y 1710 the French had established a post on Irondequoit Bay
not far from the mouth of the Genesee, it was not until Ebenezer Allan
(called "Indian Allan") built a small saw and grist mill near the falls
that a settlement began to grow up. In 1802 three Maryland proprietors,
Charles Carroll, William Fitzhugh and Nathaniel Rochester acquired a
large tract of land which included the site of the present city.
Rochester, from whom the city took its name, established a settlement,
largely of New Englanders, at the falls in 1810-12, but growth was slow,
as it was not at that time on the direct road between Albany and
Buffalo, and the region was malarial.

Nathaniel Rochester (1752-1831) was a native of Virginia. He had
been a manufacturer of Hagerstown, Md., and after settling in
Rochester in 1818 was elected to the N.Y. Assembly (1822).

The completion of the Rochester and Lockport section of the Erie Canal
gave Rochester the impetus which made it a city, and the building of the
railroad a few years later placed it on the direct route between the
Hudson and Lake Erie.

The course of the old Erie Canal lay through the heart of the
city. It crossed the Genesee River by means of an aqueduct of
seven arches, 850 ft. long, with a channel 45 ft. wide. The
aqueduct cost $600,000. The new barge canal passes through the
city about three miles south of the old canal, and has a harbor
in connection with the Genesee River, which is dammed for that
purpose.

Rochester, between 1828 and 1830, was the centre of the anti-Masonic
movement and here Thurlow Weed published his _Anti-Masonic Enquirer_.

The Anti-Masonic party arose after the disappearance in 1826 of
William Morgan (1776-1826), a Freemason of Batavia, N.Y., who had
become dissatisfied with the order and had planned to publish its
secrets. When his purpose became known, Morgan was subjected to
frequent annoyances, and finally in September, 1826, he was
seized and conveyed by stealth to Ft. Niagara, where he
disappeared. His ultimate fate was never known, though it was
believed at the time that he had been murdered. The event created
great excitement, and furnished the occasion for the formation of
a new party in N.Y. This new party was in fact a rehabilitation
of the Adams wing of the Democratic-Republican party, a feeble
organization, into which shrewd political leaders breathed new
l