Rochester, New York. Two words, water power. Say hello to the Genesee River, shown here rattling its sword, being all mighty and majestic -- and just a tad terrifying. First it ran flour mills. As people became prosperous, or at least made a living, they set up a city. They loaded the flour onto barges, and floated it down to New York City and parts east via the cheap transportation provided by the Erie Canal.
We sang, "I've got a mule, her name is Sal, 15 years on the Erie Canal."
I felt sorry for Sal. In 7th grade, I couldn't have been less interested in the history of New York state or the city of Rochester. Now I'm all feverish. Yesterday at the library, I found Blake McKelvey's Rochester, The Water-Power City 1812-1854. It looked like nobody's taken it out since 1945. I asked the person at check out the they'd sell it to me. You might say he hissed, "The library does not sell books." His thought bubble read: Now get the fuck outta here.
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America was moving from an agrarian to an industrial economy. Henry's descendants opted out of potato farming. Only one of his four sons by Catharine stayed in Livonia Center. The others moved up to Rochester. My grandfather Charles worked downtown as an insurance agent, but lived in the northeast suburb of Irondequoit, but I haven't found where. It might have been near his brother, Myron, who lived in West Irondequoit, an area along the Lake Shore Boulevard called Summerville.