large, all attended his remains to the grave; and his biographer closes the affecting narrative of his death, at the venerable age of eighty, by saying, "The good old man has gone from among us! Long will his survivers cherish the remembrance of the venerable form, the silvered locks, and easy dignity, of the patriarch. Long may we cherish the example of his simplicity, integrity, disinterestedness, and faith! Filial affection may build for him the marble tomb, public gratitude may grave the recorded eulogy-but they are not needed. He has erected his own monument, splendid and enduring; it is sculptured by his own hand, and we have only to reply to him who asks us in what shrine it is set up, in the simple and majestic epitaph of England's proudest temple (the inscription over the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren in his own noble edifice, the Cathedral of St. Paul's in London), 'SI QUÆRIS MONUMENTUM -CIRCUMSPICE.'

In 1813, the native Indians of the Seneca tribe were still encamped here, and in that year some of their pagan ceremonies were performed for the last time, though similar ceremonies continue to be observed by them in the neighbourhood of Buffalo to the present day. The Indians of this tribe have five feasts annually, at which they return thanks to Nauwanew, or the Great Spirit, for his blessings, and pray him to spare his wrath. At these festivals also the chiefs hold their councils, and urge on the people the duty of so conducting themselves as to ensure the favour of the Great Spirit in peace and in war. Their first festival is after planting, and the others at successive periods of ripening, gathering, and the close of the year. The following is the narrative of one of these pagan festivals, given in detail in Mr. O'Reilly's inter

esting work already referred to. Speaking of the Indian festival which occurs at the close of the year, he says:

"The latter ceremonial was performed for the last time in Rochester in January, 1813. The concluding rites were seen by some of the few persons then settled in these parts.' From Mr. Edwin Scranton, now a merchant of the city, who was among the spectators, we have had an account of the ceremonial, as far as he beheld it, which corresponds with the accounts given by the Rev. Mr. Kirkland, long a missionary among the Six Nations, and by the 'White Woman,' that remarkable associate of the Senecas.

"The latter personage related, that when the Indians returned from hunting, ten or twenty of their number were appointed to superintend the great sacrifice and thanksgiving.' Preparations were made at the council-house, or other place of meeting, for the accommodation of the tribe during the ceremonial. Nine days was the period, and two white dogs the number and kind of animals formerly required for the festival; though in these latter days of reform and retrenchment (for the prevailing spirit had reached even the wigwams and the altars of the Senecas), the time has been curtailed to seven or five days, and a single dog was made the scapegoat to bear away the sins of the tribe! Two dogs, as nearly white as could be procured, were usually selected from those belonging to the tribe, and were carefully killed at the door of the councilhouse by means of strangulation; for a wound on the animal, or an effusion of blood, would spoil the victim for the sacrificial purpose. The dogs were then fantastically painted with various colours, decorated with feathers, and suspended about twenty feet high at the council-house, or near the centre of the camp.

"The ceremonial is then commenced, and the five, seven, or nine days of its continuance are marked by feasting and dancing, as well as by sacrifice and consultation. Two select bands, one of men and another of women, ornamented with trinkets and feathers, and each person furnished with an ear of corn in the right hand, dance in a circle around the council fire which is kindled for the occasion, and regulate their steps by rude music. Hence they proceed to every wigwam in the camp, and in like manner dance in a circle around each fire.

"Afterward, on another day, several men clothe themselves in the skins of wild beasts, cover their faces with hideous masks, and their hands with the shell of the tortoise, and in this garb they go among the wigwams, making horrid noises, taking the fuel from the fire, and scattering the embers and ashes about the floor, for the purpose of driving away evil spirits. The persons performing these operations are supposed not only to drive off the evil spirit, but to concentrate within themselves all the sins of their tribe. These sins are afterward all transfused into one of their own number, who, by some magical dexterity or sleightof-hand, works off from himself into the dogs the concentrated wickedness of the tribe!

"The scapegoat dogs are then placed on a pile of wood, to which fire is applied, while the surrounding crowd throw tobacco or other incense upon the flame, the scent of which is deemed to co-operate with the sacrifice of the animals in conciliating the favour of Nauwanew, or the Great Spirit. When the dogs are partly consumed, one is taken off, and put into a large kettle with vegetables of various kinds, and all around devour the contents of the 'reeking caldron.' After this the Indians perform the dances of war and peace, and smoke the calumet: then, free from wickedness, they repair to their respective places of abode, prepared for the events of the new year."