While meandering through archived issues of the Democrat & Chronicle searching for some bit of trivia or another, I happened upon this 1983 story regarding the Beechwood neighborhood. A minor jog in the path of Melville Street where it meets Berwyn Street is described therein as a sort of delineation between part of the street that “went down” and was now rebounding versus the part that remained a quiet residential street.

Let’s take that analysis with the grain of salt it assuredly deserves, and instead see if we can trace the history of this anomaly in the roadway.

Above, the present layout of the streets.  “The Bend” can be seen above where Melville ticks slightly northward upon intersecting with the curvy Berwyn Street.  Similarly, but more drastically, Hazelwood Terrace is split into two parts.  As we will see, this is all due to incremental subdivision of the plots originally held as large estates by individual landowners.

The origins of The Bend, and Melville and Berwyn Streets as well, begin earlier than 1875.  This atlas shows the area, still mostly divided among large estates.  The largest lot was owned by Hosea Rogers; the perimeter of his lot would inform the future shape of many of the roads in this area.  We’ll come back to him later, however.

This area east of Plank Road (now Webster Avenue) would have been the easternmost part of the City of Rochester until after the annexation of Brighton east of Culver Road which previously marked the boundary with the adjacent town.

Yes, I did crop this to say “ASSES”.  I think that’s funny.  Sue me.

That was partially out of practicality, however; Hosea’s property stretched all the way to Bay Street and Culver Road:

Melville began its life as Melville Park, which then terminated at its eastern end where it butted up against the western edge of the large Hosea Rogers lot.

By this point the northern section of the former Hosea Rogers lot has been subdivided into neighborhoods.  The southern section of the lot at this time belonged to H. H. Craig, president of the Rochester Vulcanite Pavement Company.  Future street names are written on his lot in pencil.

After the complete subdivision of the former Hosea Rogers/H. H. Craig property, the three streets Melville Street, Meng Place, and Shaffer Street were extended eastward. Due to property line constraints, Melville and Meng were both forced to shift north; Melville Street, only slightly, resulting in the now-familiar “bend”. Meng Place, however, shifted some fifty feet north, resulting in a complete discontinuity.

In 1911, the name of Meng street was changed to Hazelwood Terrace. Shaffer Street, similarly, became Rosewood Terrace. Fancy! The streets, Meng and Shaffer, were named for the original families who lived along the streets, well-known for the founding of Meng & Shafer Hatters & Furriers, a long-time mainstay of Rochester’s downtown business center.

A new street, Berwyn Street, was cut north-south to adjoin the three streets. Its course was also beholden to the diagonal boundary of the former Hosea Rogers plot, causing a jog to the east just south of Meng Place’s western segment, before carrying on straight north at its eastern segment to terminate at Shaffer Street.

Okay, can I just express a tiny irritation?  Whoever digitized the Sanborn maps either didn’t notice or couldn’t do anything about some sort of small debris or defect in the scanner.  Thus, every single individual image has this weird gummi-bear shaped shadow in the middle.  It doesn’t block anything but it just makes me itch behind my eyes. 

Complaint over.

By 1911 a large frame structure has been built on the little nook defined by the eastern edge of Berwin, 200 Melville.

A duplicate structure to 200 Melville above had been erected by 1918, 175 Hazelwood.  175 Hazelwood is still extant:

So, who was Hosea Rogers, whose lands caused these strange shapes in the street map?

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Hosea Rogers, Shipbuilder

A reproduction of a print showing Hosea Rogers as he appeared, age 21, in 1833.

Hosea Rogers in a photograph taken circa 1902, two years before his death.

The above photograph is from a biography of Hosea Rogers by his granddaughter, Polly Tyler Frazier.

Hosea Rogers and his brother were trained by the famous local shipping captain and veteran of the War of 1812, John Trowbridge.

“Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Trowbridge was a sea captain. During the War of 1812, he was captured by the British and held prisoner in Calcutta, India, and then Dartmoor Prison in England. After the war, Trowbridge was released and went to Rochester, New York, where he owned a shipping business.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Todd_Trowbridge]

“On the east bank of the Genesee, at Carthage, Captain John Trowbridge built a fleet of schooners and trained the Rogers Brothers to be ship captains and boat-builders. The elder brother built their boats at a site near today’s Seneca Park. Hosea Rogers located his shipyard on the east bank, just north of this overlook. He built 14 vessels, naming 3 of them after each of his wives.”

[https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=90557]

Check out the source on the quote above for more bits about local boat-building.

“LAUNCH – We learn that Capt. Hosea Rogers will launch his new barque Oliver Culver, at 3 o’clock this afternoon, from the ship yard opposite Charlotte.  He has built one of the finest sailing craft that has ever been put upon the waters of our lake.  We hope the time is note distant when the building of ships will be an extensive business at our harbor, where there exists so many facilities for it.”

The barque Oliver Culver was of course named for the first Brighton supervisor and shipwright, Oliver Culver, who launched the schooner Clarissa on Lake Ontario in 1811.

A few vessels built by Rogers can be tracked, such as the schooner Joseph Cochrane:

Which sank in 1870 to be raised and written off: [https://www.wisconsinshipwrecks.org/Vessel/Details/326]

Or, the schooner S. T. Atwater:

The S. T. Atwater eventually wrecked in 1895.

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2689 St. Paul Street

Hosea Rogers would build himself a handsome brick house along Summerville Boulevard, which stands today at 2689 St. Paul Street.

St. Paul is the striped road in the map above; Hosea Rogers’ properties lie on either side.

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The Anchor

Hosea Rogers buried the anchor from his ship the Daniel Webster deep in his yard and used it as a hitching-post.

Edward S. Scheck of No. 34 Tyler Street wrote in to the Times-Union claiming his father dug the hole in which the anchor was buried. Scheck’s father was August Heinrich Scheck, who came from what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 1854;

August H. Scheck, his wife Charlotte Leffman Scheck, and their children lived for much of their lives at No. 33 Martin Street, in a neighborhood that is largely gone now [but that is fodder for a future post]:

The anchor was a popular thing for kids to come up and try to pull out of the ground which, honestly, can you imagine? What if one had succeeded?

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Rogers Estates

Hosea Rogers sold a great number of properties while developing the Summerville Boulevard Tract. After his death, the development would extend to the Rogers’ farm estates, and several new streets would be opened.

Scholfield was the maiden name of Asenath Rogers, wife of Hosea Rogers.

26 Feb 1928, Sun
[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/120757067/1852-realty-investment/]

This article is remarkable among newspaper errors, which are not uncommon, for stating 1852 as the year of purchase in the headline and then stating 1832 throughout the body text.

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Asenath Rogers

Hosea Rogers’ second wife, Asenath Rogers, was exceptionally long-lived. Her impressive longevity allowed Irondequoit to maintain a link with its storied past well into the 20th century.

Miss Polly Tyler, in costume above, clearly had a taste for the historical. She would go on to write a biography of her grandfather Hosea Rogers.

Friday, October 11, 1957
[https://www.newspapers.com/article/democrat-and-chronicle-asenath-obit-2/130387893/]

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Hosea Rogers School

Besides Rogers Parkway, Rogers’ name also lives on in the Rogers Middle School, known in the past as the Hosea Rogers School, which at the time served a full range of students, not just middle schoolers.

Once again, a fascinating glimpse into how the events of the past affect the shape of the present. One influential settler’s land claims inform the streets and houses we now dwell within; it’s almost a strange sort of temporal power. Although unconscious and uncontrolled, Hosea Rogers’ will is yet felt upon the place through force of legal history.

It’s these small things which keep me coming back to the well of history for another heady draught. I can’t even walk along an everyday street without some unique characteristic drawing my eye and making me wonder. Knowing the story of the past is, in many ways, like augmenting one’s vision to see a fourth dimension–time–where one can detect patterns those without that knowledge cannot.

It’s cool.

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