Group 14621, part 4: Carthage
Year Incorporated: 1834
Ward: 5
Population: 32,728 overall
Distance traveled: 13.2 miles[/su_box]
This neighborhood has gone by many names over the years: Athens, Thousand Acre Tract, Clyde, Brewer’s Dock, North Rochester, Lower Town, and Butterhole. The designation of Carthage is most noteworthy of all because it reflects the area’s most prosperous era and the one which most of us native to Rochester learn about in grade school. It was, in many ways, the closest runner-up to Rochesterville in commerce, growth, and most likely to become the county seat. Some last-minute politicking with relation to the course of the Erie Canal sealed its fate, and we are left with the neighborhood that once was something grander.
Carthage became a settlement in 1809, when Caleb Lyon first endeavored to clear the dense forest. Prior to that year very few people had attempted to lay claim to the land. Local Seneca hunting teams had camped nearby where the St. Paul 104 off ramp is now, but those camps were seasonal. Some texts mention white “squatters” who were driven away as more log homes were constructed.
There was a time prior to this when the dream of a metropolis along the Genesee captured the imagination of men of means. Tracing the provenance of this land after it was swindled from the care of the Seneca can be tricky. We know the names of Phelps and Gorham, who originally held title after the British (and thus their Iroquois allies) lost the Revolutionary War. To the east of the river land was deeded to Robert Morris, the ultra-wealthy land speculator from Philadelphia who previously had been a US Senator, Superintendent of Finance, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Morris, whether intentional or not, had flipped the property to the Pulteney Estate, a foreign-run land corporation. Morris used his profits to buy an additional Phelps and Gorham tract, which in 1791 had been surveyed and named Athens and for a very brief moment in our history our regional destiny was aimed in a very different direction. Alas this financial titan of his day, supposedly on par with Alexander Hamilton, failed to see the financial Panic of 1792 on the horizon which froze much of the land speculation during the 1790s. The land switched hands to the Holland Land Company, with Morris retaining a portion. The metropolis of Athens never panned out, and Morris died long before the quiet village of Mount Morris bore his name.
St. Paul’s Evangelical Church, founded in 1864.
Speaking of names, Carthage is full of references to its original settlers. Elisha Strong, Herman Norton, Dolly Hooker, Joshua Conkey, Elisha Beach, Seth Green, and many of their extended families were all present in the earliest days of the settlement and each has prominent streets carrying their name. Incidentally, the Strong family of early Carthage and Rochester is, in various ways, our own Roosevelt family. They make a name for themselves, first as fur trappers, then as publishers, bankers, judges, politicians; their collective resume continues on and on until we get to the far reaches of a particular branch where we can finally add “toy collector and philanthropist”, the latter being the Strong we’re most immediately thankful for. Yet the others’ contributions can’t be easily dismissed. Without Henry Alvah Strong we wouldn’t have Eastman Kodak (a story I’ll tell at a later date). The other names – Hooker, Beach, Norton, and so on – prompt stories which weave in and out of the histories of the other families. It was Strong who teamed up with Norton, Beach and Alexander Hooker to form the original land company which would parcel out the settlement for sale to others. They would often conduct business at Green’s Tavern, once the oldest known building in Rochester, and named after the family of Seth Green. This first and second generation of Carthage “elite” would seem to have their hands in every affair in town, and for several decades their prominence seemed guaranteed. In the end, it all came down to a war of infrastructure – which village had the best ability to get its product to market. Dominance would only be guaranteed for as long as your competition was lagging behind.
Let’s discuss infrastructure. King’s (Hanford’s) Landing was the first settlement in the Genesee area, and on paper it was destined to become a dominant port. It’s location, near Kodak Park now, was far north of the waterfalls and thus, for a while, it was easier for Rochesterville to cart its exports over land to this spot. King’s Landing had a major flaw: everyone was dying. An often-lethal ailment known as Genesee Fever swept through the settlement, and the cause seemed to be tied to the location. This was a massive leg up for Carthage; it was still beyond the last of the waterfalls and didn’t seem to experience the same plagues as King’s Landing. The downside being that goods and people still had to cross the river from Rochesterville. There was a merchant’s road that lead from Canandaigua to Carthage, and eventually to Summerville, which handled shipping east of the river. In 1813 the state legislature allocated $5000 to finish Ridge Road from the river to Lewiston, though when completed the road was less than ideal for trade. In 1819 the two Ridge Roads were connected by what was, at that time, a contender for the eighth wonder of the modern world. It spanned the river at a height of 196 feet with a single wooden arch, which over time proved to be inadequate to hold its own weight. It lasted 1 year and three months, which was 3 months longer than the builders’ warranty. This was followed by a bridge spanning the flats between the Middle and Lower Falls, which briefly united Carthage with McCrackenville until a flood swept it away in 1835. In 1856 the city took a crack at spanning the gorge again with a 208-foot tall suspension bridge. This attempt lasted only 9 months. The current span, known as the Veterans Memorial Bridge, was completed in 1931 and has so far lasted about 90 times longer than its predecessors. I can’t overlook the Driving Park bridge, which was completed in 1890 and helped fill the void in river crossings at the time. Perhaps the most interesting infrastructure innovation was the horse-drawn railroad. Completed in 1833 and only in operation for roughly seven years, it nonetheless appeared cutting edge for its time, and drew quite a bit of interest from residents of both Carthage and Rochester. All of the above examples of commercial infrastructure were inadequate to compete with the Erie Canal, which arrived in Rochester in 1824. This sealed the fate of Carthage, now destined to be swallowed whole by the ever-expanding Rochester, though the neighborhood identity wouldn’t die so quickly.
Carthage post-annexation still had plenty to offer the world. Genesee Valley might have been mistaken for an early incarnation of Silicon Valley when Western Union, the company that connected the world by telegraph, was born in Carthage. Hiram Sibley teamed up with Ezra Cornell (known later for an unassuming little institution of higher learning based in the hills of Ithaca) to hatch their plan of world communication out of a stately home near where Huntington Park is now. A direct line can be drawn from the events on Saint Paul Street to the purchase of Alaska, as Western Union’s laying of a wire to Siberia prompted the United States to purchase the territory from Russia.
The centennial anniversary of Carthage was marked with pomp and nostalgia for its halcyon days. A Carthage Memorial Fountain was placed at the corner of Saint Paul and Norton Streets to commemorate the occasion. This fountain served dual purpose as it disguised a sewer vent stack, though seven years later it was cut short so only the base remained. The fountain lasted until 1931, and since then various other tributes to the thriving village have popped up, only to be neglected or forgotten eventually.
Gone were the days of feverish trade of flour and leather with Canadian ports. The area formerly known as Carthage at first dabbled with more idyllic pursuits like nurseries and farms. This village within a city still teemed with life, and over the years saw new amenities pop up here and there. Certain institutions followed, a few of which would have a lasting impact on Rochester through the present.
School For The Deaf
In the 19th century children who were deaf had few options for a normal education. Often they would end up in the county’s poor house, or if they were fortunate they’d attend one of the few deaf schools in the nation. Early in the century New York was lucky to have one such school, located in Palmyra. Throughout the following decades educational need still outpaced availability, and by the time a young Carolyn Perkins was school-aged, her parents were ready to act. This next bit is going to sound like six degrees of separation, so bear with me. Carolyn was born in Rochester in 1868 to Gilman and Caroline Perkins, the latter being the child of wealthy businessman Aaron Erickson. The Perkins’ wealth afforded them a private tutor for young Carolyn by the name of Mary Nodine, then fiancé to Dr. Zenas Westervelt. The doctor was a teacher at a deaf school in Maryland, and had been surveying western New York to determine the need for a deaf school here. The Perkins family, backed by the family fortune, convinced the Westervelts to move to Rochester and start their own deaf school on the condition that it be open to the public; that is, there would not be a tuition requirement. Shortly before Carolyn’s eighth birthday the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes opened to the public, initially at the corner of South Ave and Court Street. Enrollment exploded and within a year they had moved to Saint Paul Street.
Aside from a fire that destroyed a portion of the campus in 1881, the school grew exponentially over the following years. As the city expanded around them, the school followed suit, buying parcels for buildings or athletic fields, even a farm. Other large expansions took place in the 1930s, 60s and 70s. Beside their excellent record of education over a century and a half, the school has left a lasting legacy on American Sign Language through what’s known as the Rochester Method, which teaches sign based around finger spelling and written English. The other noteworthy result of the School For The Deaf’s success is the need for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT, which opened in 1965. Though Carolyn probably hadn’t realized the blessings she had bestowed upon her city through her deafness, I do visit her grave often and offer thanks for what her and her family have done for Rochester.
Kodak Hawkeye Plant and Bridgehead
Situated at the head of the Driving Park bridge, Kodak’s Hawkeye plant has a few stories to tell. It began as Blair Camera Company (est. 1878), the maker of the popular Hawk-eye camera. In 1898 Blair was purchased by Kodak, and the company expanded the Hawk-eye line. Early city listings refer to this building as the Photo Material Co. (est. 1892), then Blair Camera Co., along with the American Camera Manufacturing Company, before the permanent “Hawk-eye Works” name was used in 1911. Various expansions eventually added up to 759,000 square feet and the recognition as one of the premier examples of Factory Art Deco style. Production exploded here, especially during the World War II-era, and with good reason: reconnaissance is as much a part of war as food, armor or weapons. It wasn’t until 2011 that Rochester would learn how important Hawkeye was to the Cold War, in particular.
Bridgehead was the code name for this highly-classified project, named so after the plant’s location. From 1955 until as late as 2000 over eight million feet of film for the U.S. government was processed here. Kodak, in partnership with NASA and other interests had pushed the technological envelope beyond the imagination of ordinary citizens by bringing photography to space. Special spy satellites were outfitted with Kodak technology and aimed at targets within the USSR before dropping the used film back to earth, to be intercepted by aircraft and brought back to Rochester for development. A series of satellites with names like CORONA, SAMOS and GAMBIT were first outfitted with Kodak film and later with their cameras. Interestingly, the SAMOS program involved a process that would partially develop film in space so that the images could be transmitted back to Earth. Though the actual reconnaissance technology would come up short, NASA realized the tech would be perfect to transmit lunar images to Earth for their Apollo program. Staff who worked on the Bridgehead project were sworn to secrecy until the details were declassified in 2011. Until then, the Hawkeye plant was just another Kodak building. The site became vacant in 2011, only to be sold in 2018 and is partially occupied by an international trade business.
The remainder of this neighborhood was, for the most part, boring when compared to the activities within the Hawkeye plant. It was, in many ways, its own little village within Rochester, and residents went about their business like anywhere else. Whereas the old Carthage village was centered around Saint Paul and Norton, or Brewers Dock near the river, in the 20th century little hubs of activity sprung up elsewhere. Conkey Ave was its own little urban village. At the southern end of this thoroughfare was Hickok Belt Company, maker of belts and notably the Hickok Belt Award, which for decades was a high honor to receive in the sports world. At Conkey and Clifford there was a butcher, and later the Conkey Grill, open for many years and known for one of the best fish fries in town. Before this area was a food desert there was a Hart’s Grocery, later Star Market at Avenue A and Conkey, which was only a stone’s throw from the old School #8. If the kids weren’t buying candy at Hart’s they were likely headed up to the Avenue D Rec Center, which seemed to surround and later take over the corner occupied by Michelson’s (and later Mangurian’s) Furniture Co.
The northeast section of the city has a reputation for fine historic churches, and Carthage is no exception. Saint Paul’s Evangelical Church (pictured above, now Jesus Christ the Chief Cornerstone Church) was built in 1906 for a congregation that dated back to the Civil War era. My favorite church in the neighborhood has to be Saint Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, now known as Free Deliverance Church of God in Christ. The St. Matthew’s congregation formed in 1890 but hadn’t located to this building until 1925. The iconic bell tower looms over Brewer Street, and the constant white noise of the Middle Falls creates an air of tranquility, offering an ideal exit environment from any Sunday service.
Carthage seems to have fallen on hard times, as evidenced by the fire-damaged mansions that stick out like a sore thumb from the top of the Genesee gorge. What was once an esteemed competitor for Rochester’s commerce is now just another neighborhood, albeit with more historic markers indicating what once was. For many who live here, this place isn’t a pass-through to the beach, it’s home. Gone are the switchback roads to the docks, or the towering fountain in the public square, replaced by asphalt and subsidized housing. Yet this area has still seen worse times. I remember back when I was 16 and taking a safe driving course, and the instructor let me drive wherever I wanted to get the experience. Unknowingly I aimed for Conkey Ave, and the instructor made a show of locking his door. At the time this street matched the reputation; house after house was either fire-damaged or was falling to pieces. Only a few years later and Conkey was the target of a block grant to tear down and build new housing, and the facelift had a huge impact on the character of the neighborhood. The vibe improved yet again with the addition of the El Camino walking trail directly behind these homes. Where there was homeownership there was pride, which is most evident in the lack of litter around these houses. I hope the city funds more of these projects.
This particular article took me weeks to write, simply because this neighborhood has so much history to offer. I’d like to acknowledge that my dad was the source of a lot of material for this neighborhood, as he grew up here and spent a huge amount of time roaming Clifford and Saint Paul and all areas in between. These firsthand accounts connect me to a place way more than facts from a history book ever could, and I encourage anyone who has stories about a particular area to let me know. In all honesty I could’ve easily spend weeks more extending this article. I could’ve expounded on the Seneca’s activities here. There’s a point on the cliff where the Veterans Bridge is now called Lovers Leap with its own tragic history; maybe I’ll write a whole article about Seneca stories from the river gorge. I’m saving the story of the old Carthage cemetery for yet another future article. There’s an energy in the air here. Maybe it’s the roaring falls, or the wildlife within Seneca Park, or just the fact that so many notable events happened where we walk. Carthage, with all its former glory, still has stories to tell.
El Camino trailhead 
School #8 
Is it an aircraft hangar?
Another well written article. Thanks for the kudos Jay. I have a ton of memories from this neighborhood.
what a piece of work! thank you for connecting me yo the history of this city, and to my own past (I am a direct descendant of Robert Morris). you are a fine writer, sir. i hope to meet you someday.