Category: Cemeteries
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In our last edition of Gonechester, we touched upon the Warner Observatory, an astronomical observatory on East Avenue at Arnold Park which was funded in large part by Hulbert Harrington Warner. Warner, a quite wealthy man with great import in the Rochester business community, was initially a producer of safes, but later pivoted to a…
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Updated September 19th, 2026 Every now and then, I come across names of streets which have long ceased to be. Sometimes those streets literally stopped existing; other times, they were devoured by larger, more traffic-heavy streets; sometimes, they were simply renamed. So it was when I was stumbled upon several entries in 1830s Rochester city…
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This is the second part of my presentation, “Lost in Highland Park”, commissioned by the Highland Park Conservancy. I presented this at their annual meeting on April 29th, 2026, and have been posting the contents piecemeal via this blog. You may click the following link to access Lost in Highland Park Pt. 1: The Foreman’s…
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The old and venerable Blossom Hotel stood on the north side of Main Street, near the corner of St. Paul Street. A respite for travelers along road or canal, the Blossom Hotel enjoyed a high profile reputation. Wamsley Brothers was comprised of Joseph, Thomas, and Edward Wamsley, milliners and silk merchants. The Wamsleys moved their…
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In honor of the self-selected birthday of Frederick Douglass, I spent an agonizing amount of time digging into the history of his briefly-held home on Alexander Street. Long now lying as a parking lot, this unremarkable site on the west side of Alexander Street had a long history–much of which is quite difficult to piece…
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Updated September 18th, 2026. 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…
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Death is deep. Deeper, even, than the grave. Long after their lives have ended, the remains and memories of the dead are still in the care of the living–and often left to specific individuals. An immense amount of trust is placed in the hands of the grave-keepers and cemetery sextons; they are tasked with maintaining…