Rochester: a story historical

ROCHESTER: A STORY HISTORICAL



THE OLD LONG HOUSE AND THE TENANT UNKNOWN.

When Diedrich Knickerbocker began his unique History
of New York with the creation, and accepted the theories
of "one Charlevoix, a man averse to the marvelous,"
whereby a hypothetical fourth son of Noah was given the
honor of discovering the New World, he had at least the
satisfaction of going back as far as his most exacting reader
could demand.

The story of Rochester begins with that of the Genesee
Valley. The story of the Genesee Valley has its beginning
in the unwritten history of the early human race on this
continent, the first possessors of this soil we call our own.
The evidences of that unrecorded occupancy are fast dis-
appearing. The traces of the mound-builders in Western
New York are nearly obliterated. Who can find at Han-
ford's Landing to-day the outline, even, of the semicircular
embankment the early settlers discovered, but had little
tmie or mclination to study or preserve .? Of what value to
them were the bones, coins, and pottery found around Iron-
dequoit Bay, having decided that they were the remains of
modern Indians killed in tribal war, or those of some of the
Frenchmen that once tried to possess the land ? ..