Vernon—Weedsport—Newark—Rochester—Lockport—Niagara Falls; 209 m. State 234, 31.
Two-lane concrete or macadam.
New York Central R.R. parallels route between Weedsport and Niagara Falls.
State 234 branches northwest (R) from State 5 (see Tour 11), and runs into State 31. The latter bypasses Syracuse and west of Weedsport becomes the direct route between that city and Rochester. West of Rochester it runs parallel with US 104 ((see Tour 26) to Niagara Falls.
For almost 200 miles—between Montezuma and Lockport—State 31 runs beside the Barge Canal, which for the most part occupies the old Erie Canal bed, through a rolling drumlin countryside. The villages along the route were spawned by the Erie Canal in the days of mule-power to handle the local transshipment of produce, manufactured goods, and passengers. Today they earn a living by storing and canning fruits and vegetables and outfitting the farmers who raise them. These villages are reminiscent of the New England from which the early settlers came; each is built around a village green with shade trees, bandstand, a cannon or two, and a war monument or a memorial to a local person.
Section a. VERNON to ROCHESTER; 126 m. State 234, 31
The route follows the low southern shore of Oneida Lake, swings around Syracuse, and crosses the important muck-farming area of Montezuma Swamp; west of the swamp the highway follows the Barge Canal into Rochester.
At VERNON, 0 m. (580 alt., 602 pop.) (see Tour 11), State 234 branches northwest from the junction with State 5 (see Tour 11) through hay, corn, and wheat fields. At 4 m. is the junction with State 5S (see Tour 12) and with State 31 (L), which the tour follows.
ONEIDA LAKE (swimming, fishing, boating) appears (R) at 12.8 m. In pioneer days it was an important link in the all-water route between the Hudson and the Great Lakes and today is part of the Barge Canal system.
At CICERO, 32.4 m. (396 alt., 410 pop.), is the junction with US 11 (see Tour 18).
At 39.9 m. is the junction with State 57 (see Tour 26).
BALDWINSVILLE, 44 m. (423 alt., 3,845 pop.), on the Seneca River-Barge Canal, has a large flour and feed mill, a cellulose factory, and a machine works. The first group of settlers, Revolutionary veterans occupying their bonus lands, died off rapidly because of the prevalent malaria, which was relieved when the lowlands along the river were filled in.
West of Baldwinsville is rolling drumlin country—swampy hollows, and uplands colored with the green of woodlot and cornfield and the brown and purplish sheen of timothy and clover.
WEEDSPORT, 62.4 m. (425 alt., 1,337 pop.), has lumber and feed mills, but many of the working population commute to Auburn and Syracuse. The village Whittlers’ Club was formed in 1914 by local philosophers.
PORT BYRON, 65.8 m. (400 alt., 971 pop.), converging on a triangular village green, is a canal orphan, left high and dry when the Erie Canal was abandoned; a stagnant creek with ruins of masonry locks is all that is left of that artery of transportation. The principal industry is the manufacture of mincemeat.
Henry Wells (1805–78), co-founder of the Wells-Fargo Express Company and founder of Wells College in Aurora (see Tour 8), worked in the village as shoemaker from 1827 to 1830; Isaac Singer is said to have made his first model of a sewing machine in his workshop that stood near the present dam across Owasco Outlet; and Brigham Young (see Tour 30) lived for a short time in the small frame house behind the I.O.O.F. hall on Utica Street.
West of MONTEZUMA, 70.3 m. (400 alt., 300 pop.), for a mile and a half the route crosses an intensively cultivated part of the MONTEZUMA SWAMP, a flat marsh area stretching across much of north central New York. Digging the Erie Canal through these marshes, and building a bridge across them for the towpath, was a difficult task; workers, including Negroes, were felled by malaria, but the bog-trotting Irish dug through, malaria, mud, and all.
In the early spring tractors haul disk harrows over the soft black muck soil and workers direct potato planters and celery setters, making straight rows in the rectangular patches. Celery, the largest crop, is started in greenhouses and transplanted in the field; when the plants approach maturity the stalks are covered with banks of soil to exclude the light, a process called blanching. Harvest workers include native owners, Italian sharecroppers, local hired help, women and children, and migrants who have followed the truck farm harvest north from Florida and are housed in cabins and barns in near-by villages.
The route proceeds through a hilly region; on the highest hill (R) is the SITE OF ONONTARE, 74.7 m., a fortified village of the Cayuga, where Saint René Menard (see Tour 8) had a mission in 1657. The hill is locally known as Fort Hill because of traces of ancient earthworks probably erected on its summit long before the visit of the French Jesuit missionary.
The village park of CLYDE, 82.1 m. (420 alt., 2,354 pop.), contains a mineral spring around which settlers once hoped to build a spa. There are two factories making shoe counters, and a few other small industries. Almost half the population is composed of Italians who came to build the Barge Canal. In ST. JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 27 W. Genesee St., is the organ presented to Trinity Church, New York City, during the reign of Queen Anne; from the New York City church it was moved to a church in Geneva, and then here.
The road runs parallel with the Barge Canal, which here uses the bed of the old Erie.
LYONS, 89.4 m. (420 alt., 3,838 pop.), lies at the junction of Canandaigua Outlet and the Clyde River. The principal industries are a machine shop and a suspender factory.
The EXCHANGE BUILDINGS, NE. corner of Water and Broad Sts., a group of three Greek Revival commercial blocks built in 1835, are in an unusually fine state of preservation. The sturdy granite piers and entablature of the ground floor permit a considerable expanse of glass for store displays.
Lyons is at the junction with State 14 (see Tour 27).
NEWARK, 95.7 m. (456 alt., 9,642 pop.), produces paper containers, kitchenware, furniture, canned goods, extracts, and cosmetics, and has large flower nurseries.
The JACKSON PERKINS ROSE GARDENS (open 9–4 Mon.–Fri.), Madison St. opposite Jefferson St., display more than 40 new varieties of roses that were developed here and have been patented; perhaps the best known is the climbing rose, Dorothy Perkins, which was awarded the Nickerson Cup by the National Rose Society of Great Britain in 1908. Roses are grown here in 22 miles of outdoor hotbeds.
Right from Newark on State 88 to junction with a road, 1.5 m.; left on this road 0.6 m. to another junction; right here 0.1 m. to HYDEVILLE (420 alt., 40 pop.), called ‘the birthplace of spiritualism.’ A weed-covered lot by the side of the road is the SITE OF THE FOX HOME, in which lived the Fox sisters, ‘through whose medium-ship communication with the spirit world was established March 31, 1849.’ The cottage was removed to Lily Dale (see Tour 8). The Fox family came here on December 11, 1847, and soon after their arrival they heard knockings at night, first in a bedroom, then in the cellar; other sounds were added, like a heavy body being dragged downstairs and someone shoveling in the cellar; the children told of a cold hand touching them in the dark. The youngest girl, Katy, began to converse with the spirit. ‘Here, Mr. Split-foot, do as I do,’ she said, snapping her fingers two or three times; and the spirit answered the correct number, counting as high as ten. Asked if he was a man, the spirit did not answer; asked if he was a spirit, he answered yes. Later he affirmed that he was the spirit of Charles B. Rosna, a peddler who had been murdered in the house four years previously; the cellar was dug up but water was struck before any evidence was found. In April the spirit began to rap in the daytime, and then he got ‘tough,’ slamming doors, moving the furniture about, seizing the girls with his cold hands, rocking the beds and dragging off the bedclothes. On almost every night was enacted the horrible death struggle between the peddler and his murderer, then the heavy thump of the dead body being dragged down the stairs, and the digging of the grave in the cellar. This, together with the rush of visitors, proving too much for the Fox family, they moved to Rochester, where the seances took a more regular form.
The name of PALMYRA, 104.3 m. (470 alt., 2,706 pop.), is associated with the beginnings of Mormonism; the Joseph Smith farm and Hill Cumorah are close by (see Tour 29). The principal industries make steam packing and paper boxes.
The WESTERN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NE. corner of Main and Church Sts., erected in 1832, is a belated example of post-Georgian architecture. The body of the church, built of red brick, is almost square; the white pedimented portico has four Roman Ionic columns of stucco over rubble, of very slender proportions and devoid of any base except a tiny plinth. The three-stage steeple terminates in a short paneled spire.
The WILLIAM T. SAMPSON BIRTHPLACE, 112 Vienna St., is a clapboard house painted buff and brown, with a simple porch across the front. Admiral William T. Sampson (1840–1902) was the commander of the United States fleet in the Battle of Santiago during the Spanish-American War.
The GARLOCK PACKING PLANT (not open), at the northern village limits along the New York Central Railroad, makes packings used wherever steam is conveyed through pipes, pumps, or engines. In the late sixties one of the founders of the present company cut a ring from an old piece of rubber hose, pushed it in the stuffing box of a steam engine furnishing power for a sawmill, and started the steam packing industry.
PITTSFORD, 119.5 m. (500 alt., 1,573 pop.), is a residential suburb of Rochester.
BRIGHTON, 122.3 m. (470 alt., 900 pop.), another Rochester suburb, in point of time antedates the city by a number of years. The ORRINGH STONE TAVERN (private), East Ave. opposite Council Rock Ave., built in 1790, is the oldest private house in the Rochester area. In this post-Colonial frame structure, Aaron Burr and his daughter Theodosia, Joseph Brant, Lafayette, and Louis Philippe, ‘citizen king’ of France, were at various times entertained.
ROCHESTER, 126 m. (500 alt., 324, 694 pop.) (see Rochester), is at the junction with US 104 (see Tour 26), State 2 (see Tour 30), US 15 (see Tour 31), and State 33 (see Tour 33).
Section b. ROCHESTER to NIAGARA FALLS; 83 m. State 31
West of ROCHESTER, 0 m. the route, still hugging the Barge Canal, passes apple, peach, and cherry orchards, hay and corn fields, fields of tomatoes, beans, and peas.
On Nicholas Road in SPENCERPORT, 10 m. (528 alt., 1,325 pop.), is the JOHN T. TROWBRIDGE HOME, a two-story frame farmhouse painted white, where John Townsend Trowbridge (1827–1916) lived the first 17 years of his life. Most of Trowbridge’s 50 volumes are boys’ books; his Neighbor Jackwood is said to have had a larger sale than any other American book before Uncle Tom’s Cabin; his Cudjo’s Cave depicts the hair-raising adventures of a runaway slave.
In BROCKPORT, 18.6 m. (539 alt., 3,584 pop.), the canal banks are landscaped with shrubs and rose bushes. Nurseries, cold storage warehouses, and canning factories supply work for those who do not commute to Rochester.
Brockport was the home of Mary Jane Holmes (1825–1907), popular post-Civil War novelist, whose books, many of them issued in paper covers, sold a total of more than 2,000,000 copies; most popular were Tempest and Sunshine, English Orphans, and Lena Rivers. Her sentimental plots, noble heroes, and swooning heroines are oversimplified for twentieth-century tastes; the heroine ‘reclines on soft cushions,’ from which she rises to proclaim that’ I would rather die than marry a man I did not love because of his gold.’ Mrs. Holmes’s grave is in the Brockport cemetery.
The BROCKPORT STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, end of College St., originally the Brockport Collegiate Institute, was opened in 1841. The old Medina sandstone buildings are to be replaced by new structures, the main unit of which, a large red brick, Georgian Colonial building, was completed in 1939 with PWA aid.
In Brockport is the junction with State 19 (see Tour 35).
In ALBION, 33.5 m. (519 alt., 4,651 pop.) the SNIDER PACKING PLANT (R), at the eastern village limits, consists, except for the brick main building, of long, low wood structures. This plant cans principally tomatoes and peas. The tomatoes are sorted and thoroughly washed, and the skin is loosened in scalding water. On the peeling tables girls peel off the skin and remove the cores with sharp knives, then place the tomatoes in cans, which are closed, cooked, and labeled—ready for the market. The plant also freezes peas and beans with the Birdseye system, invented by Clarence Birdseye.
The PULLMAN MEMORIAL UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, Main St. and E. Park Ave. is a low brownstone building designed in a modified Gothic style, with a vitrified tile roof. It stands on the site of the home of George M. Pullman (1831–97), born in Brocton, Chautauqua County, who was a cabinetmaker in the village from 1848 to 1855. It was probably here that, disgusted with the dirt, discomfort, and inconvenience of early passenger cars, he conceived the idea of a car with the luxuries of beds and upholstered seats. Pullman made his first cars in Chicago in 1858, using the olive-green paint and cherry wood trim that are still characteristic of Pullman cars. He sold to Webster Wagner (see Tour 11) the right to use his patented folding berths on Wagner’s palace cars on the New York Central, but sued him for infringement when he sold his cars to the Michigan Central. Pullman donated land and money for the construction of this church.
In MEDINA, 43.6 m. (530 alt., 5,861 pop.), and vicinity, the local red Medina sandstone, used in Federal farmhouses, Greek Revival residences, Gothic Revival churches, and Second Empire business structures, gives a piquant flavor to all these styles. Two or three buildings in gray limestone, the normal building stone in the Rochester area, look ill at ease in the village. The Medina sandstone was quarried in the vicinity from the early days of settlement until late in the nineteenth century.
Besides the usual canning plant, Medina has several iron foundries. The population includes a large percentage of foreign groups, including about 1,000 Poles.
The H.J. HEINZ PLANT, Park Ave., a collection of rambling wooden frame structures and two-story brick buildings, makes a number of the 57 varieties—vinegar, pea soup, celery soup, and strained vegetables for infants and invalids, and cans prunes, carrots, and creamed diced potatoes.
The demand for labor in this fruit- and vegetable-growing and canning district fluctuates sharply with the season: in the spring and summer there is work to be done in the orchards and gardens; during the harvest, employment reaches a high peak both in the fields and in the canning plants, and workers are brought in from metropolitan centers; but as soon as the harvest is in the cans, employment drops rapidly and many of the workers are left stranded for the winter.
MIDDLEPORT, 48.8 m. (540 alt., 1,442 pop.), sprang up as a settlement upon completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, and took its name from its location midway between Lockport and Albion. The main industry is the manufacture of insecticides for spraying fruit trees, vines, bushes, and vegetable plants, and equipment for applying the spray.
LOCKPORT, 61.1 m. (550 alt., 24,308 pop.), grew around the series of locks built to carry the Erie Canal through the Lockport gorge. The surplus water from the lockings was diverted in a raceway that later became the source of power for the city’s growing industries. The Barge Canal runs through the center of the city. The chief industrial products are electric alloy and other special steels, towels and linens, thermostats and automobile heaters, iron castings, wallboard and paperboard, milk bottles, paper boxes, and felt. Development of the farmlands and orchards of the Niagara frontier made Lockport an important marketing and milling center.
The businessman who put Lockport on the map in the 1870’s was John Hodge, proprietor and manufacturer of Merchant’s Gargling Oil, a remedy advertised to our grandparents as ‘good for man or beast’; one of Hodge’s stunts was to send a steamer bedecked with banners over the Niagara cataract. John J. Raskob (1879———), chairman of the General Motors Corporation and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 1928–32, was born in Lockport.
The CANAL BRIDGE, over the Barge Canal at Cottage St., is 452 feet wide, and is frequently used for mass meetings, street fairs, and carnivals. The operation of the canal locks can best be watched from the Cottage Street end of the bridge. Two great Barge Canal locks raise and lower the barges a total distance of 60 feet. As originally built in 1825, ten locks, in two flights of five each, carried the canal between the two levels. The present locks have replaced the southerly set, but on the north the original design can still be seen, a tribute to the skill of Nathan S. Roberts (see Tour 12), who declared that the greatest achievement of his career was the design and construction of the Lockport locks.
In Lockport is the junction with State 78 (see Tour 36).
The route runs past apple and peach orchards, vineyards, rolling pastures, and broad, flat weedy fields waiting for suburban development, to NIAGARA FALLS, 83 m. (575 alt., 77,374 pop.) (see Niagara Falls), at the junction with US 104 (see Tour 26) and US 62 (see Tour 37).