Something has always fascinated me about buried waterways. Perhaps it’s the idea that the persistent flow of water over millennia–long enough to carve deep gorges in the landscape–could be stymied in such short order by human action. Perhaps it’s because even human action doesn’t seem like enough to stop the flow of even the most humble creek entirely; sometimes it seems extraordinary that a creek so strangled by urban development could yet survive in some form. Where does it all come from? Is it even possible to stop the flow completely?

Throughout my researches into my own general neighborhood, I repeatedly saw references to Thomas Creek. Of course, I was curious; much of its indicated course was through an area very familiar to me, and yet I did not recall any signs of a creek. Not so much as a roadside culvert! I began collecting clues. I was surprised by how many questions were answered by my investigations–things I’d always wondered about idly.

Without further ado, I share with you my survey of Brighton’s buried creek, Thomas Creek.

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The Source

In today’s urbanized landscape, it’s difficult to tell exactly where Thomas Creek rises.  Some older sources name Pinnacle hill as the source of Thomas Creek; it is the highest elevation of the Rochester hills, and any water flowing from the hill would run northeast towards Irondequoit Bay.

Pinnacle Hill is the highest point in Brighton at 748.7 feet above sea level.  It is part of a “retreatal moraine”–a series of hills formed on the edge of the receding Wisconsin Glacier 12,000 years ago–extending from Rochester to Albion in Orleans County.

This old postcard seems to support the idea of Thomas Creek rising on Pinnacle Hill: a stream runs down the side of Pinnacle Hill visible from Cobbs Hill, the reservoir to the northeast.

There is also this 1822 map of Monroe County which shows a waterway called “Mud Creek” which seems to roughly correspond to the course of Thomas Creek.  It indeed rises in the Pinnacles–seemingly in the lower elevations between the two westernmost hills, which perhaps serve as a watershed–before crossing the road, just as shown by the postcard above.  Perhaps there’s something to this. 

Note that the Pinnacles are referred to as “Mt. Hor” on this map. I’ve been looking into that for quite some time and I’ll probably do a post going into Mt. Hor in depth in the future. The name is Biblical, from the mountain where Moses’ brother was buried, and the name stuck for some time as a name for Cobb’s Hill. But again, that’s for another post.

The scale is pretty extreme so it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact starting location, but the area where “Mud Creek” rises on the map seems to correspond roughly to the modern junction of Goodman Street and Pinetum Drive.

Most likely, any stream running down Pinnacle Hill would have ended up in the Eastern Widewaters, where Lake Riley is now.  There is too little evidence for a stream on Pinnacle Hill from any other sources or maps, so for now I will treat Thomas Creek as originating roughly from The Eastern Widewaters, AKA Lake Riley.  Numerous sources say Thomas Creek “starts at the Canal near Homer Street” which would seem to corroborate this view.

The above 1852 map of Brighton shows the source of Thomas Creek as split branches, the western one beginning north of the Erie Canal and passing under East Avenue to the north. The eastern one, however, starts south of the canal and passes underneath it, presumably via culvert. Is it possible the waters still flow through a conduit beneath the modern highway? I dunno.

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The Name “Thomas Creek”

The 1858 Gillette’s Map of Monroe County has the name “O. Thomas” near Thomas Creek; this is the homestead of Oliver Thomas, pioneer Brighton farmer. Thomas Creek was given his name due to flowing through a large swathe of his land.

By the below 1872 map, the homestead has passed to Oliver’s son George Washington Thomas:

The Thomas homestead appears to have been on Merchants Road. By 1902 it belonged to John McDonald:

Extrapolating forwards, the old Thomas/McDonald homestead would have been at the site of present-day No. 258 Merchants Road:

George Washington Thomas, son of Oliver Thomas and the namesake of Thomas Creek, died September 12th, 1914.

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The Course

A second branch of Thomas Creek is visible on the property of Anna Gould, meeting with the main branch just south of the N.Y.C. & H. R. Railroad culvert.

“South Ave” and “North Ave” are modern Winton Road. Thomas Creek originates on the map around the intersection of Harvard and Homer Streets, just north of the Eastern Widewaters. From there, it crossed north under Park Avenue, then north again through the property of Thomas E. Blossom, then was culverted north across East Avenue, whereupon it filled the famous Willow Pond at George Chapman’s property. From the pond it flowed northeast under the N.Y.C. & H.R. railroad tracks before veering northwards at a Blossom Road culvert. Travelling northwards parallel to North Avenue [now Winton Road] the waters would be diverted east under North Avenue to provide water to the swan pond at the Brown Bros. Nursery at Corwin Road. From the pond, Thomas Creek was again culverted back west under North Avenue, travelled northward below both University Avenue [now Atlantic Avenue] and Merchants Road, whereupon it would meander northeast to the scenic gulch of Palmer’s Glen.

All links above represent my best estimations for approximate modern locations on Google Maps, based on map comparisons. On a modern map of Rochester, it would be vaguely the below course, flowing south to north. Please keep in mind all the guesstimation I’m utilizing here, I think my methods are fairly rigorous but I’m not perfect.

To the northeast of Palmer’s Glen, Thomas Creek meets up with Irondequoit Creek, their waters mingling and draining into the Irondequoit Bay.

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Thomas Blossom’s Creek

An advertisement for the property of William Chapin, whose home once stood on this land beside the creek.

Amazingly, there’s a portion of the southern part of Thomas Creek still in daylight. I’m not sure if there’s an artificial water source feeding this ornamental creek, and I did not receive any sufficient answers to my inquiries.

Despite its small stature, even this meager segment of Thomas Creek managed to make its presence felt in the papers–albeit, not for the nicest of reasons: a baby was found in a zippered bag in the dry creek bed on a cold December in 1943. Uncertain at first who the mother was, the baby was named “Colby East” by hospital staff after the intersection closest to where the foundling was discovered.

Let’s hope everything turned out well for both Colby East and his mother, about whom I can find absolutely no more information.  I can’t imagine he kept the name Colby East but, then again, maybe he did.  Maybe there’s a whole line of Easts out there, of which he is patriarch.  Stranger things. 

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Willow Pond

The Willow Pond was one of the most celebrated beauty spots of Brighton.

According to several sources, W. D. Hayes, an insurance agent, constructed the Willow Pond on his property. However, the Willow Pond’s presence on maps predating Hayes’ residence gives me pause. Perhaps he is to be credited with the luxurious improvements, such as the island and bridges.

Above, the Willow Pond is drawn in an 1872 map of Brighton Centre. George Chapman, a nurseryman, owns the property at this point. He used the pond partially for the cutting and sale of ice.

Note that on the property of Dr. H. H. Covell one can see the second Thomas Creek branch running between two culverts, complete with a small bridge.

The Willow Pond was considered to be a scenic treasure of Brighton, often a spot for festivities and a common stop for tours. Many postcards were printed of the winsome lake, and numerous photographs taken–even by such landmark photographers as Charles Zoller and well-known D&C photographer Albert R. Stone.

On to the newspapers! There’s sure to be plenty of nice events at such a beautiful place.

Ah. Well, that’s a dark start. Let’s find some nicer stuff.

Some winter scenes of Willow Pond, above.

In 1925, Gordon E. Thing (vice president of the Union Trust Co.) sued the city of Rochester due to Thomas Creek drying up after subway bed construction along the former canal. It was especially grave since Thomas Creek had been partially fed by canal leakage, which now was no longer available. Willow Pond, with no fresh water flowing in, grew stagnant.

A scene of a car tour on East Avenue next to the Willow Pond, 1911.

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Across Blossom, Along Winton

A snippet which describes a resident’s recollection of the course of old Thomas Creek from Willow Pond, up Carling, along Winton, to Brown’s Duck Pond. It also mentions the pharmacy of my great-grandfather John F. O’Brien and his son, my grandfather, John C. O’Brien, so I had to leave that in.

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Browncroft Park

The waters of Thomas Creek fed a duck/swan pond on the site of the Brown Brothers’s Nursery. Charles J. Brown, nurseryman, created the pond by digging out a horseshoe bend in Thomas Creek.

A difficult-to-see diagram of the Brown Brothers property. North Street, or Winton Road, is parallel to the bottom, University Avenue [Atlantic Avenue] diagonal at left. The pond is at bottom right, corner of North Street [Winton] and Dorchester Road. One can see the two culverts under North Street [Winton], carrying Thomas Creek to and from the pond. Eventually, Corwin Road would be cut through the northern part of the property along University [Atlantic] Avenue, and houses would be built there.

Mr. Brown died in 1933. His organization was bankrupt. Browncroft Park, between Corwin Road and Dorchester Road, was left completely unattended. The duck pond eventually became stagnant and a breeding place for mosquitoes. The bank, which had taken over the land, responded to complaints by filling in the pond in the 1940’s. The remainder of the park was neglected and became overgrown and ‘jungle-like’.

[http://browncroftna.org/extensions]

Mr. Brown died in 1933. His organization was bankrupt. Browncroft Park, between Corwin Road and Dorchester Road, was left completely unattended. The duck pond eventually became stagnant and a breeding place for mosquitoes. The bank, which had taken over the land, responded to complaints by filling in the pond in the 1940’s. The remainder of the park was neglected and became overgrown and ‘jungle-like’.

[http://browncroftna.org/extensions]

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North of Atlantic

The green swathe along the left side of the map is the Thomas Creek Overflow Sewer. Based on recollections by residents, prior to 1950 the sewer also served as a footpath, and one could cross underneath East Main Street by following it. The 1918 map seems to corroborate this.

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Winton Road Library

The decaying, shallow sewer which carried Thomas Creek’s waters north from Browncroft Park presented a problem in completing the planned Winton Road Library parking lot. Originally, the design called for a large parking lot and driveway to the west of the library building, on the north side of Atlantic Avenue. Investigating the property led architects to conclude that the costs of repairing or filling in the decaying sewer were too high for the budget, instead changing the lot to a smaller one on the north side of the library with a driveway access from Winton Road. The original planned site of the lot remains greenspace to this day.

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Mayfield to Merchants

One can see how the course of old Thomas Creek informs the shapes of modern structures. Linear Garden, a greenspace between Mayfield Street and East Main Street, seems to owe its existence to the Thomas Creek sewer. To the north of East Main Street, the shape and placement of the Merchants-Main Plaza parking lot looks to have been a direct result of working around the covered pipe.

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Towards Palmer’s Glen

After crossing under Merchants Road, the Thomas Creek sewer passes under another swathe of green space stretching between Merchants and Royleston road:

After that, Thomas Creek passes under Winton Road at Royleston/Winstead Road, then continues along under Marsden Road until reaching the Tryon Park area. This area was once Palmer’s Glen.

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Palmer’s Glen

This person recalls the Judson “Woods”, which is mentioned a few times in the Democrat & Chronicle as “Judson’s Glen”. By the timeline, it would have had to have been in the 1860’s or so when it was called that.

At one point the land belonged to Asa Dunbar, considered to be the first Black settler in the Rochester area.

Palmer’s Glen was, for much of its recorded history, owned by the celebrated James Palmer, whose fireworks manufactory was located south of East Main Street, west of [what is now] Palmer Street.

In 1911 the City of Rochester purchased Palmer’s Glen as an easement for a storm-water overflow pipe from the East Side Trunk Sewer. And as a “public park”, I guess. At last, one of the fiercest litigants against the city’s sullying of Thomas Creek was gone from the equation. Sewage and garbage were free to dump into Palmer’s Glen unhindered.

Regardless of the gorge’s historical significance, under the watchful eye of the City of Rochester the Glen became a dumping ground. Garbage, waste, and infill from construction projects were dumped into the Glen, which began to spread an unwelcome miasma to neighboring streets.

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A Scenic Span?

A plan was in the works during the 1920s to span the width of Palmer’s Glen gorge with segments of the old retired Clarissa Street bridge.

Though supported by a majority of the homeowners in the area, the bridge project cost far too much. Instead, the part of the gorge where the roadway cut through was simply filled in. This set a hell of a precedent.

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The Glen, Buried

From 1959 through the early sixties, a massive infill project was undertaken at Palmer’s Glen, filling a 600-foot swathe of the scenic gorge for the purposes of Outer Loop construction.

It is noted in the article above that pipes had been laid along the course of the creekbed “decades ago” in an attempt to direct the majority of Thomas Creek’s flow into the Tryon Park treatment plant, with only minimal success. The filling in of Palmer’s Glen necessitated the construction of a large pipeline to carry Thomas Creek beneath the surface.

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On to Irondequoit Creek?

After all that, it’s difficult to determine if the waters of Thomas Creek end up at their traditional destination of Irondequoit Creek near its mouth on Irondequoit Bay, or if they’ve been diverted to some uncertain place.

This 2012 satellite imagery [with 1935 Plat for visualization] seems to have been taken in autumn. The relative lack of leaf cover shows creekbeds still incised in the landscape.

This satellite image is from 2021, seemingly during the winter or very early spring. The creek beds can again be seen; they seem to correspond exactly to where Thomas Creek was drawn on maps. The waters do indeed seem to reach Irondequoit Creek.

In a spirit of endeavor, I set out on a jaunt around Tryon Park to see if I could find any traces of Thomas Creek, and to determine whether it actually met Irondequoit Creek. I stopped short at some very steep terrain, so my mission was not entirely successful; however, I got some shots of the minute trickle of water which remains of Thomas Creek.

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Toxic Thomas

Why did so many of these beloved natural features get buried? Well, Thomas Creek always represented a bit of an environmentalist struggle. Late in the 19th century complaints began rolling in from Brightonian landowners that their waterways, ponds, even wells were being contaminated by sewage from Rochester. Much of the sewer waters of eastern Rochester, such as those from Monroe Avenue, were sluiced down into natural waterways, of which Thomas Creek was one.

Complaints were ignored until they eventually reached the governor of New York, who intervened on behalf of Brighton. Rochester was forced to pay damages and address the flow of sewage into Brightonian waterways. Their hands tied, Rochester hired Emil Kuichling to construct the East Side Trunk Sewer, connecting numerous smaller sewers and former open sewers into a single channel. Though originally intended to disgorge effluvium a mile out into Lake Ontario, it instead belched it onto the banks of the Genesee.

While this took care of the issue for a while, in the early 1900s the waters of Thomas Creek began stinking anew. A concrete sewer pipe had been built connecting the East Side Trunk Sewer to Thomas Creek; this was the Atlantic Avenue Overflow Sewer. The original purpose of the connection was to allow excess overflow waters from heavy rains to spill over into Thomas Creek. Eventually, in practice, it contaminated Thomas Creek with sewage every time it rained.

…which seems like an easy thing to foresee happening.

It was a running battle between Brighton’s vanishing waterways and Rochester’s growing population. Numerous water treatment solutions were devised throughout the decades; the Brighton water treatment plant; the former Tryon plant and pumping station; holding cisterns below the streets which would prevent sewage overflow in all but the worst storms. But the solution that worked for Rochester most effectively was to simply annex the troubled territories and fill them in. Nobody complains about the quality of water in a pipe, deep underground!

So that’s Thomas Creek, beginning to end. Once a bubbling trout brook, now a minor trickle traveling below the streets for miles. Not stopped, but hidden from view. One can’t help but feel a pang of loss to consider it.

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