Since last time we did the northeast corner of East Main Street and Culver, why not do the even more historic northwest corner, just across Culver Road. This started out as the very old and rustic farmstead of the Schanck family, a prominent pioneer family whose Brighton home was early gobbled up by Rochester’s eastward expansions, and afterwards sat on the very border of the two conurbations, where East Main Street crossed it.

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The Schancks

Born in 1791, Hendrick Von Brunt Schanck came from New Jersey to Brighton in 1830, and built a wooden house at the eastern extent of his property line, corresponding to present-day Culver Road. Schanck’s family was very old Dutch-American stock, having emigrated from the Netherlands some five generations previous during the 17th century. Schanck’s own father, John Schanck, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

A wildly successful farmer, Schanck was the first to bring peaches to the area by driving them all the way from Jersey and planting a full orchard of them on his farm.

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The Cobblestone House

The cobblestone addition to Schanck’s house was built by a mason named Alonzo Bradley in 1839, out of stones found on the farmland during its clearing. The wooden interior structure was all oak, fastened with hand-carved wooden pegs and hand-forged nails. Alonzo Bradley married Schanck’s daughter Sarah.

Alonzo Bradley was known to have built at least two other known cobblestone structures in Rochester and Irondequoit, one of which is still extant: the house at No. 1090 Culver Road, corner of Grand Avenue:

This was built at the same time as another structure, the cobblestone schoolhouse that once stood at the confluence of Culver, Bay, and Merchants Roads. Apparently, cobblestone structures were commonly built in pairs, with work on laying courses of cobblestone continuing at the second site while previously-laid courses set at the first site, and vice-versa. In this way, two buildings were able to be efficiently built simultaneously.

The schoolhouse was torn down in 1912, and the land reverted to its original owners, the McGonagal family.

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Caleb K. Hobbie, Jr.

One of Hendrick Schanck’s daughters, Gertrude J., married Caleb Knapp Hobbie, Jr., a neighboring farming family, and the cobblestone Schanck house fell to them.

He had the honor of dropping the last brick into place when paving was finally completed along East Main Street east of Goodman Street to Culver Road:

Hobbie died October 5th, 1900; his wife would follow a scant time after, February 25th, 1902.

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Chester D. U. Hobbie

Chester D. U. Hobbie was a son of Caleb and Gertrude Hobbie, and the house would become his for a period of time, along with his wife Josephine Orcutt Hobbie.

As of the 1916 directory, Chester and Josephine Hobbie had moved to 32 Quincy Street, a street that had been cut through land that was once part of Schanck farmland, his grandfather’s quiet geographic legacy.

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John P. McDonald

The cobblestone house on the corner of Culver would become the home of Captain of Detectives for the Rochester Police Department, John Patrick McDonald.

McDonald’s career with the police department was long, beginning back in 1887. In his early days he had tussled with such notorious criminal characters as “Ance” Godwin and “Little Smithy”, who liked to assault people and engage in extended fisticuffs.

McDonald married Agnes B. Herbert in 1915, and soon afterwards the couple moved into the cobblestone house.

McDonald would retire from the police force in 1935:

McDonald died August 14, 1937.

Agnes McDonald would live at No. 821 for nearly a decade after her husband’s death, until her own passing on November 18th, 1946, at which point the property would pass to her brother Valentine H. Herbert.

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The End Years

For several years, No. 821 Culver Road stood empty, overseen by a realty group, J. C. Goutremout Corp. The home was a target for arsonists and mischievous children, not that they were necessarily distinct groups.

The below 1950 Sanborn map would unwittingly portray the last year of existence for the historic cobblestone home.

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Treat’s Tydol Station

At long last, the time had come for history to give way to modern commercial enterprise. The Main Street corner proved too valuable a commodity in the age of the automobile, where every corner lot was eyed for a service station. 1951 witnessed the cobblestone structure laid low by machine and hammer-wielding man.

Porter Eliga Treat would end up purchasing the lot, calling the station “Treat’s Tydol” or “Treat’s ‘Flying A’ Service’”.

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And Unto the Present…

An Eckerd drugstore location would be built on the lot, taking out multiple houses to the west of the former gas station. 

The Eckerd would become a Rite Aid for a while.  I didn’t really bother to get exact dates for the drugstores and dollar stores swapping out, because that’s hardly the most interesting part. The house that had drawn my interest was long gone–the gas station that replaced it, also long gone. This ungainly commercial temple in their place still stands, and so my interest wanes rapidly.

But so it goes; once this was the middle of a field, strewn with smooth stones laid by the great glaciers of the Ice Ages. They were gathered together to build a home, and together served a communal purpose. Just as easily they were dispersed, smashed apart by the demolition men. Where are those stones now? Backfill, infill, rubble for some foundation? Gone to ballast.

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