By Edward R. Forman

In 1895, William Schuyler Moses was interviewed as to his recollections of early East Avenue days. He was born in 1827 in a house which stood on lot number 51, Chestnut Street. When he was a boy, there were but two bridges over the Genesee River at Rochester, both made of wood, and one crossed the river at Main Street, and the other at Court Street. In order to reach his home, on Chestnut Street, Mr. Moses was obliged to walk through an almost unbroken forest, after crossing the bridge from the village on the west side of the river. On what is now East Avenue, then called Main Street, was a swamp filled with cattails and deep water, and it was a hazardous enterprise to cross it. Mr. Moses recalled one incident which happened to him in 1831, when he was four years old. He wandered away from home into this swamp. After walking around the swamp all day, when night came on, he found himself lost. He crept along the ground, slipping now and then into some dark pool of water, but was never able to reach solid ground. His father, becoming alarmed at his absence, organized a searching party from the village and the swamp was searched all that night. About 6 o'clock next morning, when nearly dead from exposure, the child was discovered lying beside a pool of black water. He was taken home by the rescuing party, and never got lost in that swamp again.
William S. Moses was one of the thousands of men who went around the Horn to California, caught by the gold fever in 1849, and thereafter became a resident of that state.
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By Edward R. Forman

At the corner of what is now East Avenue and Vick Park A, formerly stood one of the most famous hotels of Monroe County, the old Union Tavern, which was adjacent to the Union Race Course, the Mecca not only of local horsemen, but of racing men from many parts of the state, owners of some of the famous pacers and trotters which established records on the track occupying practically the present site of the two Vick Parks, A and B.

In 1866, James Vick, the pioneer seedsman of Rochester, purchased the Union Race Course and Tavern from Joseph Hall. Mr. Vick continued to rent the tavern to the man who had been conducting it for several years, and the Vick family occupied a house on the site of what is now St. Paul's Church. At that time, the only street east of Goodman Street on East Avenue was Bowen Street, now Barrington Strret. On the south side of East Avenue, Mr. Vick laid out great gardens of peonies and other flowers, which became a show place, and in 1870, he turned the whole Race Course into a residence park. At that time many persons ridiculed the idea that such an enterprise could be made to pay, because it could hardly be conceived that any one would be persuaded to buy or rent homes "away out in the country." Mr. Vick however, persisted in his plans, and lived to see this property become the center of this city's most fashionable residence district.

It was some years after this improvement of Vick Park, before Park Avenue was extended past the property, and when this was done the surveyor saved himself trouble by following the curve of the Park, which was the curve of the upper end of the old Union Race Course, so that when the car line also was extended, the rails had to be laid in the sweeping lines which are now so noticeable at that point. For some time after the laying out of Vick Park it was most easily reached by the East Avenue stage coach, which ran from Main Street to a point beyond the Vick homestead. There are still many Rochester people living, who can recall traveling on this old stage in their childhood days, and especially remember the thrill which was theirs when they were allowed to blow the horn which announced the progress of the coach.
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Read before The Rochester Historical Society
December 11, 1891.

Where are now 76 and 78 East Avenue, one a pleasant dwelling and the other the luxurious quarters of the Rochester Club, stood fifty years ago, No.155 Main Street. It had been at an early day the farmhouse of Enos Stone, and was said to be the first mansion built in Rochester on the east side of the river. My father had bought it in 1832, and first occupied it in the spring of that year. In 1841 he had by various purchases, at a cost of $3,600, increased his demesne to about one acre of land, 200 feet front on the north side of Main Street and the same in depth. It was bounded east by Cherry, now Swan Street, and west by Gibb3 Street. The east fifty feet, on a line with the street end, was a neat, well-kept garden. West of this and two or three feet higher was a lawn. The rest of the lot was about five feet higher than the street, and separated from it, and sustained by a stone wall. The house was of wood, the main part two stories high, with a low wing at the west, the whole shaded by the protecting branches of a maple tree, which seemed to me then of colossal proportions. It might seem very different, could I see it now. The house, like most others of its time, was painted white, with green blinds. Painting was in its infancy, and the delightful harmony of colors, which now every-where refreshes the sight, was then unknown. Red brick and white wood, with blinds always green, afforded the only variety. The lot was rich in a profusion of fruit trees. I remember four whose boughs hung heavy every autumn with fall pippins, while prune and egg plums, cherries of various kinds, pears and peaches were abundant. It is a fact worthy of notice, that the fruit crop in those days almost never failed. The yield of one year was a fair criterion of that of the next. The luscious black and white hearts were just so full every year, and never failed to add their quota to the luxuries of July 4th. The favorite apple of that day was what we called the spitzenberg. It was in color a rich red, juicy, and of very fine flavor. I know that we used to store two barrels of that kind to one of any other. I understand that the variety is not now cultivated, but has been superseded by the Baldwin, which seems to me far inferior. Greenings, Seeknofurthers, Gillyflowers, Northern Spies and Russets were other favorites which added to the comfort of the long winter evenings. Subsequent cultivation seems not to have improved them, while the crop has grown less certain and more subject to failure than in that day. The same, I think is true of small fruits, such as raspberries, strawberries and currants. They were quite as fine as now; and it may be owing to the glamour which youth threw around them, but they seem to me to have been larger, and fairer, and sweeter than those of our own day.

As I remember the sanitary arrangements of the neighborhood, I am surprised at the physical vigor and health of its residents. Every house had its cesspool which seemed to collect and retain, rather than remove, the refuse matter committed to it. The wells yielded water heavy with lime and were subject to various pollutions, while the imperfect sewerage would not now be endured. It was said that the sewer fronting Chestnut Street had really no outlet. All these things waged war against the public health. But the men who came to face the wilderness were endowed with strength and courage, fitting them to brave all its dangers. The Erie Canal, too, a little south of us was also a source of disease. Its waters were stagnant during the hot months of summer. Instead of having a current as now of about three miles an hour, it had no movement whatever, and was fruitful of malaria in its different manifestations. Small-pox and cholera coming at intervals in frightful force, were the result of this utter disregard, or ignorance, of the laws of sanitation. I doubt if either of these diseases, so vast is the improvement in sewerage, could gain a foothold in Rochester today. Diseases of the lungs were far more prevalent than now; whether this was owing to imperfect drainage, whereby houses became damp, or to crude heating materials, a stove here and there through the house, some rooms cold and some warm, whereas now the heat is distributed evenly throughout, I cannot say. Perhaps also it was due in part to the existence of the forest surrounding the city on every side - increasing the precipitation of rain in summer and of snow in winter. All these causes doubtless had their weight in the general result. The winters, as it seems to me, came earlier, while they were colder than now, and with more snow. I remember several times during the cold season when from one day to three we were snowbound and the snow lay on the ground three or four feet in depth. On East Avenue, where are now palatial residences, the ground was marshy in some few places, and the water covering the earth to the depth of six to twelve inches, gave us good skating in winter. I remember particularly such a place, half marsh, half pond in the rear of Andrew Miller's house, on the southeast corner of Main and Union Streets. Perhaps it was these very dangers to which the pioneers were exposed that bound them together far more closely than we are now by their mutual needs, their common cares, and interests. As a rule every man on the avenue knew the history, the dwelling-place, and antecedents of every other. I think too that relief for the needy was more ready, and more generous than now, even if less systematized.

The change in public sentiment in Rochester during the last half century is very marked. Fifty years ago it was peculiarly a Puritan city and East Avenue was pervaded with that spirit. Its leading residents were nearly all zealous Presbyterians. The first thing, it has been often remarked, that the pioneers did on their entrance to a new country, was to build for their children a church, and then a schoolhouse. It was deemed in that day honorable for a man to be in his place in church at every service. Saturday evening was under the shadow of the Sunday, and regarded as sacred time. The novel was put aside; and the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress or some similar religious volume was taken up. The number of such books was small, and the road of Christian observance was still narrow and thorny. The religious novel which now reconciles self indulgence and conscience was then unknown. The Sunday walk for recreation was not quite respectable, and the good clergyman who had more influence then than now, insisted that the day was designed for the manservant and the maidservant as well as for the master, and that the horses should not be harnessed on that day: The community on the avenue not only believed this but, as a rule, lived up to it. How great the change when an eminent orator can address a crowded house, composed of the elite of Rochester, at the Lyceum Theatre on a Sunday evening, as to the merits of Shakespeare, without even a ripple of protest. Fifty years ago it would have been simply impossible. No one would dare to propose it, any more than he would urge a theatrical representation during church hours. An esteemed clergy-man of Rochester once suggested the idea that a man would do no ill who would confine his Sunday reading to the Bible and Shakespeare. Rochester's good people were greatly shocked at such teaching. Today, the theology would be deemed sound everywhere.

On Sunday, but a minimum of cooking was indulged in. Our breakfast was cold; at noon we had bread and butter-such a lunch as Emerson would have enjoyed-and at late dinner, meat and a good, hearty meal, which we approached with ravenous appetites. The enjoyment of the dinner repaid the self-denial of the prior hours. Evening service at that time was rare. The second meeting was almost uniformly at 2:30 and the frugal noontide meal was a help in digesting the second long sermon, which came at that time.

The evolution of the last fifty years is shown nowhere more than in the education of boys. At that time the school boy had no rights which the teacher was bound to respect. Treatment most cruel, too sickening to be described here, was common, and the worst of it was that parents felt bound to submit to it. Many of our citizens lament injuries which have impaired their usefulness for life, received at school under the barbarous tyranny of teachers, whose names are well known. Outrages were committed at the old Collegiate Institute, which today would subject a teacher to imprisonment for life, and render him an outlaw. Then he seemed to be just as much respected after a blow on a pupil's head, inflicting a life4ong injury, as he was before. It was a relic of barbarism, which the last few years have done away with forever. Some one has said that he would give little for that man's Christianity whose cat and dog were not the better for it. The treatment of dumb brutes, especially of that noblest animal, the horse, has wonderfully improved since then. I can remember scenes of cruelty in the public streets, in the heart of the city, which in that day attracted no attention, but would now exhaust the resources of the Humane Society in successful efforts for the punishment of the offender. It is something to remember with devout thankfulness that the progress of real Christianity which says to the meanest insect, "Go thy way; there is room in the world for me and thee," has so bettered the condition of the helpless everywhere. Kindness has now become the rule, while it was then the exception. The horse, too, has responded to it, and the vicious freaks of abused beasts, then so common, have become almost unknown. I venture to say that more persons were injured by vicious horses at that time than now in Rochester, although its streets were then so much more quiet and its population so much smaller.

The expense of living at that time was comparatively small. Two dollars a week for rent would command a very fair house.

To your gardener you paid six shillings a day, and a day then meant ten hours of faithful work beginning at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m. Eggs averaged a shilling a dozen, and a pound of butter commanded about the same price. One of the magnates of Rochester, and who was for one term its mayor, once asked me how much I thought it cost him to keep house the first year after his marriage. He said he lived comfortably and kept an exact account of every penny of his expenditures. At the end of the year he found that his entire expenses had been a trifle less than $300.

The use of tobacco was at that time almost universal. The man who did not chew it was an exception to the rule. The clergy, the judiciary, the doctors and lawyers, all indulged in it. The prominent ministers of Rochester, including one now a bishop, used occasionally to struggle against it, but like other men of sedentary habits, always yielded to its mastery. One day they would boast that they had given up the habit and exhort their young parishioners to do the same, but a few days after the distended cheek and the yellow lips would show that they were again conquered. The tobacco of that day was plain and strong, but it was unadulterated, and so less injurious than much that is called tobacco today. A good cheroot cost three cents, and the man who paid more than sixpence for a cigar would have been considered a bloated bondholder. The very best men to whom the community looked up with reverent esteem were tobacco chewers, and gave to its use the sanction of their powerful example. I could name many of this class who would be recognized as leaders in all that was pure and lovely and of good report.

It was about this time that the crusade against strong drink commenced. Its use theretofore had been almost universal. It was considered a good creature of the Lord; and the community was divided into two classes, the temperance men who used it in moderation and the intemperate who indulged to excess. Drunken men in the street were common. I well remember my terror in meeting them and my horror, when one morning we found one of them asleep on my father's porch. About this time John B. Gough commenced his campaign in favor of total abstinence. Those who heard him in that early day in the old First Methodist Church, when his power was greater and his polish less than afterwards, will remember with what absolute sway he held the crowd who rushed to hear him. He was a consummate actor and mimic. Such a combination of pathos and humor I think was never seen here. The tears and sobs of his audience alternated with their shouts of laughter, and a great reform began, the greatness of whose work will be appreciated by those who can compare the city of 1840 with the Rochester of today. I well remember Gough in that early day and as he afterwards appeared on the Athenaeum platform. He had become a polished platform orator, dignified in thought, appearance and delivery, but we missed the magic of his acting and the lifelike way in which in the earlier days he pictured the drunkard, his manhood, his resolves, his struggles, his sorrows and his triumphs. Rochester, more especially in her wives and children, owes to Gough a great debt of gratitude for the benefits introduced by the doctrine of total abstinence, of which he was almost the first vigorous apostle.

Whist then as now had its votaries in Rochester, although there was no place especially set apart for the exercise of this king of games. But Amon Bronson, Ellas Pond, Samuel G. Andrews, Isaac Moore, and others of that ilk, used to meet at each other's residences, or oftener, at Mr. Pond's office, and enjoy a quiet rubber. The scientific study of the game had made little progress in Rochester, and Pole and Cavendish were not yet known there. But it yielded the same comfort as now, although signaling for trumps and the modern refinements of the pastime, as yet were not. The first men above named played a good, strong, domestic game, made few misplays, and understood the rules and rigor of the game. Amon Bronson was perhaps the only one who never made a misplay. Whist players today refer to him with reverence, and quote his maxims. His name is oftener heard in the Rochester Whist Club than that of Cavendish, and you will hear there sententious whist proverbs uttered, followed by the words as "Bronson used to say" almost every evening. I remember Bronson as a student of physical science, a keen, deep, exact thinker, a man who loved to solve, and study and discuss great problems. It was a great treat to listen to him when he came, as he often did, for a chat to my father's office.

It would be a pleasure did time permit to speak (I had intended to give sketches of some) of those whom East Avenue then knew but now knows no more forever-of Rev. Dr. Albert G. Hall, with his strong brain and warm heart, doing the Master's work with all fidelity, beloved and esteemed by every one, and carrying with him a blessing to the families of his flock, whose influence for good remains, and will remain; of Ashbel W. Riley, William C. Bloss and Josiah Bissell, who were always on the right side of every political movement, putting their shoulders to the wheel of progress, eager workers for all that was worthiest and best; of Dellon M. Dewey, tireless, vigilant and industrious, a leader in every lofty enterprise; of Blythe and Benjamin, of the Moores, Samuel and Henry, of Charles S. Pardee and James Breck; of Levi Ward the courtly, with his delicate ruffles, and the only queue then worn in Rochester.

Nor would we willingly forget Selah Matthews, the learned lawyer and wise counselor, dignified in person but more dignified in character. We should recall with pleasure Silas 0. Smith, the polished gentleman, with the air that belongs to courts, yet always seeking the happiness of those about him, who gave to East Avenue that which is its chiefest ornament, a church which has grown from year to year, more and more radiant with blessings to the whole community.

Those whom I used to know and honor on this famous street, I cannot find there now. Many-a large majority have crossed the river to the silent shores whence none return, while others, a few, have sought new homes in what was then the far, now the near, West. It would be a task only attended with pain to attempt to trace them. I can remember only one householder still occupying the same mansion in which he dwelt half a century ago. Nehemiah Osburn must be now the oldest resident on East Avenue. By reason of strength he has passed the age of fourscore years, but still the evening of his life is enriched with all "that should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends."

I ought not to close this paper without referring to one whose funeral some of us attended only last week. Josiah W. Bissell was one of East Avenue's most generous benefactors. To him it owes even its name which he gave to it in 1844. After exhausting all his resources without effect to induce the city government to change the name from Main Street, he himself christened it East Avenue by placing signs with that title on the corner of every street from the Liberty Pole to the city limits. The name was new, dignified and appropriate, and gained popular favor at once. Mr. Bissell built several of the elegant mansions on the avenue, planted upon it long lines of shade trees and in many ways added to its value and beauty. His best monument, however, is the beneficent Home for the Friendless, to which he gave its very valuable site, as well as his care and interest through life, and which I doubt not will honor itself by doing something to perpetuate his memory. A superb notice of his life and work appeared in the Post-Express of December 4th, which it would be well to preserve among the archives of this society. *

Could we get a glimpse of old East Avenue, how still and quiet it would seem, how low and dingy the buildings, how gloomy the street at night, how few the footmen pacing its walks. Now it is filled with an ever-shifting train and close to it on either side sweep swiftly the great cars without any apparent motor, freighted with myriad lives. Every man seems absorbed in his own business and caring not who or where is his neighbor. We think as we gaze on it of the familiar lines of Bryant:

Each where his tasks or pleasures call,
They pass and heed each other not;
There Is who heeds and holds them all
In his large love and boundless thought.
 

"These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end."